O psicólogo e escritor americano diz que é mais fácil acreditar em esquisitices — como mediunidade, horóscopo e discos voadores – que pensar e questionar

A DIFERENÇA ENTRE UM MÁGICO E UM MÉDIUM É QUE O MÁGICO CONFESSA FAZER TRUQUES, enquanto o paranormal afirma ter poderes que o habilitam a ler pensamentos, prever o futuro ou falar com os mortos. “basta ao médium dizer que tem poderes para as pessoas crerem. Faz parte da natureza humana”, afirma o psicólogo e escritor americano Michael Shermer, de 57 anos, diretor da Sociedade Cética e da revista Skeptic. “Não evoluímos para duvidar ou ter visão crítica. Isso exige educação e reflexão. Crer é mais fácil.” Nesta entrevista, ele fala sobre os temas de seu livro Por que as pessoas acreditam em coisas estranhas (JSN, 384 páginas, R$ 65, publicado agora no Brasil), e ataca a farsa por trás da crença em discos voadores, bruxas, quiromancia e mediunidade.

ÉPOCA: Por que as pessoas acreditam em esquisitices?

Michael Shermer: A razão básica está em nosso cérebro, programado pela evolução para enxergar o mundo e procurar razões sobrenaturais para explicar eventos da natureza.

ÉPOCA: Dê um exemplo, por favor.

Shermer: Nas sociedades tribais, o pajé até hoje é aquele que detém os conhecimentos que podem salvar os membros da tribo em momentos decisivos. São os pajés que sabem quais são as plantas e raízes com poderes curativos. São eles que decretam que tal região virou tabu, tornando-a um local proibido e dando chance à fauna para se recompor. Anos depois, num momento de escassez, é o pajé quem tem o poder para liberar a volta dos caçadores ao local, salvando a tribo da fome. Esse tipo de poder sempre foi exclusivo dos magos, dos pajés e dos sacerdotes. Logo, acreditar em seus emissários significava a própria salvação. Quando o pajé dizia que enxergava o futuro, que os membros da tribo deveriam caçar ou buscar água em tal região, e que a salvação de todos estaria em fazer o que ele dizia, tudo não passava de uma profecia autorrealizável. Só isso.

ÉPOCA: Há os que afirmam ver coisas sobrenaturais e outros que dizem ouvir o canto dos anjos ou o lamento dos mortos.

Shermer: Somos animais sociais, e o cérebro foi programado para reconhecer rostos e fisionomias. Por isso, temos a tendência de enxergar faces escondidas no desenho das nuvens, nas manchas de um sudário ou nas rochas da superfície de Marte. Pela mesma razão, basta olhar as nuvens para reconhecer nelas as formas de diversos animais. Essa também é uma herança evolutiva, já que por milênios reconhecer a existência de um animal escondido na paisagem poderia significar a diferença entre a vida e a morte. Qualquer pessoa também pode dizer que fala com os mortos. Não tem nada de mais. Difícil é conseguir fazer os mortos responderem. Todas as alegações como essas que foram investigadas a sério acabaram revelando a existência de microfones escondidos na mobília, nas paredes ou no forro. Nenhuma fotografia pretensamente tirada de um disco voador sobreviveu a um exame detalhado. São todas alegações falsas, montagens feitas para iludir. Embora seja possível que algumas alegações de eventos paranormais, mediúnicos ou ufológicos possam ser verdadeiras, a verdade é que a maior parte delas é falsa, e o mais provável é que todas não passem de pura farsa.

ÉPOCA: Por que as mulheres parecem acreditar mais em esquisitices que os homens?

Shermer: Não é verdade. Homens e mulheres, indistintamente, têm a mesma tendência para acreditar nessas coisas. O que muda é o tipo de esquisitice. Mulheres acreditam mais em mediunidade, espiritismo, cartomantes, bruxaria, amuletos, terapias alternativas, curandeiros e simpatias. Os homens preferem acreditar em paranormalidade, pseudociência, criacionismo e objetos voadores não identificados.

ÉPOCA: Por que as pessoas diferenciam um mágico profissional que faz truques de um médium que diz ser paranormal?

Shermer: É porque o mágico confessa que faz um truque, mas não revela seu segredo. Isso tem razões históricas. A magia é tão antiga quanto as artes adivinhatórias. Há vários séculos, no tempo da Inquisição, os mágicos que ganhavam a vida seguindo as feiras regionais na Europa medieval foram sensatos em confessar que não eram bruxos. Eles confessaram que faziam truques para não acabar na fogueira. Sua confissão retirou dos mágicos profissionais a aura sobrenatural, a qual, embora tentem até hoje, nunca conseguiram resgatar.

ÉPOCA: E as cartomantes e os adivinhos?

Shermer: A maioria acabou na fogueira. As cartomantes e os adivinhos, os médiuns atuais, foram perseguidos porque alegavam deter poderes sobrenaturais. Eles afirmavam que conseguiam prever o futuro e influenciar o destino das pessoas. Ora, esses eram atributos exclusivos da Igreja Católica. Os mesmos inquisidores que se mostraram brandos com os mágicos não pouparam de sua ira persecutória cartomantes e adivinhos, todos eles rotulados de bruxos seguidores da magia negra. Os médiuns e charlatões da atualidade não correm esse risco. Por isso podem afirmar sem medo que têm visões, que falam com os mortos, enxergam o passado, o presente e o futuro. Ou alegar que leem a sorte e influenciam o destino de uma pessoa olhando as cartas do tarô, as linhas da palma da mão, o alinhamento dos planetas de um mapa astral, os reflexos de uma bola de cristal ou a borra de uma xícara de café.

ÉPOCA: Por que as pessoas insistem em acreditar que essas alegações são verdadeiras?

Shermer: Porque os médiuns afirmam que são verdadeiras. Basta aos médiuns, curandeiros e pais de santo dizer que têm visões e preveem o futuro para que as pessoas acreditem. Faz parte da natureza humana. Não evoluímos para duvidar ou questionar. Desenvolver um senso crítico e uma visão própria de mundo exige educação, reflexão e tempo. Crer é muito mais fácil. As pessoas preferem ser enganadas.

ÉPOCA: Quem pede remuneração para fornecer um bem ou serviço que não existe pode ser processado. Por que isso não se aplica ao “trabalho profissional” de cartomantes e médiuns?

Shermer: Porque adivinhos e paranormais se protegem atrás dos direitos universais da liberdade de opinião, de expressão, de reunião e de religião. É muito difícil ou quase impossível provar que um sujeito não escuta vozes interiores ou fala com os anjos se ele assim o afirma. Os religiosos e os crentes das religiões ditas oficiais poderiam ser investigados e processados exatamente pelas mesmas alegações, pois suas religiões aceitam doações em dinheiro como as cartomantes. Seus membros também alegam ter um canal direto de comunicação com o sobrenatural, assim como as cartomantes.

ÉPOCA: Por que gente inteligente crê em esquisitices?

Shermer: Foi para dar título ao livro que escolhi chamar o conjunto de crendices e enganações reivindicadas por médiuns e paranormais de “coisas estranhas”. Palavras mais corretas seriam farsa ou enganação. São atos na maioria das vezes criados para iludir e enganar. Em certas circunstâncias, podem ser classificados como delírios, quando seus devotos acreditam que viveram ou vivem uma experiência extraordinária, inexplicável, extrassensorial. Ainda assim, há explicação para tudo. Quem tem uma boa formação cultural e crê nessas fantasias o faz em duas possibilidades. Ou se trata de um indivíduo conivente com a farsa ou é alguém que sofreu de um surto psicótico, é esquizofrênico e, portanto, doente, ou teve uma alucinação. O estado alterado de consciência pode ser fruto da ingestão de alucinógenos como a ayahuasca, o mescal ou o LSD. Episódios psicóticos também podem ser causados pela privação de sono e pelo cansaço extremo. Para tudo há uma explicação. Se ela convence o crente, o doente ou o usuário, é outra questão.

ÉPOCA: O que acha da religiosidade e do sincretismo humanos?

Shermer: Sou ateu e sou otimista. Até a Idade Média, éramos uma espécie controlada pela fé e dominada por suas crendices e seus medos. Hoje, dezenas de milhões de pessoas nos países ricos se declaram ateias. A religiosidade, pelo menos na Europa e nos Estados Unidos, recua ano a ano.

ÉPOCA: Não é assim no Brasil nem nos países em desenvolvimento.

Shermer: À medida que o padrão de vida subir, a elevação da escolaridade e da educação científica reduzirá o porcentual de religiosos na população. É um caminho sem volta. Basta os governos investirem em educação de qualidade.

ÉPOCA: Um argumento dos religiosos para desqualificar os ateus é que eles escolheram não crer num deus e que essa é sua crença.

Shermer: Se os religiosos querem acreditar num deus bondoso, num paraíso com100 mil virgens ou seja lá o que for, não dou a mínima. Os religiosos não me interessam. O que me interessa são as centenas de milhões de pessoas que não seguem religião nenhuma e nunca vão à igreja.

ÉPOCA: Quer dizer que, para o senhor, a religião é inofensiva?

Shermer: O problema começa quando seus seguidores usam a religião para lançar aviões contra arranha-céus, jogar bombas em clínicas de aborto (nos Estados Unidos), mutilar mulheres, restringir os direitos individuais e alterar a legislação para proibir o ensino da evolução. Eles querem obrigar as crianças a aprender o criacionismo, uma doutrina religiosa travestida de verdade científica.

The conjunction of reading Christopher Hitchens’ new memoir, Hitch 22, and the news of his treatment for esophageal cancer, reminded me that I should share my (admittedly limited) experiences of dining (and drinking) with one of the greatest literary masters and creative thinkers of our age.

First, I’m half way through listening to the unabridged audio book of Hitch 22, which I wholeheartedly recommend because Christopher reads it himself in that inimitable classically-educated British accent with his style of flowing quiet narrative punctuated with occasional bursts of accented emphasis. In other words, Hitchens sort of mumbles modestly along, then suddenly his voice rises into crystal clarity when he wants you to get the point hard and fast. Hitch 22 is a literary masterpiece, an absolute joy to listen to. I’ll leave it to his literary/politico peers to critique the ideas within (see, for example, the latest issue of The New York Review of Books with Ian Buruma’s review, as well as David Horowitz’s insightful analysis of Hitchens’ evolving political beliefs.

Although I’m a self-professed libertarian (fiscally conservative and socially liberal), I’m really not much of a politico or social commentator, especially when it comes to foreign affairs, about which I am woefully ignorant compared to Hitchens’ vast database he has accumulated throughout his many travels abroad. So I’m just enjoying the ride listening to Christopher’s many amusing stories. (One funny anecdote is when Hitchens explained that in an early writing job for a publication, his editor said something to him that, as he explained it, made it simply impossible for him to continue employment there. It turned out that the editor told him “you’re fired.”)

My intersection with Hitchens is through our mutual concern about the influence of religion on science. Hitchens, of course, has many other worries about the effects of religious beliefs on political, economic, and social conditions around the world (particularly the Middle East), but he was kind and generous enough to provide a back-jacket blurb for my book, Why Darwin Matters, and noted in his letter to me that contained said blurb that he had found a couple of minor errors in the book, adding parenthetically (in case I missed it) that this meant that he did, indeed, actually read the book. (In the book publishing business it is common practice for authors who are friends and colleagues to blurb each other’s books, and sometimes I suspect this means that the blurb was generated based on a cursory scan of the manuscript. To his credit and energy—considering how many blurb requests he must receive—Christopher really did read the entire manuscript.

I first met Christopher in Hollywood in 1997 at a preview showing of the film FairyTale: A True Story, starring Harvey Keitel as Harry Houdini and Peter O’Toole as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which recounted the story of the two giants’ intersection over the fake fairy photographs that Doyle fell for and Houdini did not. Hitch and I had dinner (well lubricated with adult beverages) before the preview, and although I was a bit distressed at the ending of the film that implied that fairies may actually be real (after showing that Doyle was duped), I rather enjoyed the film. Christopher’s review in Vanity Fair, which included a thoughtful and much appreciated endorsement of the Skeptics Society and Skeptic magazine, was much deeper and more insightful than anything I thought of during the viewing. Even though I’m a professional skeptic, for some reason when I watch a film I willingly suspend disbelief in order to enjoy the process, and this sometimes interferes with my critical thought processes.

A decade later, in 2007, as I was meandering through the sensory overloaded Las Vegas airport on my way to The Amazing Meeting 5 and Freedom Fest, both conferences at which Hitchens and I were speaking, we encountered each other in search of our respective limo drivers, so we ended up sharing a ride to the hotel. Checking in early (it was around 11:00 am) our rooms were not yet ready, so Hitch suggested that we put the time to good use at the bar. Before. Noon. So there we were, my nursing a Corona with lime for as long as I could socially get away with it while Hitchens ordered a Johnny Walker Black, a red wine, and a bottle of water to mix with JWB in what appeared to be a well-choreographed routine. A couple of rounds later Hitch seemed completely unfazed, while my empty-stomach imbibing on that single beer left me feeling less than adequate to keep up with the conversation. (Hey, when you drink with a professional come prepared. I didn’t have the training miles I’m afraid.) When the bill came I had the singular honor of buying Christopher Hitchens’ drinks because (1) his wallet was in his baggage with the bellman, and (2) the room keys were not yet activated to put it on his room. I didn’t mind a bit—blurb reciprocity and all that, you know.

After hammering down two rounds of the Hitch Mix, Christopher was nearly (but not quite) ready for his noon-time luncheon speech, so he ordered a third round to go. At the podium where Hitch stood, before him were a glass of whiskey, a red wine, and a bottle of water. (Just as we cyclists always ride with water bottles filled with fluid replacement drinks, Christopher apparently never speaks without his Hitch Mix to top off his energy needs.) I can’t for the life of me remember what his speech was about (politics I’m sure) but I recall that Hitchens was extemporaneous, clever, and worldly.

That night the host of Freedom Fest, Mark Skousen, invited Christopher and myself to join a group of Big Thinkers at an exclusive (and quite expensive I’m sure) dinner at one of the posher restaurants in Las Vegas (no prices on the menu is all you need to know). Even though everyone at the table was someone of some import and standing, it was clear throughout the evening that Hitch was Sol and we were his orbiting planets gathering up the warmth of his verbal rays. He told stories—lots and lots of stories—about his travels, his encounters with names we would all surely know, and especially about his ideological battles with this and that ideologue. Other people’s comments were, for the most part, stimulants for another Hitch story. I can see why some people might find that this rubs them the wrong way, but for some reason—at least for me—that was how it should have been. If you invite Christopher Hitchens to your dinner, expect to be entertained, and the more the waiter poured expensive wine, the more histrionic Hitchens became, until four hours and who-knows-how-many-drinks later I detected a slight slowing of his verbal and cognitive skills…so there are limits after all.

The next time I saw Hitch was at a party in Washington D.C., when I was touring for the release of my book, The Mind of the Market. Reason magazine kindly arranged for a book party at a bar and restaurant that was so crowded and so loud that it was physically uncomfortable. After an obligatory drink and a few stories to entertain the troops, Hitchens leaned in and said “Michael, why don’t we retire to a restaurant down the street where they know me?” Exiting the cacophony, we walked a few blocks to what turned out to be one of Hitches’s regular haunts. “The usual place, Mr. Hitchens?” the maitre’d inquired. We were escorted to a quiet corner of the restaurant, where Hitch positioned himself to be able to scan the room, and soon we were joined by his wife and an occasional passerby who recognized him and dropped in for a story (and drink) or two.

Shortly after the waiter took our drink orders (“the usual?” was all Hitch needed to hear, to which he nodded affirmatively), the Hitch Mix was on the table, followed by a fabulous dinner and, of course, lots of stories, none of which were repeated from my previous dinner (at least that I could remember—I too imbibed). After a couple hours at the restaurant, Hitch invited me to his home not far from the restaurant, where I was treated to a visual delight: mountains of books, oceans of books, a sea of books—pick your geographical metaphor. As the recipient myself of bound galleys and newly published volumes sent to Skeptic magazine for review, I know how quickly a mass accumulates on my desk that then migrates to the floor and eventually peaks above the desk again. But these are just science books. As a literary polymath Hitch receives books for review from virtually every category in the Dewey Decimal System. And he actually seems to read the books he reviews.

But the library is not where we adjourned for the evening. It wasn’t long before I found myself at a rectangular table in the dining room chockablock full of whiskey bottles from around the world. I’m not a whiskey connoisseur so I couldn’t tell you the brand names, but even a teetotaler like me could tell from the labels and bottle designs that here was a collection of the very best whiskeys that money can buy from all over the world, and I suspect that Hitch didn’t have to buy many of them, since such gifts seem to naturally flow his way. So I sampled and sipped and sauced my way into a late-night bliss that I paid for dearly the next day. I think I had an interview for an early morning television show, but I honestly don’t remember because I barely recall even having a next day.

Was it worth it? I once had an opportunity to ride my bike 50 miles on a fundraising event next to the great Belgian champion Eddy Merckx, considered the greatest cyclist of all time. I was so nervous about crashing and taking him down that I just concentrated on the bumper in front of us that we were drafting behind at 30 miles per hour. But just the experience of riding side by side with one of the greatest athletes to ever grace the planet was enough for me. That’s how I felt drinking and dining and delighting in the presence of Christopher Hitchens.

This video includes one of the hottest topics in the skeptical community today: What is the most effective approach for educating the public and promoting skepticism, science, and critical thinking skills—confrontation, or a more gentle and respectful approach?

About the 2011 Science Symposium

Our 2011 Science Symposium was a rare opportunity to hear four of the world’s leading Skeptics discuss their experiences fighting irrationality and promoting science, and what you could do to help! Speakers included: Dr. Michael Shermer, James “The Amazing” Randi and special guests: Bill Nye the Science Guy^® and Mr. Deity (Brian Keith Dalton).

LEARN MORE about the
2011 Science Symposium

ORDER the other Science Symposium lectures on DVD

You can also watch the debate on ABCNews.

Among the 34 videos, you’ll find:

• Why do we need a belief in God?
• Why did you write The Believing Brain
• Do you think children should be taught to be more skeptical?
• Is there a psychological difference between open- and close-minded people?
• What are some of the strangest beliefs you’ve ever encountered?
• Is it possible to retrain our brains and belief systems?
• VIEW the entire playlist on YouTube.

Below is the second of the 34 videos. The entire series (total running time: 50 min. 32 seconds) can be viewed as a playlist on YouTube.

Order the book

A review of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion (Bantam Books, 2006, ISBN 0618680004). This review was originally published in Science, January 26, 2007.

There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me … that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are?

Such stirring words, spoken with such moral conviction, must surely come from an outraged liberal exasperated with the conservative climate of America today, and one can be forgiven for thinking that in a review of The God Delusion these are the words of Richard Dawkins himself, who is well known for not suffering religious fools gladly. But no. They were entered into the Congressional Record on 16 September 1981, by none other than Senator Barry Goldwater, the fountainhead of the modern conservative movement, the man whose failed 1964 run for the presidency was said to have been fulfilled in 1980 by Ronald Reagan, and the candidate whose campaign slogan was “In Your Heart You Know He’s Right.”

If Goldwater had been president for the past six years, I doubt that Dawkins would have penned such a powerful polemic against the infusion of religion into nearly every nook and cranny of public life. But here we are, and like Goldwater, Dawkins is sick and tired of being told that atheists are immoral, second-class, back-of-the-bus citizens. The God Delusion is his way of, like the Howard Beale character in the 1976 film Network, sticking his head out the window and shouting, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.”

But The God Delusion is so much more than a polemic. It is an exercise to “raise consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one. You can be an atheist who is happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled.” Dawkins wants atheists to quit apologizing for their religious skepticism. “On the contrary, it is something to be proud of, standing tall to face the far horizon, for atheism nearly always indicates a healthy independence of mind and, indeed, a healthy mind.”

Dawkins also wants to raise consciousness about the power of Darwin’s dangerous idea of natural selection. He believes that most people — even many scientists — do not fully understand just how powerful an idea it is. He attributes that failure to the need to be steeped and immersed in natural selection before you can truly recognize its power. In this context, natural selection “shatters the illusion of design within the domain of biology, and teaches us to be suspicious of any kind of design hypothesis in physics and cosmology as well.”

Out of obligation, of course, Dawkins reviews and offers rebuttals to all the standard arguments for God’s existence. He concentrates on dissecting the anthropic principle and dismantling intelligent design creationism. (As part of the latter efforts, he redirects the creationists’ argument from complexity to show that God must have been designed by a superintelligent designer.) He then builds a case for “why there almost certainly is no God.” The remainder of the book outlines possible evolutionary origins of morality and religious belief, a justification for being hard on religion, childhood religious indoctrination as child abuse, and an elegant commentary on the progressively changing moral zeitgeist. Dawkins closes with a tribute to the power and beauty of science, which no living writer does better.

When I received the bound galleys for The God Delusion, I cringed at the title, wishing it were more neutral (why not, say, The God Question?). As I read the book, I found myself wincing at Dawkins’s references to religious people as “faith-heads,” as being less intelligent, poor at reasoning, or even deluded, and to religious moderates as enablers of terrorism. I shudder because I have religious friends and colleagues who do not fit these descriptors, and I empathize at the pain such pejorative appellations cause them. In addition, I am not convinced by Dawkins’s argument that
without religion there would be “no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ-killers,’ no Northern Ireland ‘troubles’…” In my opinion, many of these events — and others often attributed solely to religion by atheists — were less religiously motivated than politically driven, or at the very least involved religion in the service of political hegemony.

I also never imagined a book with this title would ever land on bestseller lists in the United States. But I was wrong. The data have spoken. The God Delusion is a runaway bestseller, a market testimony to the hunger many people — far more, I now think, than polls reveal — have for someone in a position of prestige and power to speak for them in such an eloquent voice. The God Delusion deserves multiple readings, not just as an important work of science, but as a great work of literature.

After a string of highly successful and critically acclaimed films by Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby, Gran Torino, Invictus, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, etc.), I fully expected his latest, Hereafter, to be so well written (screenplay by Peter Morgan—Frost/Nixon, The Queen) and so compelling that stories about near-death experiences would skyrocket and that I would be preoccupied for months dealing with media inquiries about “true stories” of the hereafter. Alas, and with some relief, this will not happen as Hereafter is possibly the worst film Eastwood has ever directed.

If the hereafter is anything like its filmic namesake, then it will turn out to be glacially slow, eternally boring, and pointless, with seemingly random plot lines aimlessly wandering about the ethereal landscape. I wanted to like this film, despite my skepticism on its subject, because I like Clint Eastwood productions and I’m a sucker for a well-produced story, able and willing to suspend disbelief long enough to get emotionally involved. I tried but failed to do so with this film. It’s a bomb. Don’t bother to see it in the theaters, and don’t even waste a couple of bucks on a Netflix rental.

The only redeeming part of the film was the striking opening scene of the tsunami in Southeast Asia that sets the background for the first plot line. An attractive French reporter leaves her lover in their hotel room to go shopping for his kids among the street vendors below. When he hears a disturbing sound and looks out the window he sees the ocean receding, followed by a massive body of water rushing back in to the shore and slamming into buildings and leveling everything in its path. From the woman’s street level view tucked in among buildings she can only see trees felling and chaos approaching with only enough time to realize that there is no time to do anything about it. She is swept up in the tsunami’s leading edge and slammed about cars, building debris, trees, and the like, until she is whacked on the head unconscious. Cut to minutes later when she is being given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation by rescuers, to no avail. They give up and move on to the next victim, whereupon she comes to life, after a brief encounter with the hereafter, which Eastwood portrays as a fuzzy, nebulous place with people walking about aimlessly. It’s a portent of things to come.

The second plot line is Matt Damon’s psychic character George, a former psychic who gave up fame and riches because his “gift” is also a curse. A cross between James Van Praagh and John Edward, George concedes to a reading for a client of his sleazy brother (Jay Mohr) and scores several hits. The brother encourages George to quit his job at a San Francisco dock and return to the psychic world, but he will have none of it as it’s just too emotionally traumatic to read people’s inner thoughts (that much I suspect is true, if any of it were true, which it isn’t). Matt Damon’s love interest is the beautiful Bryce Dallas Howard, whom he meets at a cooking class, but after nearly an hour’s worth of romantic buildup to some sort of coming together, she departs the film for good after George reads her and conveys the message that her deceased father is sorry for the naughty things he did to her as a young girl.

The third plot line develops around 12-year old twins named Marcus and Jason, who live with their drug-addicted mother in London, England. Jason is hit by a car and killed, leaving Marcus to wander about the city in search of a psychic who can connect him to his brother. Here at least Eastwood had the good sense to depict what most psychics are like—scammers and flimflam artists conning their marks out of a few bucks by talking twaddle with the dead through standard cold-reading techniques. Marcus is dismayed by the idiocy of these pretenders and finally returns to the foster home where he struggles to keep his sanity.

For an hour and forty-five minutes all three of these plot lines run parallel, leaving audience members to wonder when—oh please when?!—will they finally be brought together. Finally, after what feels like an interminable marathon of tedium, George quits his job and takes a vacation in London to visit the home of his favorite author, Charles Dickens. While there he notices a flyer for a lecture about Dickens at a book fair in London, where, per chance, the French reporter is doing a signing for her new book on life after death, which she was inspired to write after an hour and a half of futzing around with her mundane reporter’s job distracted by her experience with the hereafter in the tsunami. By chance, little Marcus finds himself drawn to the book fair where he recognizes George from his web page photos, and begs him for a reading, which he finally gets. Naturally, George is better than those phony psychics, and Marcus encourages George to seek out the French woman so that they may all connect to the dead. George and Marie find a love connection as well and the story ends happily ever after.

Never have I been so relieved for a movie to end. There was one memorable moment, however, and that was the opening line of the opening trailer before Hereafter even started. The trailer was for a January 2011 release called The Rite, staring Anthony Hopkins as an American priest who travels to Italy to study at an exorcism school. (You can watch the trailer here). The line that rather caught my attention as I was settling into my seat, was, “You know the interesting thing about skeptics?” To which I blurted out “No, what?” The answer: “It’s that we’re always looking for proof. The question is, What on earth would we do with it if we found it?” I know what I do with proof when I find it. I publish it! Another character in the trailer then says “I believe people prefer to lie to themselves than face the truth.”

Here, then, in this trailer is the message for belief in the hereafter. If there were proof of it, we would publish it to the high heavens. But, since there isn’t, most people prefer to lie to themselves about it rather than face the truth that it is what we do in this life that counts.

DOWNLOAD in iTunes

The story begins in 1943 when an obscure Russian immigrant published her first successful novel after two consecutive failures. It was not an instant success. In fact, the reviews were harsh and initial sales sluggish. But slowly a following grew around the novel, word of mouth became the most effective marketing tool, and the author began to develop what could, with hindsight, be called a “cult following.” The initial print-run of 7,500 copies was followed by multiples of five and 10,000 until by 1950 half a million copies were circulating the country. The book was The Fountainhead and the author Ayn Rand. Her commercial success allowed her the time and freedom to write her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957 after ten years in the making. It is a murder mystery, not about the murder of a human body, but of the murder of a human spirit. It is a broad and sweeping story of a man who said he would stop the ideological motor of the world. When he did, there was a panoramic collapse of civilization, with its flame kept burning by a small handful of heroic individuals whose reason and morals directed both the fall and the subsequent return of culture.

As they did to The Fountainhead, reviewers panned Atlas with a savage brutality that, incredibly, only seemed to reinforce followers’ belief in the book, its author, and her ideas. And, like The Fountainhead, sales of Atlas sputtered and clawed their way forward as the following grew, to the point where the book presently sells over 300,000 copies a year. “In all my years of publishing,” recalled Random House’s owner, Bennett Cerf, “I’ve never seen anything like it. To break through against such enormous opposition!” (Branden, 1986, p. 298). Such is the power of an individual hero … and a cult-like following.

What is it about Rand’s philosophy that so emotionally stimulates proponents and opponents alike? Before Atlas Shrugged was published, at a sales conference at Random House a salesman asked Rand if she could summarize the essence of her philosophy, called Objectivism, while standing on one foot. She did so as follows (1962):

1. Metaphysics: Objective Reality
2. Epistemology: Reason
3. Ethics: Self-interest
4. Politics: Capitalism

In other words, nature exists independent of human thought. Reason is the only method of perceiving this reality. All humans seek personal happiness and exist for their own sake, and should not sacrifice themselves to or be sacrificed by others. And laissez-faire capitalism is the best political-economic system for the first three to flourish, where “men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit,” and where “no man may initiate the use of physical force against others” (p. 1). Ringing throughout Rand’s works is the philosophy of individualism, personal responsibility, the power of reason, and the importance of morality. One should think for one’s self and never allow an authority to dictate truth, especially the authority of government, religion, and other such groups. Success, happiness, and unrestrained upward mobility will accrue to those who use reason to act in the highest moral fashion, and who never demand favors or handouts. Objectivism is the ultimate philosophy of unsullied reason and unadulterated individualism, as expressed by Rand through her primary character in Atlas Shrugged, John Galt:

Man cannot survive except by gaining knowledge, and reason is his only means to gain it. Reason is the faculty that perceives, identifies and integrates the material provided by his senses. The task of his senses is to give him the evidence of existence, but the task of identifying it belongs to his reason, his senses tell him only that something is, but what it is must be learned by his mind (p. 1012).

In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours (p. 1069).

How, then, could such a philosophy become the basis of a cult, which is the antithesis of reason and individualism? A cult, however it is defined, depends on faith and deindividuation—that is, remove the power of reason in followers and make them dependent upon the group and/or the leader. The last thing a cult leader wants is for followers to think for themselves and become individuals apart from the group.

The cultic flaw in Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism is not in the use of reason, or in the emphasis on individuality, or in the belief that humans are self motivated, or in the conviction that capitalism is the ideal system. The fallacy in Objectivism is the belief that absolute knowledge and final Truths are attainable through reason, and therefore there can be absolute right and wrong knowledge, and absolute moral and immoral thought and action. For Objectivists, once a principle has been discovered through reason to be True, that is the end of the discussion. If you disagree with the principle, then your reasoning is flawed. If your reasoning is flawed it can be corrected, but if it is not, you remain flawed and do not belong in the group. Excommunication is the final step for such unreformed heretics.

If you find it hard to believe that such a line of reasoning could lead a rational, well-intentioned group down the road to culthood, history demonstrates how it can happen. The 1960s were years of anti-establishment, anti-government, find-yourself individualism, so Rand’s philosophy exploded across the nation, particularly on college campuses. Atlas Shrugged became the book to read. Though it is a massive 1,168 pages long, readers devoured the characters, the plot, and most importantly, the philosophy. It stirred emotions and evoked action. Ayn Rand clubs were founded at hundreds of colleges. Professors taught courses in the philosophy of Objectivism and the literary works of Rand. Rand’s inner circle of friends began to grow and one of them, Nathaniel Branden, founded the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI), sponsoring lectures and courses on Objectivism, first in New York, and then nationally.

As the seminars increased in size and Rand’s popularity shot skyward, so too did the confidence in her philosophy, both for Rand and her followers. Hundreds of people attended classes, thousands of letters poured into the office, and millions of books were being sold. Movie rights for Atlas were being negotiated (The Fountainhead had already been made into a film). Her rise to intellectual power and influence was nothing short of miraculous, and readers of her novels, especially Atlas Shrugged, told Rand it had changed their lives and their way of thinking. Their comments ring of the enthusiasm of the followers of a religious cult (Branden, 1986, pp. 407–415):

• After reading Atlas a young woman in the Peace Corps wrote: “I had undergone the loneliest, most inspiring, and heartrending psycho-intellectual transformation, and all my plans upon returning to the United States had changed.”
• A 24-year old “traditional housewife” (her own label) read Atlas and said: “Dagny Taggart [the book’s principle heroine] was an inspiration to me; she is a great feminist role model. Ayn Rand’s works gave me the courage to be and to do what I had dreamed of.”
• A businessman began reading Atlas and said “Within a few hundred pages I sensed clearly that I had ventured upon a lifetime of meaning. The philosophy of Ayn Rand nurtured growth, stability and integrity in my life. Her ideas permeated every aspect of my business, family and creative life.”
• A law school graduate said of Objectivism: “Dealing with Ayn Rand was like taking a post-doctoral course in mental functioning. The universe she created in her work holds out hope, and appeals to the best in man. Her lucidity and brilliance was a light so strong I don’t think anything will ever be able to put it out.”
• An economics professor recalled: “After you read Atlas Shrugged you don’t look at the world with the same perspective.”
• A philosophy professor concluded: “Ayn Rand was one of the most original thinkers I have ever met. There is no escape from facing the issues she raised… . At a time in my life when I thought I had learned at least the essentials of most philosophical views, being confronted with her … suddenly changed the entire direction of my intellectual life, and placed every other thinker in a new perspective.”
• Another philosophy professor, this one disliking Rand and disagreeing with Objectivism, recalled after an all-night discussion with the philosopher-novelist: “She’s found gaping holes in every philosophical position I’ve maintained for the whole of my life—positions I teach my students, positions on which I’m a recognized authority—and I can’t answer her arguments! I don’t know what to do!” (p. 247).

There are thousands more just like these, many from people who are now quite successful and well-known, and give credit to Rand. But to the inner circle surrounding and protecting Rand (in ironic humor they called themselves the “Collective”), their leader soon became more than just extremely influential. She was venerated as their leader. Her seemingly omniscient ideas were inerrant. The power of her personality made her so persuasive that no one dared to challenge her. And her philosophy of Objectivism, since it was derived through pure reason, revealed final Truth and dictated absolute morality.

One of the closest to Rand was Nathaniel Branden, a young philosophy student who joined the Collective in the early days before Atlas Shrugged was published. In his autobiographical memoirs entitled Judgment Day (1989), Branden recalled: “There were implicit premises in our world to which everyone in our circle subscribed, and which we transmitted to our students at NBI.” Incredibly, and here is where the philosophical movement became a cult, they came to believe that (pp. 255–256):

• Ayn Rand is the greatest human being who has ever lived.
• Atlas Shrugged is the greatest human achievement in the history of the world.
• Ayn Rand, by virtue of her philosophical genius, is the supreme arbiter in any issue pertaining to what is rational, moral, or appropriate to man’s life on earth.
• Once one is acquainted with Ayn Rand and/or her work, the measure of one’s virtue is intrinsically tied to the position one takes regarding her and/or it.
• No one can be a good Objectivist who does not admire what Ayn Rand admires and condemn what Ayn Rand condemns.
• No one can be a fully consistent individualist who disagrees with Ayn Rand on any fundamental issue.
• Since Ayn Rand has designated Nathaniel Branden as her “intellectual heir,” and has repeatedly proclaimed him to be an ideal exponent of her philosophy, he is to be accorded only marginally less reverence than Ayn Rand herself.
• But it is best not to say most of these things explicitly (excepting, perhaps, the first two items). One must always maintain that one arrives at one’s beliefs solely by reason.

It is important to note that my critique of Rand and Objectivism as a cult is not original. Rand and her followers were, in their time, accused of being a cult which, of course, they denied. “My following is not a cult. I am not a cult figure,” Rand once told an interviewer. Barbara Branden, in her biography, The Passion of Ayn Rand, recalls: “Although the Objectivist movement clearly had many of the trappings of a cult—the aggrandizement of the person of Ayn Rand, the too ready acceptance of her personal opinions on a host of subjects, the incessant moralizing—it is nevertheless significant that the fundamental attraction of Objectivism … was the precise opposite of religious worship” (p. 371). And Nathaniel Branden addressed the issue this way: “We were not a cult in the literal, dictionary sense of the word, but certainly there was a cultish aspect to our world … . We were a group organized around a charismatic leader, whose members judged one another’s character chiefly by loyalty to that leader and to her ideas” (p. 256).

But if you leave the “religious” component out of the definition, thus broadening the word’s usage, it becomes clear that Objectivism was (and is) a cult, as are many other, non-religious groups. In this context, then, a cult may be characterized by:

• Veneration of the Leader: Excessive glorification to the point of virtual sainthood or divinity.
• Inerrancy of the Leader: Belief that he or she cannot be wrong.
• Omniscience of the Leader: Acceptance of beliefs and pronouncements on virtually all subjects, from the philosophical to the trivial.
• Persuasive Techniques: Methods used to recruit new followers and reinforce current beliefs.
• Hidden Agendas: Potential recruits and the public are not given a full disclosure of the true nature of the group’s beliefs and plans.
• Deceit: Recruits and followers are not told everything about the leader and the group’s inner circle, particularly flaws or potentially embarrassing events or circumstances.
• Financial and/or Sexual Exploitation: Recruits and followers are persuaded to invest in the group, and the leader may develop sexual relations with one or more of the followers.
• Absolute Truth: Belief that the leader and/or group has a method of discovering final knowledge on any number of subjects.
• Absolute Morality: Belief that the leader and/or the group have developed a system of right and wrong thought and action applicable to members and nonmembers alike. Those who strictly follow the moral code may become and remain members, those who do not are dismissed or punished.

The ultimate statement of Rand’s absolute morality heads the title page of Nathaniel Brandon’s book. Says Rand:

The precept: “Judge not, that ye be not judged” … is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself.

There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.

The moral principle to adopt … is: “Judge, and be prepared to be judged.”

The absurd lengths to which such thinking can go is demonstrated by Rand’s pronounced judgements on her followers of even the most trivial things. Rand had argued, for example, that musical taste could not be objectively defined, yet, as Barbara Branden observed, “if one of her young friends responded as she did to Rachmaninoff … she attached deep significance to their affinity.” By contrast, if a friend did not respond as she did to a certain piece or composer, Rand “left no doubt that she considered that person morally and psychologically reprehensible.” Branden recalled an evening when a friend of Rand’s remarked that he enjoyed the music of Richard Strauss. “When he left at the end of the evening, Ayn said, in a reaction becoming increasingly typical, ‘Now I understand why he and I can never be real soul mates. The distance in our sense of life is too great.’ Often, she did not wait until a friend had left to make such remarks” (p. 268).

With this set of criteria it becomes possible to see that a rational philosophy can become a cult when most or all of these are met. This is true not only for philosophical movements, but in some scientific schools of thought as well. Many founding scientists have become almost deified in their own time, to the point where apprentices dare not challenge the master. As Max Planck observed about science in general, only after the founders and elder statesmen of a discipline are dead and gone can real change occur and revolutionary new ideas be accepted.

In both Barbara’s and Nathaniel Branden’s assessment, then, we see all the characteristics of a cult. But what about deceit and sexual exploitation? In this case, “exploitation” may be too strong of a word, but the act was present nonetheless, and deceit was rampant. In what has become the most scandalous (and now oft-told) story in the brief history of the Objectivist movement, starting in 1953 and lasting until 1958 (and on and off for another decade after), Ayn Rand and her “intellectual heir” Nathaniel Branden, 25 years her junior, carried on a secret love affair known only to their respective spouses. The falling in love was not planned, but it was ultimately “reasonable” since the two of them were, de facto, the two greatest humans on the planet. “By the total logic of who we are—by the total logic of what love and sex mean—we had to love each other,” Rand told Barbara Branden and her own husband, Frank O’Connor. It was a classic display of a brilliant mind intellectualizing a purely emotional response, and another example of reason carried to absurd heights. “Whatever the two of you may be feeling,” Rand rationalized, “I know your intelligence, I know you recognize the rationality of what we feel for each other, and that you hold no value higher than reason” (B. Brandon, p. 258).

Unbelievably, both Barbara and Frank accepted the affair, and agreed to allow Ayn and Nathaniel an afternoon and evening of sex and love once a week. “And so,” Barbara explained, “we all careened toward disaster.” The “rational” justification and its consequences continued year after year, as the tale of interpersonal and group deceit grew broader and deeper. The disaster finally came in 1968 when it became known to Rand that Branden had fallen in love with yet another woman, and had begun an affair with her. Even though the affair between Rand and Branden had long since dwindled, the master of the absolutist moral double-standard would not tolerate such a breach of ethical conduct. “Get that bastard down here!,” Rand screamed upon hearing the news, “or I’ll drag him here myself!” Branden, according to Barbara, slunk into Rand’s apartment to face the judgment day. “It’s finished, your whole act!” she told him. “I’ll tear down your facade as I built it up! I’ll denounce you publicly, I’ll destroy you as I created you! I don’t even care what it does to me. You won’t have the career I gave you, or the name, or the wealth, or the prestige. You’ll have nothing … .” The barrage continued for several minutes until she pronounced her final curse: “If you have an ounce of morality left in you, an ounce of psychological health—you’ll be impotent for the next twenty years!” (pp. 345-347).

Rand’s verbal attack was followed by a six-page open letter to her followers in her publication The Objectivist (May, 1968). It was entitled “To Whom It May Concern.” After explaining that she had completely broken with the Brandens, Rand continued the deceit through lies of omission: “About two months ago … Mr. Branden presented me with a written statement which was so irrational and so offensive to me that I had to break my personal association with him.” Without so much as a hint of the nature of the offense Rand continued: “About two months later Mrs. Branden suddenly confessed that Mr. Branden had been concealing from me certain ugly actions and irrational behavior in his private life, which was grossly contradictory to Objectivist morality … . “ Branden’s second affair was judged immoral, his first was not. This excommunication was followed by a reinforcing barrage from NBI’s Associate Lecturers that sounds all too ecclesiastical in its denouncement (and written out of complete ignorance of what really happened): “Because Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden, in a series of actions, have betrayed fundamental principles of Objectivism, we condemn and repudiate these two persons irrevocably, and have terminated all association with them … . “ (Branden, 1986, pp. 353-354).

Confusion reigned supreme in both the Collective and in the rank-and-file membership. Mail poured into the office, most of it supporting Rand (naturally, since they knew nothing of the first affair). Nathaniel received angry responses and even Barbara’s broker, an Objectivist, terminated her as his client. The group was in turmoil over the incident. What were they to think with such a formidable condemnation of unnamed sins? The ultimate extreme of such absolutist thinking was revealed several months later when, in the words of Barbara, “a half-demented former student of NBI had raised the question of whether or not it would be morally appropriate to assassinate Nathaniel because of the suffering he had caused Ayn; the man concluded that it should not be done on practical grounds, but would be morally legitimate. Fortunately, he was shouted down at once by a group of appalled students” (p. 356n).

It was the beginning of the long decline and fall of Rand’s tight grip over the Collective. One by one they sinned, the transgressions becoming more minor as the condemnations grew in fierceness. And one by one they left, or were asked to leave. In the end (Rand died in 1982) there remained only a handful of friends, and the designated executor of her estate, Leonard Peikoff (who presently carries on the cause through the Southern California based Ayn Rand Institute, “The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism”). While the cultic qualities of the group sabotaged the inner circle, there remained (and remains) a huge following of those who choose to ignore the indiscretions, infidelities, and moral inconsistencies of the founder, and focus instead on the positive aspects of the philosophy. There is much in it from which to choose, if you do not have to accept the whole package. In this analysis, then, there are three important caveats about cults, skepticism, and reason:

1. Criticism of the founder of a philosophy does not, by itself, constitute a negation of any part of the philosophy. The fact that Christians have been some of the worst violators of their own moral system does not mean that the ethical axioms of “thou shalt not kill,” or “due unto others as you would have them do unto you,” are negated. The components of a philosophy must stand or fall on their own internal consistency or empirical support, regardless of the founder’s personality quirks or moral inconsistencies. By most accounts Newton was a cantankerous and relatively unpleasant person to be around. This fact has nothing at all to do with his principles of natural philosophy. With thinkers who proffer moral principles, as in the case of Rand, this caveat is more difficult to apply, but it is true nonetheless. It is good to know these things about Rand, but it does not nullify her philosophy. I reject her principles of final Truth and absolute morality not because Rand had feet of clay, but because I do not believe they are either logically or empirically tenable.
2. Criticism of part of a philosophy does not gainsay the whole. In a similar analogy as above, one may reject parts of the Christian philosophy while embracing others. I might, for example, attempt to treat others as I would have them treat me, while at the same time renounce the belief that women should remain silent in church and be obedient to their husbands. One may disavow Rand’s absolute morality, while accepting her metaphysics of objective reality, her epistemology of reason, and her political philosophy of capitalism (though Objectivists would say they all follow from her metaphysics). Which leads me to the third caveat.
3. The critic of part of a philosophy does not necessarily repudiate the whole philosophy. This is a personal caveat to Objectivists and readers of Skeptic alike. Rand critics come from all political positions—left, right, and middle. Professional novelists generally disdain her style. Professional philosophers generally refuse to take her work seriously (both because she wrote for popular audiences and because her work is not considered a complete philosophy). There are more Rand critics than followers. I am not one of them. Ayn Rand has probably influenced my thinking more than any other author. I have read all of her works, including her newsletters, early works, and the two major biographies. I have even read the Brobdingnagian Atlas Shrugged no less than three times, plus once on audio tape for good measure. Thus I am not a blind critic. (Some of Rand’s critics have attacked Atlas without ever reading it, and Objectivism, without ever knowing anything about it. I have encountered many of these myself. Even the pompously intellectual William Buckley spoke of the “desiccated philosophy” of Atlas, “the essential aridity of Miss Rand’s philosophy,” and the tone of Atlas as “over-riding arrogance,” yet later confessed: “I never read the book. When I read the review of it and saw the length of the book, I never picked it up.” Nothing could be more irrational.) I accept most of Rand’s philosophy, but not all of it. And despite my life-long commitment to many of Rand’s most important beliefs, Objectivists would no doubt reject me from their group for not accepting all of her precepts. This is ultimately what makes Objectivism a cult.

I believe (and here I speak strictly for myself and not for the Skeptics Society or any of its members) that reality exists and that reason and science are the best tools we have for understanding causality in the real world. We can achieve an ever-greater understanding of reality but we can never know if we have final Truth with regard to nature. Since reason and science are human activities, they will always be flawed and biased. I believe that humans are primarily driven to seek greater happiness, but the definition of such is completely personal and cannot be dictated and should not be controlled by any group. (Even so-called selfless acts of charity can be perceived as directed toward self-fulfillment—the act of making someone else feel good, makes us feel good. This is not a falsifiable statement, but it is observable in people’s actions and feelings.) I believe that the free market—and the freer the better—is the best system yet devised for allowing all individuals to achieve greater levels of happiness. (This is not a defensible statement in this forum. I am just setting the stage for my critique of Rand.) I believe that individuals should take personal responsibility for their actions, buck up and quit whining when facing the usual array of life’s problems, and cease this endless disease-of-the-month victimization. Finally, I wholeheartedly embrace Rand’s passionate love of the heroic nature of humanity and of the ability of the human spirit to triumph over nature.

So far so good. I might have even made it into the Rand inner circle. But I would have been promptly excommunicated as an unreformed heretic (the worst kind, since reformed heretics can at least be retrained and forgiven), with my belief that no absolute morality is scientifically or rationally tenable, even that which claims to have been derived through pure reason, as in the case of Rand. The reason is straightforward. Morals do not exist in nature and thus cannot be discovered. In nature there are just actions—physical actions, biological actions, and human actions. Human actors act to increase their happiness, however they personally define it. Their actions become moral or immoral when someone else judges them as such. Thus, morality is a strictly human creation, subject to all the cultural influences and social constructions as other such human creations. Since virtually everyone and every group claims they know what right and wrong human action is, and since virtually all of these moralities are different from all others to a greater or lesser extent, then reason alone tells us they cannot all be correct Just as there is no absolute right type of human music, there is no absolute right type of human action. The broad range of human action is a rich continuum that precludes its pigeonholing into the unambiguous yeses and noes that political laws and moral codes require.

Does this mean that all human actions are morally equal? No. Not any more than all human music is equal. We create standards of what we like and dislike, desire or not, and make judgments against these standards. But the standards are themselves human creations and not discovered in nature. One group prefers classical music, and so judges Mozart to be superior to the Moody Blues. Similarly, one group prefers patriarchal dominance, and so judges male privileges to be morally honorable. Neither Mozart nor males are absolutely better, only so when compared to the group’s standards. Thus, male ownership of females was once moral and is now immoral, not because we have discovered it as such, but because our society has realized that women also seek greater happiness and that they can achieve this more easily without being in bondage to males. A society that seeks greater happiness for its members by giving them greater freedom, will judge a Hitler or a Stalin as morally intolerable because his goal is the confiscation of human life, without which one can have no happiness.

As long as it is understood that morality is a human construction influenced by human cultures, one can become more tolerant of other human belief systems, and thus other humans. But as soon as a group sets itself up to be the final moral arbiter of other people’s actions, especially when its members believe they have discovered absolute standards of right and wrong, it is the beginning of the end of tolerance and thus, reason and rationality. It is this characteristic more than any other that makes a cult, a religion, a nation, or any other group, dangerous to individual freedom. This was (and is) the biggest flaw in Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, the unlikeliest cult in history. The historical development and ultimate destruction of her group and philosophy is the empirical evidence to support this logical analysis.

What separates science from all other human activities (and morality has never been successfully placed on a scientific basis), is its belief in the tentative nature of all conclusions. There are no final absolutes in science, only varying degrees of probability. Even scientific “facts” are just conclusions confirmed to such an extent it would be reasonable to offer temporary agreement, but never final assent. Science is not the affirmation of a set of beliefs but a process of inquiry aimed at building a testable body of knowledge constantly open to rejection or confirmation. In science, knowledge is fluid and certainty fleeting. That is the heart of its limitation. It is also its greatest strength.

Bibliography

1. Branden, B. 1986. The Passion of Ayn Rand. New York: Doubleday.
2. Branden, N. 1989. Judgment Day: My Years With Ayn Rand. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
3. Rand, A. 1943. The Fountainhead. New York: Bobbs-Merrill.
4. _____. 1957. Atlas Shrugged. New York: Random House.
5. _____. 1962. “Introducing Objectivism.” Los Angeles Times, June 17.

This article can be found in

volume 02 number 2
Science, Religion & Cults

The Jesus Cults; What Makes a Cult?; The Unlikeliest Cult of All; The Resurrection Myth; Was Christianity a Cult?; Realism and Religion…
BROWSE this issue >
ORDER this issue >

FROM THE MARK OF ZORRO TO SPIDERMAN, literature, film and comic books have exploited the storyline of a super-hero disguised as a milquetoast: a self-indulgent fop, a mild-mannered newspaperman, or a terminal geek.

Biologist David Sloan Wilson could hardly be likened to a milquetoast and neither could his acclaimed book Darwin’s Cathedral. In fact it is a major contribution to a highly visible and sometimes bitterly controversial debate. Wilson advances the thesis that organized religion, for the most part, is not an irrational phenomenon, much less a non-functional cultural “spandrel.”

In many ways Wilson contradicts the many skeptics of religion. Religious organizations, he says, perform an important adaptive role in human societies. They represent culturally-evolved “workarounds” that often provide unifying, coordinating, and supportive functions for large-scale human groups. In other words, moral systems may contribute significantly to our biological survival and reproduction. Other evolutionary theorists have made similar arguments over the years (Sir Arthur Keith, Edward O. Wilson, and Richard Alexander come to mind), but none (to my knowledge) has proposed it as a testable scientific hypothesis or marshaled an array of concrete evidence in support of it.

Wilson’s thesis, however, unwittingly masks an accomplishment that is much more far-reaching and, I would argue, ultimately more important. In effect, Wilson has completed the theoretical scaffolding for the scientific revolution that the other well-known Wilson (Edward O.) began with the publication of his landmark 1975 book Sociobiology. E.O. Wilson had hoped to transform the social sciences, but, in retrospect, he did not have the theoretical tools to complete the job. D. S. Wilson, in showing that religious organizations may well be biological adaptations, has now brought the single most important feature of human societies—our plethora of functionallyorganized social groups, ranging from families to football teams, large-scale corporations and even governments—unequivocally into the evolutionary paradigm. Thanks to Wilson’s dogged efforts over the years to resurrect group selection as an important evolutionary mechanism, we now have the basis for a full-fledged bio-sociology—or sociobiology as the late John Paul Scott (the originator of the term) meant it to be used. Darwin’s Cathedral provides a model for how to pursue an evolutionary social science.

E. O. Wilson, in his discipline-defining volume, outraged many social scientists of the day (and some of his biologist colleagues as well) with a claim that sounded like pure disciplinary hubris. Evolutionary biology, Wilson wrote in his introduction, was destined “to reformulate the foundations of the social sciences.” He suggested that the humanities and social sciences should be re-conceived as “specialized branches of biology.” Most flagrant of all, was his famous claim in the final chapter on the evolution of humankind that human behavior is governed by invisible “epigenetic rules” (though Wilson didn’t actually deploy this term until a subsequent book). In short, our genes are ultimately in charge. To many social scientists, this sounded like Social Darwinism déjá vu. The very term “sociobiology” became an epithet in some quarters.

The most serious problem with E. O.Wilson’s newborn sociobiology, though, was not its inflammatory rhetoric, nor even its attempt to biologize human behavior. The root problem was that Wilson’s formulation, and his basic claim for his new discipline, was constricted in several ways by the reigning theoretical paradigm of the time— Neo-Darwinism. First, Wilson presupposed that cooperation and social organization in nature were based on altruism. Indeed, in the introduction to his massive tome, Wilson made the surprising assertion that altruism was “the central theoretical problem” of sociobiology. Wilson was not alone in this view. Along with many other biologists of the 1970s, including George C. Williams, William D. Hamilton, John Maynard Smith, Richard Dawkins and even David Sloan Wilson in his early writings, E. O. Wilson assumed that social cooperation (read altruism) was greatly constrained by the inherent “selfishness” of living organisms. Wilson even parroted Hamilton’s early contention (though both theorists later changed their views) that there are only three categories of social behavior: altruism, selfishness (meaning actions that exploit another organism) and “spite.”

Accordingly, Wilson and many other theorists assumed that group selection in favor of cooperation/ altruism would work only if it could overcome the countervailing pressure of individual selection, which would inevitably favor selfishness, cheating and spite. (Of course, this constricted view of cooperation overlooked the entire category of win-win “mutualism,” which characterized the many symbiotic relationships between members of different species, as well as the many forms of mutually-beneficial social cooperation among conspecifics that were later “discovered” by the so-called game theorists of the 1980s.) Wilson even devoted an entire chapter of his encyclopedic volume to “Group Selection and Altruism,” where, ironically, he presaged the “multi-level selection” paradigm that has become popular in recent years. Nevertheless, Wilson concluded that group selection could occupy only a “very narrow ‘window’” in evolution. (Other theorists, like George C. Williams, were even more disparaging.) The most promising opportunities for explaining the evolution of social behavior, Wilson believed, were Hamilton’s inclusive fitness theory (or “kin selection” in Maynard Smith’s term) and perhaps Robert Trivers’s “reciprocal altruism.” Many social scientists were not impressed.

Later on in Sociobiology, in his chapter on humankind, E.O. Wilson opined that ethics, religion and culture were likely to be adaptive; religions evolve to advance the welfare of their practitioners, he suggested, anticipating the other Wilson’s thesis a quarter of a century later. Even more surprising was his assertion that, in human evolution, individual selection and group selection might have been mutually “reinforcing.” (In fact, this was also Darwin’s view in The Descent of Man, and it was shared by such distinguished evolutionary theorists as R.A. Fisher, Julian Huxley, Sir Arthur Keith and, more recently, Richard Alexander.) However, Wilson’s speculations about human evolution were ad hoc and ultimately unpersuasive, given his theoretical inclinations.

The sea change that led to David Sloan Wilson’s ultimately more successful attempt to account for social behavior in human societies was a result of several convergent tidal shifts. For one thing, Wilson is a beneficiary of the growing realization that much, if not most, social behavior is both cooperative and selfish, even in the immediate, “proximate” sense; it involves the production of functional synergies that are mutually advantageous. This is clearly the case with the vast array of symbiotic partnerships in nature, more of which are being discovered all the time. And it is reflected also in the many successful game theory models of social cooperation. These models share the basic assumptions that the participants are unrelated to each other (thus tacitly contradicting a key tenet of inclusive fitness theory) and, more important, that cooperation is mutually beneficial (indeed, the synergies are routinely quantified in the payoff matrices). There are many examples in the natural world.

Equally important, the problem of “cheating,” once viewed as an almost insurmountable obstacle to cooperation in nature, has been deflated in importance by the many models (and innumerable field studies and experimental tests) showing that “punishments” of various kinds can (and do) curtail the tendency to cheat (or “defect” in game theory parlance). Moreover, it is now increasingly evident that many forms of cooperation, in nature and human societies alike, are self-policing, because the “goods” can only be produced through the interdependent actions of the participants. Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry, in their 1995 volume on The Major Transitions in Evolution, utilize a metaphor from rowing to illustrate this point. If two oarsmen are rowing a boat in tandem, each with two oars, it is possible for one of the oarsmen to slack off (cheat) without preventing the boat from reaching its goal. This represents the classic game theory paradigm. But if the two oarsmen are seated side-by-side, each with only one oar, then both oarsmen must pull their full weight or the boat will go in circles.

In other words, social cooperation and sociality, both in nature and in humankind, very often depends not on kinship or altruism but on economics, or the material costs and benefits and how these are distributed. As David Sloan Wilson’s arguments for group selection matured over the years (his initial paper appeared in the same year that Sociobiology was published), he ultimately gained traction in the debate by adopting this more liberal interpretation. Wilson also coined the term “trait group selection” to convey the idea that group selection operates on any functionallyimportant adaptation that represents the joint product of two or more interacting genes, or genomes, or individuals. Indeed, group selection (along with functional synergy, I might add) provides the explanation for why we have interdependent genomes and complex multicellular organisms. And the very same principle applies also to the evolution of “superorganisms.”

So why do I call Darwin’s Cathedral a landmark in sociobiology and the social sciences? It’s not just that a revitalized group selection paradigm (what I like to call “Holistic Darwinism”) enabled David Sloan Wilson to fully apprehend the evolutionary significance of organized human groups. Even more important for the future of an evolutionary social science was Wilson’s shift of focus from the “ultimate” level—where natural selection and the evolved genetic substrate of human behavior are the primary concern—to the “proximate” level, where the immediate problems of adaptation (i.e., survival and reproduction) are the issue.

Wilson himself is a bit defensive about this approach. He points out that Darwinian fitness is, strictly speaking, a relative concept; it depends on the context and the nature of the competition. He also frets about the challenge of translating a given social behavior, or organization, in a human society into the “currency” of Darwinian fitness. But, in fact, the prospect for an evolutionary social science is stronger than he supposes.

First, as Wilson himself argues, fitness per se is not the primary issue when the focus is on the proximate level. Rather, the concern is with the concrete “bioeconomic” problem of meeting basic survival and reproductive needs in a given context. This is not fundamentally different from the challenge that confronts ethologists and behavioral ecologists in the research relating to adaptation in other species. But, more important, there have been some significant efforts over the years, most notably in the so-called “survival indicators” program, to spell out in detail the menu of “basic needs” that define the problem of adaptation in human societies. In the survival indicators framework, no less than 14 primary needs “domains” have been identified and documented, both for individuals and groups/populations. Hence, a concrete analytical paradigm already exists for assessing biological adaptation. (An in-depth article of mine on this project, entitled “Biological Adaptation in Human Societies: A ‘Basic Needs’ Approach,” appeared in the new Journal of Bioeconomics in 2000.)

In sum, it is now possible to “reformulate the foundations of the social sciences” in a rather different and perhaps more productive way than E. O. Wilson may have envisioned. Wilson stressed the ultimate level in evolution. But it is also possible to build a bio-social science that is focused on the proximate problem of biological adaptation. This allows us to plug the social sciences directly into the evolutionary paradigm, and vice versa. As David Sloan Wilson points out, rational choice economics, a dominant influence in the social sciences of the 20th century, has no substantive content; many neo-classical economists are clueless about the biological imperatives that shape the agendas of most human beings most of the time.

Likewise, classical “functionalism” in mid-20th century sociology had the right methodology but the wrong problem. It is not about the survival of social systems, or “pattern maintenance” in sociologist Talcott Parsons’s well-known euphemism. It’s about the relationship between social systems and the biological survival of its members, and any others who may happen to be impacted; in other words, how the system contributes to, or detracts from, the biological (functional) imperatives in human societies. (In a highly symbolic act of interdisciplinary reconciliation, Wilson finds the pioneer sociologist Emile Durkheim’s functionalism very compatible.) Some biologically-oriented anthropologists have done a commendable job of getting the adaptation problem into better focus, but the cleavage between these anthropologists and their rejectionist colleagues in cultural anthropology shows that the battle is far from won.

Thus, the theoretical revolution in the social sciences that E. O. Wilson launched remains an active combat zone, but David Sloan Wilson has pointed the way to victory.

About the author

Dr. Peter A. Corning is at the Institute for the Study of Complex Systems in Palo Alto, California. His varied career has included a tour as a naval aviator, a stint in journalism as a science writer for Newsweek, a Ph.D. in the social sciences, post-doctoral training and research in biology and behavior genetics, several years of teaching in Stanford University’s interdisciplinary Human Biology Program, and broad private sector experience as a senior partner in a Silicon Valley consulting firm. Currently director of the Institute for the Study of Complex Systems in Palo Alto, California, Dr. Corning is a member of several scientific organizations and a past president of the International Society for the Systems Sciences. He has also published more than 150 research papers and articles and four books. Most recent is Nature’s Magic: Synergy in Evolution and the Fate of Humankind (Cambridge University Press, 2003).