Applied Kinesiology and Bell Laboratories: The Embrace of Nonsense by the Otherwise Well-Informed

I was recently contacted via e-mail by an unhappy employee of Bell Labs, now known as Lucent Technologies. This is one of the most prestigious think-tanks and technology centers in the world. They gave us so many wonders of modern science, that one would certainly expect that no pseudoscience would show up in any aspect of Lucent work, whether as part of the actual lab output, or in the training of their employees. Stay tuned, as I regretfully shatter that picture.

The Lucent employee in question advised me that his supervisor had set in motion a series of lectures which employees were required to attend in which one Marilyn Wheeler, head of a Southern California-based “training company,” gave the assembled employees a demonstration of “Applied Kinesiology” (AK), one of the popular forms of quackery that attract the New Age crowd. It consists of showing the subject that his/her extended arm is more easily forced down if that person is brought under the evil influence of “vibrations” put in effect by: (a) the presence of refined sugar, (b) the sound of nasty words like “murder” or “income tax,” or (c) poisonous substances. But Ms. Wheeler took AK to further heights of silliness; this wondrous tool of crackpot science was, in her hands, combined with the well-known forces of telepathy, so that when the rapt crowd of Lucent folks put forth bad thoughts about a person chosen from their midst, that person showed a corresponding weakness, in response to the onslaught of negative vibes. My correspondent wrote: 

I was disappointed to note that not one single person (engineers, scientists, etc.) questioned her methods. I finally could remain silent no longer. I pointed out that first of all, we couldn’t possibly think negative thoughts about someone we knew, worked with, and liked, on command. I then asked for them both to turn around so they couldn’t see the sign of how we were thinking (positive or negative) which was signified by a thumbs up or thumbs down by a chosen person in the audience. Of course, her results were now what would be expected statistically. She said I was “too cynical” and “not open-minded enough.” To my surprise (or maybe not), I got the distinct impression that the rest of the audience thought I was just some kind of trouble-maker or something. 

Of course, to truly test her ridiculous claims (just think of the ramifications if what she claimed were true), even more controls would be needed. But she failed miserably under the minimum of test controls. I guess it was my fault. I was producing negative “vibes” or something. 

I have just been told that we are required to attend another two-day lecture by this same woman next month. This is Bell Laboratories, arguably the premier industrial research lab in the world—the people who brought us the laser, the transistor, etc., the company that is issued more patents per day than any company in the world. I find all of this disappointing. 

In my opinion, if this Lucent person had been less concerned about the good name of the company, he’d not have expressed his concern. Hardly had I heard from him, and well before I posted anything, a friend at MIT and another Lucent employee contacted me, quite independently. The farce had become a matter of Bell Labs scuttlebutt, and e-mail and faxes were buzzing about. 

I sent out via e-mail to my Star List, an account of this lapse of judgement by Lucent. A copy of my posting was directed to the Lucent executive who initiated this invitation, and I offered to send him copies of excerpts from letters I’d received from dismayed observers. A response was forthcoming: 

I don’t know who you are or what you are trying to accomplish here. It is true that my organization engaged the services of Marilyn Wheeler for several seminars to support team building. As is often the case in such seminars, the instructor … utilized many techniques to make points. If Ms. Wheeler utilized “Applied Kinesiology” … to make some points, it was her decision and is not an indication that I or Lucent support such a technique. I can tell you the many attendees were pleased with her seminars and the techniques she used. 

On the other hand, as is usually the case in such seminars, some attendee or attendees may not have been happy with some of the techniques. I am forwarding this e-mail to Marilyn Wheeler, and you and she can follow up if desired. I think this issue rests with you and Marilyn Wheeler, not with me personally or with Lucent. 

Lastly, to repeat, I am not personally nor is Lucent supporting or legitimizing “Applied Kinesiology.” 

To this I replied: “I take it you have no interest in seeing the responses I received. Too bad. They are very informative. My correspondents saw this for what it was: a presentation given by and for Lucent Technologies which consisted of crackpot science presented as genuine material. I suggest that you call in a Tarot reader and an astrologer next if you feel it will illuminate the employees and bring them to a better understanding of the world.” 

Applied Kinesiology is quackery, pure and simple. It is pseudoscience at its most glorious. It is witchcraft and nothing more.

There was no mention of whether Ms. Wheeler intends to take up the $1.1 million challenge to test whether Applied Kinesiology does what is claimed for it. But we know the answer to that, don’t we, folks? Or will Ms. Wheeler surprise us? 

Applied Kinesiology is quackery, pure and simple. It is pseudoscience at its most glorious. It is witchcraft and nothing more. Believe it or not, the subject stands there with his or her arm outstretched. The “therapist” pushes down on the arm to take a “reading” on how hard it is to push. Then the subject is subjected to sugar or bad words or whatever, and the arm is then pushed down again to detect if there are any differences. No subjectivity in that procedure! Actually, Applied Kinesiology is among the most easily tested of all quack claims, and the James Randi Educational Foundation is prepared to do a simple, one-hour, direct, easy-to-grasp, test. If it works, as the employees of Lucent Technologies have been told (and remember, they are required to attend these enlightened meetings!) we will pay Ms. Wheeler the $1.1 million prize. It’s that simple. 

Ms. Wheeler, your turn. You told the folks who invented marvels which have changed our lives immeasurably that your demonstration showed them a truth that should shake the world. They should know. But do they? Prove it, Ms. Wheeler. 

Here are some of the comments I’ve received in regard to the matter. They are anonymous, but Marvin Minsky is in here, along with several Lucent Technology employees who are obviously genuinely concerned. This is the information that the Lucent executive chose not to accept from me. I hope he is wearing goggles to keep the sand out of his eyes while his head is buried in the sand. 

• I suppose this is not too different from the logic by which business leaders start using graphology, biorhythms, horoscopes, and all the rest. They don’t see much to lose if it doesn’t work; they see some chance to gain if it does work; and trying anything sends a message about what results they value. Maybe the presenter had so much respect for the intelligence of the Lucent people that she didn’t expect any of them would conclude “paranormal” from her little show. This is a good example of the greatest problem I find in trying to stand up for rationality—it’s so hard to do so without telling very nice and well-meaning people who are acting like fools what you think of what they are doing in a way that they might take personally. 
• The idea that perception is reality is false, but the actions people take as a result of this fallacy are not. To wit, witches were perceived as “real” and “evil.” Fallacy yes, but they were burned at the stake—an ultimate reality to the poor women. Why should this fallacy be a surprise? A couple of examples: “A woman has the right to her own body.” Very popular notion. Yet most groups espousing this are against prostitution. Hmmm? … For the most part I think we are still in the dark ages of philosophical technology, yet we have 21st century tools at our disposal. This is more dangerous than the first Dark Age. Thanks for shedding some light on the situation. 
• I am sad to say that your recent report on Lucent Technologies and applied kinesiology comes as no surprise. Have been around Universities for the last 20 years, first as a student, then as an instructor, I am constantly amazed at the ignorance of apparently highly educated people if you step just a little outside their discipline. 
• Having spent 26 years in the military I’ve had a lot of experience in the various management/leadership fads that come and then disappear without a trace. A couple of years ago there was a fad for “TQM.” The training film started with the developer (and profit maker) in Galileo’s home town. (Message: “I’m like poor persecuted Galileo.”) He went on to claim that “ideas came from the edge” (of what, and what ideas wasn’t very clear). His only other claim to fame was that he’d invented the ultimate bike seat, which no manufacturer would buy. My friend and I asked “Just how does this fad differ from …” then listed some 20-some years of programs that had been tried then discarded. The answer was that we’d “see by the end of class.” Well, in fact, we did see. It came in the form of a general and his statement “If you’re not part of the team, you’ll have to leave.” 
• With an undergraduate degree in biology and later a masters degree in counseling as a background, I would point out that in some “Training Programs,” metaphor is occasionally used in an effort to encourage participants to free themselves from convention (“out of the box thinking”) in order to consider alternatives not then in vogue (as in developing a transistor to replace the vacuum tube). From the reports it sounds like the trainer may have either misunderstood this concept, actually believed the pseudoscience, or perhaps failed to exercise sufficient care in explaining that the technique was a metaphor rather than an actual physical phenomenon. Thanks to James Randi for spreading information on our increasing culturally mandated ignorance. 
• I recently attended a presentation by Paul Pearsall at University of Michigan Medical Center. His topic was “The heart can think not figuratively but literally.” Rolled into a presentation with a series of hula dances (he’s from Hawaii) were a bunch of claims, including that he was going to present us with a bunch of new data. What in fact he presented was a series of short quotes out of context which he tried to use to support the vague thesis that energy fields radiate from our hearts and communicate information heart to heart. Now, people have in fact known of energy fields in our hearts—it takes sensitive galvanometry to detect them externally, but that’s what an EKG is—and the ability of the heart to respond to a high-voltage shock. UMMC did not make attendance mandatory but did have all employees sign in to get “credit” for having attended. 
• Keep after the Lucent types of the world. The Lucent event did not occur in the public realm, it was in an operation of a business. The most totalitarian state in the world does not compare to the atmosphere that exists in many large businesses. At any sign of dissent, they have the right to make you an “unperson” in their company. What is different about the private business world from the public world is the basis on which decisions are made. The ultimate test of any decision is not whether it is more true, more moral or contributes more to the ultimate good. All decisions are made on the basis of the amount of profit that will accrue to the business. Let’s keep the heat turned up on businesses so that there will be costs to pay for teaching lies, and that the question of “Is it true?” gets asked as well as “Will it make our people work harder?” 
• In 1977, I applied to the Arapahoe (Colorado) County Sheriff’s Office for a Deputy position. The application was four handwritten pages (script, not printing) for handwriting (graphology) analysis. Those who didn’t “pass” never made it to the second round. I instead went to Aurora (Colorado) P.D. Your story of the new-age lectures being given at Lucent technologies is interesting given that their main corporate logo was borrowed from a Japanese Zen religious symbol called the Enso, which is an ink brush painted circle that does not quite close. It is used by Zen masters as a kind of signature of their own state of enlightenment. The dictionary definition of Lucent also means “filled with light.” I have queried Lucent corporate media relations about this association to Zen Buddhism and they claim that the symbol was arbitrarily picked to represent “human innovation”—they call it the “innovation ring” and claim it does not explicitly derive from the Japanese Zen symbol … Anyway, even if they were innocent of the Japanese Zen origin of this symbol, their own interpretation of it is certainly new-ageish. 
• This little anecdote hit pretty close to home. It serves to strengthen my notion that soon it will be impossible to remain well employed without being required to at least pretend to embrace such nonsense. I work for a large mining company … a few years ago management decided they needed to “change the company culture” in such a way that it would improve production, lower the production costs … by implementing one of the many different Teams concepts … Although we haven’t had to put up with classic paranormal type pseudoscience as illustrated by the Lucent Technologies example, the way [they] set up examples to prove how effective teams are, reminded me of the way misdirection is used in magic tricks … It left most with the illusion that it did show that team work was very much more effective than working as individuals … This stuff really worries me. As a condition of employment am I going to have to pretend to believe all manner of nonsense? It seems that we are being drawn into the demon-haunted world, irrevocably, as if it were a black hole and we had ventured too close. 
• Amazing to hear such nonsense was not laughed out of Lucent. I have heard about similar nonsense in the Mid-Continent Regional Educational Lab (MCREL) in Aurora, Colorado. It is one of about five or so outrageously well-funded federal think tanks around the nation. Some years ago, I heard an employee relate that these “labs” are at the forefront of experimenting with New Age employee indoctrination (and encourage the introduction of pseudoscientific and other poorly-researched practices into public schools, as well). I only remember one of his examples: The lab held sessions in which everyone was required to visualize individual employees’ wishes coming true. Once a group spent 5-10 minutes visualizing a successful adoption (the situation was not hopeful). At the end of the session, and from that moment on, everyone spoke as if the adoption were a certainty. Any humor or doubts on the matter were considered treasonable. I suspect MCREL and its kindred labs would make rich pickings for an investigative journalist. 

And the band played on …