Holiday in Stilbaai

What a privilege - being on holiday in the beautiful Southern Cape seaside village, Stilbaai (translated from Afrikaans - "quiet or still bay"). We come here roughly every two years with whichever family members can make it. It's like being in another country; relaxed and practically no crime (the locals know why). A few years ago the town briefly made news when it became known that the police were using a donkey cart to patrol the streets.

It's winter now and the weather varies from balmy winter sunshine to cold and wet. Southern Right whales have arrived for their breeding season and can be seen blowing in the bay.

Although the past few days have been too cold, my son (Dieter) and I had our first experiences of sea kayaking just before the cold spell. My next purchase will be wetsuits so that we can become all-weather kayakers! The whales have arrived just after our last outing two days ago, but we did see dolphins playing in the waves.

Here are two holiday scenes from Stilbaai:


Skulpiesbaai ("Shell Bay"). Stone age tidal fish traps used by the San and Khoisan peoples are visible in the foreground. The area is rich in archeological sites; the well-known Blombos Cave archeological dig is near Stilbaai.


Dieter and I entering the bay through the mouth of the Goukou River.

Science and belief in God

I have been avoiding and will in future be avoiding discussions of science and religion on this blog. I find the posturing and intolerance of fundamentalists on both sides objectionable.

Here, however, is a fresh breeze on the subject. Michael Shermer of the Skeptic Magazine and the Templeton Foundation co-operated in producing a balanced booklet in which prominent commenters on both sides of the debate made reasoned contributions.

The question at issue was:

Does science make belief in God obsolete?

Schermer commented as follows on the process in eSkeptic:

"Since I am aware of the reputation that the Templeton Foundation has within the skeptical, atheist, and humanist communities for harboring a right-wing Christian agenda, I would like to note that, in fact, they invited me to select the commentators and edit their essays, and insisted that I include skeptics, atheists, and humanists, which you will see that I did. There was never any hint to me that I should edit the commentaries to come out a certain way to match the alleged agenda ..."

Contributors on the "Yes" side were:

Victor Stenger: Yes. Worse. Science renders belief in God incoherent.

Steven Pinker: Yes, if by science we include secular reason and knowledge.

Pervez Hoodbhoy: Not necessarily. You must find a science-compatible God.

Stuart Kauffman: No, if we redefine God as creativity in the universe.

Chrisopher Hitchens: No, but it should.

Michael Shermer: It depends: belief no, God yes.

Contributors on the "No" side:

Mary Midgley: Of course not, belief in God is not a scientific question.

Kenneth Miller: Of course not. Science expands our appreciation of the Divine.

William D. Phillips: Absolutely not! Belief in God is not a scientific matter.

Robert Sapolsky: No. Belief offers something that science doesn’t.

Jerome Groopman: No. Not at all.

Keith Ward: No.

Christoph Cardinal Schönborn: No.

The booklet is available online from the Templeton Foundation here.

On bullshit, quacks and charlatans

I became aware of "bullshit" as an academically "respectable" term with the 2005 publication of the philosophical mini-book On Bullshit by Prof. Harry Frankfurt. It was surprisingly successful and triggered widespread media and public interest. Prof. Ben Kotzee of the Department of Philosophy of the University of Cape Town pointed out the reason for this success here:

"What people enjoy about Frankfurt’s book, it seems, is that having a theory of bullshit available makes it possible now to do with a straight face what you previously had to hide in a cough: say that someone is talking bullshit. (We might say that, after Frankfurt, “bullshit” is a technical term.)"

The South African press also took notice, especially in 2006 after a public lecture entitled Our vision and our mission: Bullshit, assertion and belief by Prof. Kotzee.



South African readers can get On Bullshit here from Kalahari.net.

What then is "bullshit" when it is not the excrement of a male bovine? It is clear that it is human communication of some kind, whether verbal or written, and that its purpose is to deceive. Animals also deceive, but do they bullshit?

Kotzee distinguishes between "Frankfurt-bullshit" and "Cohen-bullshit" (See Cohen reference in Kotzee's article).

According to Kotzee:

"... Frankfurt holds that bullshit involves a “deliberate misrepresentation”; like lying, bullshitting amounts to someone trying to deceive another. Bullshitting involves deceptive intent, making whether an utterance is bullshit dependent on the state of mind of the bullshitter rather than on features of the utterance itself. (p. 3)"

while,

"Cohen-bullshit is bullshit with a life of its own and is bullshit independently of the bullshitters (sic) intent to deceive. (Cohen-bullshit) ... is a species of nonsense: specifically, it is 'unclarifiable nonsense'. (pp. 7-8)"

Kotzee points out that for both Frankfurt's bullshit (deception) and Cohen's bullshit(nonsense), the question whether someone can believe their own bullshit, holds a problem. In Frankfurt's case, it would require self-deception, which Kotzee believes is unlikely to be conscious. With Cohen-bullshit, being nonsense, the bullshitter according to Kotzee, also cannot believe his/her own bullshit.

How can these ideas be applied to quacks and charlatans? These two terms are often used interchangeably, but as the definitions below show, charlatan has a stronger connotation with fraud.

Dr. Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch defines quackery as the promotion of unsubstantiated methods that lack a scientifically plausible rationale. Wictionary defines a charlatan as a malicious trickster; a fake person, especially one who deceives for personal profit.

In reality, it must be said that it will often be practically impossible to distinguish quacks from charlatans. Let us do so for present purposes, however. Then it would seem that quacks would be more inclined to Cohen-bullshit and charlatans more to Frankfurt-bullshit. With the charlatan the line between bullshit and outright lies and fraud may be a thin one.

Read these links to Quackometer and Neurologica
to see good examples of the application of the theory of bullshit to quackery.

Also see Neil Postman's Bullshit and the art of crap-detection

The concept of "occurring"

Many years ago, probably in the early 1990's, I attended a clinical neuropsychology workshop presented by Dr Muriel Lezak. She is the writer of one of the foremost books in clinical neuropsychology, Neuropsychological Assessment.



At the workshop Dr. Lezak introduced an idea that I found useful ever since, the concept of "occurring". She related it to the disinhibition often found in persons with pre-frontal lobe injuries. Appreciation of the inappropriateness of their disinhibited behaviour and the effect thereof on others "just does not occur" to them.

The concept of "occurring" is useful in helping parents and teachers understand the cognitive effects of brain injuries and some developmental disorders on children. I believe that the concept can be extended to explain in simple terms the misunderstandings that often arise due to sexual, cultural and generational differences. We often do not appreciate the extent to which differences in culture, education and life experiences influence our perceptions, habits and the understanding of our environment. If the neural capacity, memory trace or access to it, or specific knowledge does not exist or is destroyed, a simple "it just did not occur to him/her", may sometimes be the key to understanding and acceptance.

Brain Gym faces a Perfect Storm!

I keep getting enquiries about Brain Gym, also known as Educational Kinesiology. Its scientific validity and effectiveness have been questioned for years, but it carried on regardless, spreading like wildfire in British schools and to a lesser extent, South African schools.

Then Dr Ben Goldacre, writing the column Bad Science for The Guardian, took a hand. His caustic questioning of Brain Gym triggered a torrent of derisive comment from scientists and the public about the Brain Gym organisation and its methods. It was exposed as a pseudoscientific educational technique with a nonsensical theory base and very little evidence of effectiveness. As the furore spread, the technique's originator, Dr Paul Dennison, was eventually forced to concede that it's unscientific.

Here is Dennison on British television being confronted about his technique:



I have this statement issued by Brain Gym UK, courtesy of Dr Aust's Spleen:

"The UK Educational Kinesiology Trust makes no claims to understand the neuroscience of Brain Gym®. The author has advised that the simple explanations in the Brain Gym Teachers Edition about how the movements work are hypothetical and based on advice from a neurobiologist at the time the books were written."

I've tried to collect important recent information on Brain Gym in this one post for anyone who may wish to learn more. Here follow some online resources that provide information on Brain Gym controversy, with one salient quote from each. I'll start with their official website, then progressing from academic articles to blog posts (the links marked with asterisks are the more scientific ones):

Brain Gym official website

"Educational Kinesiology (or Edu-K) is the study and application of natural movement experiences to facilitate learning."

The Wikipedia entry

"Its theoretical foundation and claimed results have been thoroughly discredited."

* Hyatt, K.J. 2007. Brain Gym: Building stronger brains or wishful thinking? Remedial and Special Education, Vol. 28, No. 2, 117-124.

"Educators are encouraged to become informed consumers of research and to avoid implementing programming for which there is neither a credible theoretical nor a sound research basis."

* Howard-Jones, P., Pollard, A., et al. 2006. Neuroscience and education: Issues and opportunities. London: The Economic and Social Research Council.

"The pseudo-scientific terms that are used to explain how this works, let alone the concepts they express, are unrecognisable within the domain of neuroscience."

* Sense about science: Brain Gym

"Brain Gym is a programme of teacher-led physical exercises which are claimed to improve the cognitive abilities of primary school children. These exercises are being taught with pseudoscientific explanations that undermine science teaching and mislead children about how their bodies work."

* Dr Steven Novella. Brain Gym: This is your mind on pseudoscience. Neurologica Blog

"Unfortunately, Edu-K is little more than pseudoscientific wishful thinking and an example of researchers who refused to abandon their (lucrative) claims simply because they are wrong."

Experts dismiss educational claims of Brain Gym programme

Two leading scientific societies and a charity that promotes scientific understanding have written to every local education authority in the the UK to warn that a programme of exercises being promoted to help child learning relies on "pseudoscientific explanations" and a "bizarre understanding" of how the body works.

Brain Gym claims to be withdrawn

"The creators of an educational exercise programme used in hundreds of schools in England have agreed to withdraw unsubstantiated scientific claims in their teaching materials. ... Paul Dennison, a Californian educator who created the programme, admitted that many claims in his teacher’s guide were based on his “hunches” and were not proper science."

Here are some of the Ben Goldacre's posts that sparked the controversy, in chronological order:

Work out your mind

"In an ideal world, we would be teaching children enough science in school that they were able to stand up to a teacher who was spouting this kind of rubbish."

Brain Gym - Name & Shame

"Because telling stories about fairies and monsters is fine, but lying to children about science is wrong. ... With Brain Gym, the same teacher who tells children that blood is pumped around the lungs and then the body by the heart, is also telling them that when they do “The Energizer” exercise (far too complicated to describe) then “this back and forward movement of the head increases the circulation to the frontal lobe for greater comprehension and rational thinking."

Banging your head repeatedly against the brick wall of teacher stupidity helps increase flow of blood to your frontal lobes

"Brain Gym continues to produce more email than almost any other subject: usually it is from teachers, eager to defend the practice, but also from children, astonished at the sheer stupidity of what they are being taught."

My own previous posts that touched somehow on Brain Gym were:

Badscience smites Brain Gym

Loyal dissent

Poor misled consultants

Not only teachers are gullible

Kluge in decision making

Professor Gary Marcus's book "Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind", sounds fascinating.

This is part of the review from Publisher's Weekly, as found at Amazon:

"Why are we subject to irrational beliefs, inaccurate memories, even war? We can thank evolution, Marcus says, which can only tinker with structures that already exist, rather than create new ones: Natural selection... tends to favor genes that have immediate advantages rather than long-term value. Marcus ..., refers to this as kluge, a term engineers use to refer to a clumsily designed solution to a problem. Thus, memory developed in our prehominid ancestry to respond with immediacy, rather than accuracy; one result is erroneous eyewitness testimony in courtrooms. In describing the results of studies of human perception, cognition and beliefs, Marcus encapsulates how the mind is contaminated by emotions, moods, desires, goals, and simple self-interest.... The mind's fragility, he says, is demonstrated by mental illness, which seems to have no adaptive purpose."

I've not yet had a chance to read it, but Jeremy Dean at PsyBlog has a useful summary of how Marcus suggests we overcome the deficiencies of the human mind in decision making (see descriptions on Jeremy's blog):

1. Whenever possible, consider alternatives

2. Reframe the question

3. Correlation doesn't equal causation

4. Never forget the sample size

5. Anticipate your impulsivity

6. Make contingency plans

7. Make important decisions when relaxed and rested

8. Weigh costs against benefits

9. Imagine your decision will be spot-checked

10. Distance yourself

11. Beware the vivid, personal and anecdotal

12. All decisions are not equal

13. Be rational!

Woolly-thinker's guide to rhetoric

This is from Butterflies and Wheels via Jeffrey Ricker at PESTS. It is a tongue-in-the-cheek guide to using rhetoric to amuse and confuse. A fuller description of each tactic can be found here at Butterflies and Wheels.

The Woolly-Thinker's Guide to Rhetoric

* Be Courageous
* Be dismissive
* Cheers and catcalls
* Claiming is Succeeding
* Clumsy sarcasm
* Define words in your own special way
* Develop sudden hearing loss
* Do a Procrustes
* Embrace contradiction
* Emotional Blackmail
* Evasive Tactics
* Fly under the radar
* Go Ahead, Contradict Yourself
* Histrionics
* Imply
* Mention the Armchair
* Moral One-upmanship
* Pat yourself on the back
* Pave With Good Intentions
* Play the theory card
* Pretend to be amused
* Repetition
* Say the methodology was flawed
* Say the outcome was predictable
* Translate
* Translate Even More When the Subject is Religion
* Use 'Obscure' as a First Name
* Use obscurity

Motivational talk is cheap

Conference organisers often seem to believe that their delegates need motivation and that it's best supplied by motivational speakers. I've just returned from an annual conference on cerebral palsy. As has often been the case in the past, the keynote event was a motivational speaker. I fortunately found something else urgent and pressing to do and was spared the fake "inspiring" attitude and the usual inane, tired cliches - "think outside the box"; "if you can think it, you can do it"; "if you can visualise it, you can have it", as was reported to me later.

The best (or worst) I've experienced was at a similar conference in Cape Town some years ago. The Minister of Education of the Western Cape province was the opening and keynote speaker. He had a "pleasant" surprise for us. He graced us with his presence and wisdom, but had brought along not only his own motivational speaker, but also his personal motivational singer. I sat through the motivational speaker with some difficulty, but when the singer burst loose found some pressing business outside (as did half the other delegates).

I suppose that there is a need for good motivational speakers, but I have been unable to find evidence as to the effectiveness of motivational talks. My experience has been that a good motivational speaker provides a short-lived "high" and some short-lived good intentions.

School children tend to be more easily influenced and suggestible - possibly making motivational talks by good role models more effective than for adults. I would suggest that the most effective motivational speaker would be someone who has achieved highly in another field, i.e. a sportsperson, disabled person, soldier, scientist, explorer, etc. This could give children and young people heroes and role models other than drug-popping popstars and celebrities who are famous because they are famous.

The science of thinking smarter

The Harvard Business Review has this excellent take on neuroscience and management by Dr John Medina in The science of thinking smarter. In the article some telling statements are made about the appropriateness of so-called brain based management:

"... there’s a lot of hype about the benefits that recent developments in brain science might bring—for example, the popular notion that executives can become better leaders by emulating the “management” secrets of the human brain. Unfortunately, if you truly emulated the management secrets of the brain, you would create an organization that ran something like the stock-market floor in the closing minutes of Black Friday."

and ...

"I would encourage businesspeople to be a little bit skeptical about what they read in the popular press. Occasionally, I’ll pick up an article in a magazine that says the new brain science can improve the practice of business, and I’ll say, “Really?” I speak several dialects of brain science and feel comfortable in behavioral, cellular, and molecular biology, and I know very little about how brain science can yet be applied to business. Obviously we all have brains and we use them all the time in business. But it’s just too early to tell how the revolution in neuroscience is going to affect the way executives run their organizations."

I believe that these statements are as true for school education as they are for management practices. Both education and management consultants have jumped on the brainwagon and are riding it for all they're worth - and through the gullibility of their clients, they're worth a lot (pun intended).

Dr Medina nevertheless has some established facts that he considers potentially useful for executives (teachers also take note!):

The effect of stress

He points out that the that the brain and the body are adapted to deal with acute stress, but not with chronic stress. The hippocampus is especially vulnerable to the effects of stress, which leads to decreases in cognitive performance in highly stressed people. This of course must impact on the performance of stressed managers. Dr Medina indicates that neuroscience cannot yet predict which people will be resilient to the effects of stress, but is starting to develope some idea of the genetic makeup of stress vulnerable people.

Is memory reliable?

According to Dr Medina, the brain is geared to survival and will therefore change the perception of reality to serve the purpose of survival. The brain does not record reality reliably, but both short and long term memory are easily modifiable. The way to "fix" long term memory is through repetition, specifically elaborative rehearsal.

Are our childhood experiences our destiny?

Education has many meaningless slogans, but Dr Medina shows that one at least is true: "We are lifelong learners". He points out the greater optimism currently about brain plasticity up to old age. Activity and stimulation rewires and expands the brain. The implication is that our childhood experiences do not determine our destiny. This is a very complex issue, however, and may need to be looked into in more detail in future posting.

Is exercise good for the brain?

Medina strongly supports exercise as beneficial for brain health, specifically because of the benefit to the vascular system. He indicates that the majority of Alzheimer's cases are probably not genetic, but rather the result of multiple minor infarcts.

Is there merit in psychological testing, such as the Myers-Briggs?

Here again a direct quote from Dr Medina seems appropriate:

"I have a very specific objection to how these tests are sometimes hyped. I’ve heard people claim that tests such as Myers-Briggs are based on “sound neurological principles”—that brain science proves their validity, or even that these tests were designed with brain science in mind. The fact is that most of these tests—including IQ tests—were developed long before we knew very much about how the brain processes anything."

What scientists really mean ...

I'm sure I saw something similar before, but this spoof on scientific reporting from Genomicron is good for a laugh (and hopefully not too often true!). I list some of the better ones:

The statement	What it really means
It has long been known...	I haven't bothered to look up the reference
It is thought that ...	I think so
It is generally thought that ...	A couple of other people think so,too
It is not unreasonable to assume...	If you believe this, you'll believe anything
Typical results are shown	The best results are shown
Three samples were chosen for further study	The others didn't make sense, so we ignored them
Results obtained with the second sample must be interpreted with caution	I dropped it on the floor but managed to scoop most of it up
Correct within an order of magnitude	Incorrect
Stringent controls were implemented	My advisor was watching
I thank X for assistance with the experiments and Y for useful discussions on the interpretation of the data	X did the experiment and Y explained it to me

Teaching thinking & De Bono

David Perks, writing for Spiked, is skeptical about the explicit teaching of thinking skills to high school learners in Britain. He criticizes the influence of management training ideas on school education and the resulting de-emphasis of the importance of knowledge. Perks specifically questions the introduction of Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats methodology into schools.

I do not know just how central De Bono's methods would be in the teaching of thinking skills in British schools. What I do know is that whatever happens in American and British schools have a high probability of migrating to South African schools.

That considered, I had another look at De Bono's concepts and techniques. From what I saw, De Bono's techniques would be useful as a limited part of a general programme to enhance critical thinking within schools. Critical thinking, however, forms just a small part of De Bono's Six Thinking Hats methodology, the black hat. Perks characterises his view of critical thinking thus:

"In fact, argument and criticism – the tools of philosophers and thinkers in any serious field of knowledge – are to be dispensed with in the de Bono outlook, since they apparently lead to a ‘dangerous arrogance’."

Francis Wheen, in his book "How mumbo-jumbo conquered the world", quotes De Bono as follows:

"Without wishing to boast, this is the first new way of thinking to be developed for 2 400 years since the days of Plato, Socrates and Aritotle."

On his own website De Bono is quite derogatory about Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, referring to them as the "Greek Gang of Three". A good review on De Bono's views and methods can be found at Think Differently!!, the blog of Dr. Lauchlan MacKinnon. Evidence to support De Bono's methods is somewhat lacking, considering the period it's been used. Some mainly anecdotal evidence can be found on his website.

De Bono has not always been well received in the press, as the following quote by William Harston shows:

"Well, the English language has a word that means: 'I have listened to what you have to say and I understand the points you are trying to make, but I find your argument utterly unconvincing.'That word is 'bullshit', and this book is full of it."

In conclusion, some of De Bono's methods seem useful, but hardly justify all the hype. An excellent book on teaching learners to think was available in 1936, why does the wheel need to be re-invented? I'm referring to the book "Clear Thinking" by R.W. Jepson, at that time the headmaster of Mercer's School, Holborn. Jepson's book can form the basis of a good programme to teach thinking - and it's free online!

The Son-Of-A-Bitch Mouse

Follow this link, it's brilliant!

Son-Of-A-Bitch Mouse Solves Maze Researchers Spent Months Building

IOWA CITY, IA—The mouse briskly traversed the complicated wooden maze in under 30 seconds, roughly 1/8,789,258 the time it took to secure funding for the experiment.

Well what can you say, mice and men (sorry, people) ruin the best laid plans. Where, however, could this mouse have come from? A conspiracy maybe? A recently exposed quack trying to get back at science? How about the mice from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Perhaps the Vogons are ready to demolish Earth again?

Or maybe it was just an exceptional mouse, the result of decades of selective scientific breeding? Or worse yet, the result of genetic manipulation? These darned scientists must be careful they don't breed a mouse that is more intelligent than they are.

Another word of warning to these scientists. The last paragraph in The Onion's report reads as follows:

"Taking into account my past successful experiments with chimpanzees, it is my final analysis that we are dealing with one smart little f...r," said team member Dr. Russell Sutton, who has already applied for an additional grant to study cognitive learning in the same mouse. "I wonder if he'll be so smart without a functioning hippocampus."

If the world has'nt been demolished yet, Dr. Sutton had better breed some more of these mice and run a decent scientific study. He must remember anecdotes and case studies count for squat.

Not only teachers are gullible

Teachers in Britain have come in for a lot of flak lately about gullibility and practicing pseudoscience nonsense in their classrooms. This came about mainly through their involvement with Brain Gym. Brain Gym (also called Educational Kinesiology) is practiced in schools in many Western countries, including South Africa, so the accusations of gullibility really applies much wider than Britain.

One must be careful about singling out teachers. Brain Gym is also practiced by occupational therapists, physiotherapists and psychologists, all of whom should really know better. Brain Gym has also targeted the corporate world and have found no shortage of gullible victims. A businessman or engineer doing Lazy 8's or pressing their brain buttons, the mind boggles, but it happens!

This is the telling response from a teacher calling herself "scarycurlgirl" and commenting in Charlie Brooker's column "Comment is Free" in The Guardian:

Everyone's a bloody expert on education aren't they? Being a teacher these days is about constantly dealing with the vomit that government calls policy, whilst defending yourself against wildly ambitious parental expectations akin to making numerous high quality silk purses out of frankly unsuitable sow's ears. Teachers do Brain Gym for a number of reasons, one of which might possibly be because they've been told to do it. And if you're a teacher and you don't do what you're told to do, you get shat on.

Education these days is like playing soccer with a rugby ball. Just when you think you've got it, it bounces off in a completely random direction. And just as you get near the goal, someone tells you you're actually plying netball. And the crowd REALLY hate you, because they could do it so much better.

And yes, Brain Gym has got to be bollocks, otherwise I am really going to have to look carefully at what I teach in Biology in the future.

Scarycurlgirl certainly does'nt pull her punches, but many teachers will find much to agree with in her views.

Poor misled consultants

Educational quackery has had a hard time lately. Questionable approaches such as learning styles, multiple intelligences, facilitated communication and Brain Gym have come in for a lot of negative comment and bad publicity. It has been said that there's no such thing as bad publicity, but let's trust that parents and schools take note this time and seriously start demanding evidence before they commit to questionable educational solutions.

Spare a thought, however, for some misled consultants selling snake oil educational products. Many of them were duped by the unscrupulous originators of these products. I have come across teachers who were retrenched and then used their retrenchment packages to acquire training up to the required level in the quacking granfalloons (franchises) that they bought into. Having spent their measly severance pay on nonsense, they now had no option but to continue. Yes, they should have known better, but critical thinking and evidence supported practice have never featured strongly in teacher training.

Even sadder are young people whose parents paid for them to do courses that sounded scientific and that they hoped would set them up as entrepreneurs in the burgeoning market for educational solutions. Neither they nor their parents had the background or training to distinguish science from pseudoscience.

I've seen this happening especially in the brain based pseudosciences. The charlatans who sell neuro-nonsense know only too well the allure of neuroscience.

A quacking granfalloon

I have referred in a number of posts to a quacking granfalloon and each time have had to explain myself. This is what I previously wrote on the topic of granfalloons in a post entitled "Whole-brain half-wittedness":

They are often what I would like to call inbred granfalloons. A granfalloon is a group of people, often hierarchically organised, that associate around a meaningless, fabricated premise. The granfalloon would be established by the leader (or guru) and members would be limited to approved training and literature. The guru may be well aware that his or her product is nonsense, but the faithful followers or practitioners are kept in the dark. The quaint American expression "mushroomed - kept in the dark and fed manure", seems appropriate.

A more comprehensive description of a granfalloon is to be found in Anthony Pratkanis' excellent"How to sell a pseudoscience":

Establish a Granfalloon

Where would a leader be without something to lead? Our next tactic supplies the answer: Establish what Kurt Vonnegut terms a "granfalloon," a proud and meaningless association of human beings. One of social psychology's most remarkable findings is the ease with which granfalloons can be created. For example, the social psychologist Henri Tajfel merely brought subjects into his lab, flipped a coin, and randomly assigned them to be labeled either Xs or Ws. At the end of the study, total strangers were acting as if those in their granfalloon were their close kin and those in the other group were their worst enemies.

Granfalloons are powerful propaganda devices because they are easy to create and, once established, the granfalloon defines social reality and maintains social identities. Information is dependent on the granfalloon. Since most granfalloons quickly develop out-groups, criticisms can be attributed to those "evil ones" outside the group, who are thus stifled. To maintain a desired social identity, such as that of a seeker or a New Age rebel, one must obey the dictates of the granfalloon and its leaders.

The classic séance can be viewed as an ad-hoc granfalloon. Note what happens as you sit in the dark and hear a thud. You are dependent on the group led by a medium for the interpretation of this sound. "What is it? A knee against the table or my long lost Uncle Ned? The group believes it is Uncle Ned. Rocking the boat would be impolite. Besides, I came here to be a seeker."

Essential to the success of the granfalloon tactic is the creation of a shared social identity. In creating this identity, here are some things you might want to include:

(a) rituals and symbols (e.g., a dowser's rod, secret symbols, and special ways of preparing food): these not only create an identity, but provide items for sale at a profit.

(b) jargon and beliefs that only the in-group understands and accepts (e.g., thetans are impeded by engrams, you are on a cusp with Jupiter rising): jargon is an effective means of social control since it can be used to frame the interpretation of events.

(c) shared goals (e.g., to end all war, to sell the faith and related products, or to realize one's human potential): such goals not only define the group, but motivate action as believers attempt to reach them.

(d) shared feelings (e.g., the excitement of a prophecy that might appear to be true or the collective rationalization of strange beliefs to others): shared feelings aid in the we feeling.

(e) specialized information (e.g., the U.S. government is in a conspiracy to cover up UFOs): this helps the target feel special because he or she is "in the know."

(f) enemies (e.g., alternative medicine opposing the AMA and the FDA, subliminal-tape companies spurning academic psychologists, and spiritualists condemning Randi and other investigators): enemies are very important because you as a pseudoscientist will need scapegoats to blame for your problems and failures.