Debunked!: ESP, Telekinesis, and Other Pseudoscience [Hardcover]

Georges Charpak (Author), Henri Broch (Author), Bart K. Holland (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 25, 2004

Can you walk over red-hot charcoal without burning your feet? Appear to stop the beating of your heart? Bend spoons using the power of your mind? In Debunked! Nobel Prize winner Georges Charpak and physics professor Henri Broch team up to show you the tricks of the trade and sleight of hand that keep astrologers, TV psychics, and spoon benders in business.

Using only the simplest of science, the authors explore the effectiveness of horoscopes—the blander the better—and why, with a television audience in the millions, any strange, unlikely prediction is almost certain to come true. If such insider information does not impress your colleagues, why not pierce your tongue with a skewer or demonstrate your eerie powers by using telepathy and the telephone to get a distant friend to intuit the number and suit of a card picked at random. Charpak and Broch show you how.

Not merely an expose of magic tricks, this book demonstrates how pseudoscientists use science, statistics, and psychology to bamboozle an audience—sometimes for fun, sometimes for profit. During the most scientifically advanced period in human history, belief in the paranormal and the supernatural is alarmingly common. Entertaining and enlightening, Debunked! is the antidote, vigorously asserting the virtues of doubt, skepticism, curiosity, and scientific knowledge. This lucid translation makes the arguments clear, understandable, and a pleasure to read.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Written in a jaunty tone, this excursion upon the seas of superstitious belief is a light, amusing voyage. Had the authors aimed their Nobel-caliber guns (Charpak received the 1992 physics award) at astrology and mental telepathy and blown them to smithereens, such bludgeoning would not have held the humor in the more adroit tack they do take. Charpak and Broch instead examine those fields within their own terms of reference for signs of validity. For example, astrology, allegedly able to determine human fate according to signs of the zodiac, is bogus if only because the precession of the earth's axis shifts those signs over time. Looking at the psychic power enabling one to levitate, walk safely across red-hot coals, or make astounding predictions, the authors point out how physics or simple probability explains things more convincingly than do amazing brain waves. Exposing the gullibility charlatans rely on, the authors' sardonic spirit will amuse readers even as it inducts them into the scientific mode of thought. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Debunked! is short and highly readable. It tells good stories about human foolishness masquerading as science. It offers useful assistance to citizens trying to tell the difference between sense and nonsense... Charpak and Broch have done a fine job, sweeping out the money-changers from the temple of science and exposing their tricks. I recommend this book to believers and skeptics alike. It is good entertainment, whether or not you believe in astrology.

(Freeman J. Dyson New York Review of Books 2004)

Just as James Bond needed his Q to survive his enemies, so every working scientist needs this slim volume. At some time, I am sure, everyone will have found themselves in a sticky situation in which they are trapped at a party by a boring individual endlessly droning on about astrology, telekinesis or some other form of pseudoscientific gobbledegook. Like the gadgets produced by 007's personal boffin, this book provides a means of escape. It offers a simple scientific explanation for a wide range of supposedly paranormal phenomenon. Some are shown up as mere conjuring tricks, while beliefs such as astrology can be readily demolished by anyone with a passing knowledge of probability theory, let alone astronomy. The book arms the reader with arguments that can be tossed into some future conversation, quelling such disciples of irrationality while you make for the door.

(John Bonner New Scientist 2004)

Written in a jaunty tone, this excursion upon the seas of superstitious belief is a light, amusing voyage... Looking at the psychic power enabling one to levitate, walk safely across red-hot coals, or make astounding predictions, the authors point out how physics or simple probability explain things more convincingly than do amazing brain waves. Exposing the gullibility charlatans rely on, the authors' sardonic spirit will amuse readers even as it inducts them into the scientific mode of thought.

(Booklist 2004)

Delightful... [Charpak and Broch] show how the application of probability theory to such events is enlightening.

(Michael Shermer Scientific American 2004)

We have here a new book by two eminent scientists—three if you count the translator—that emphatically debunkes ESP, telekinesis, telepathy, dowsing and numerous other similar magic stunts.

(John Goodspeed Easton Star Democrat 2005)

The authors' reasoning, which includes all kinds of theoretical subtleties ('nutations,' 'precession of the equinoxes'), is quite beautiful.

(Jim Holt Wall Street Journal 2005)

Entertaining and amusing.

(Elizabeth Clements Symmetry 2004)

Charpak and Broch use their academic training to examine the logic and rationality of each case they dissect. I'm pleased to see the excellent book they've written... To become properly informed about a wide spectrum of paranormal and supernatural claims, one needs to be primed on the difference between real science and pseudoscience.

(James Randi Physics Today )

One of those books I wish I'd written.

(James Randi Physics Today )

This book's motto might have been taken from Goya: 'The sleep of reason produces monsters.' The authors have a serious agenda—a critique of belief in the paranormal and the supernatural, and the irrational behavior of those who are taken in by such beliefs—but address it with a light and good-humored touch. The book provides entertaining and amusing reading while bringing about an understanding of how the simple application of probability theory and science explains 'amazing' coincidences and abilities.

(John M. Charap, Queen Mary University of London, author of Explaining the Universe )

I enjoyed reading this book... and was particularly interested to learn about purportedly paranormal events that have not been covered elsewhere.

(Physics World )

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 168 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (March 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801878675
• ISBN-13: 978-0801878671
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #260,459 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Explanations of the Incredible, April 13, 2004

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Debunked!: ESP, Telekinesis, and Other Pseudoscience (Hardcover)

Does the paranormal exist? Is there some basis for ESP, telekinesis, astrology, and the other beliefs to which many so tightly cling? We cannot prove that they are nonsense, but we can show evidence at least that they are highly questionable and that they are used by hoaxers for fame and profit, especially when those hoaxers pretend to be taking a scientific stance. A wonderful lesson that The Amazing Randi and Penn and Teller have taught us is that magicians can make almost anything happen, or _appear_ to happen, and that scientists can get fooled watching these tricks just as well as Las Vegas audiences can. A happy, short, and informative book, _Debunked! ESP, Telekinesis, and Other Pseudoscience_ (Johns Hopkins University Press), by Nobel prizewinner George Charpak and his colleague in scientific investigation of the paranormal Henri Broch, is a plea for intelligent avoidance of deception. It is translated from the French, but don't worry; the translator, Bart K. Holland, has himself written about the probability errors that people are prone to, and has an interesting preface to tell how he faithfully worked on the translation.

Much of the book is devoted to magic tricks. There is the problem of the magician who can do a good trick, and claim it is no such thing; it is a miracle, the suspension of the laws of physics at his command. The authors want readers to know some of these tricks; if they can show you how keys can be magically bent (like rabbits can be magically produced), it makes no sense to assume that the bending is a miracle. Uri Geller is terrific at key bending, but so is author Henri Broch. And he gives away the secret here; it is a physical process no more supernatural than using a lever, but done in a hidden manner, the way all magicians do things. Geller claims a miracle; Broch claims a trick. Quite simply, if both performers produce bent keys in some covert way, whose claim is more credible? There is a wonderful ESP trick given here, illustrating the principle of surreptitiously conveying information so that it looks as if you have telepathically sent it. You can learn to stop your heart just like the yogis do, or at least you can make it seem so. There is an explanation of how the television show _Mysteries_ played up the paranormal origin of water that kept accumulating in an ancient sarcophagus, when there was a good scientific explanation already published.

The book is packed with many other examples: the satanic face that appeared in the smoke from the World Trade Center, firewalking, divining rods, amazing coincidences, and more. The authors are amused by these follies, they are happy to demonstrate physical explanations for them, but they are also indignant. They are convinced that minds poisoned by pseudoscience are more tractable by those in power. "Thus we are witnessing a mystification of knowledge, which results in a concept of the world in which many things are forever outside the understanding - and the control - of most people." Clear thinking by the public, they remind us, is vital for the action of democracy. Choices must be guided by rational thought, as much as possible. The book wonderfully proselytizes for the power of rational, scientific investigation. "Rationality, too, can lead to error," the authors remind us, "but a lot less often than ignorance and superstition will."

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Chaotic!, August 22, 2004

By 

Rory Coker (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Debunked!: ESP, Telekinesis, and Other Pseudoscience (Hardcover)

For perhaps 2 decades, at the University of Nice, Prof. Broch has taught a course analyzing the claims of pseudoscience. He has also published a number of books on the topic; this is the only one ever to be translated into English. It may be the last. I assume this particular specimen was chosen because the co-author is Nobel prizewinning physicist Georges Charpak, but it was difficult for me to detect Charpak's contributions.

The bad news is that the book looks as if it were assembled by Prof. Broch sitting down and pulling material pretty much at random from the presentations in his courses. The text is never lucid and sometimes lapses into outright incoherence; I found portions to be completely unreadable.

I would recommend skipping the prologue altogether. Chapter 1 begins with Astrology and the Forer Effect; most of the discussion makes sense but illustrations and tables often don't. I would, for example, like to see someone make any sense of the table on page 12, particularly in view of the instructions to select "one box at random from each of the four columns numbered 2 to 4." Of course the columns are not numbered, but if you reread the instructions you'll see that could hardly matter! The whole book is like this. The chapter suddenly veers from astrology to a "telephone psychic" mindreading trick. Then suddenly there are very brief discussions of antiquated levitation illusions, sitting on broken glass shards and beds of nails, a 500-year-old version of "skewer through tongue," firewalking, and one of Broch's classroom demonstrations with nitinol wire. Throughout, when books are mentioned, the reference is almost always to a French-language edition, even when the book was first published in English; can you say, "no editing?"

Chapter 2 begins with a discussion of various "paradoxes" of probability, and it is probably the best-written and most lucid portion of the book. The chapter then veers off into "the man in the moon" illusion, the human tendency to see patterns in randomness.

Chapter 3 touches on dowsing, and then comes the now-expected swerve into a disconnected topic, in this case the "mysterious" presence of water in a sarcophagus at Arles-sur-Tech in the Pyrenees. In the aftermath of the fairly non-coherent discussion, about all I came away with was that French TV "documentary" producers and writers are just as uninterested in fact as British and U.S. TV "documentary" producers and writers. Then there's another swerve into the pseudoscience of obtaining water in large quantities by "condensation" from the air. Then there is yet another swerve, into public fears of radioactivity. I suspect this is the only portion of the text Charpak had much input into, but it does not read any more lucidly than the rest of the book. The basic point of the discussion, to the extent I could make any sense of it, is that activists and the public irrationally worry about "artifical" and highly localized sources of radiation while seemingly being totally ignorant of natural sources spread over the entire globe which provide doses 100 or 1,000 times those of the "artifical" sources.

Chapter 4 seems to deal with the penetration of occult beliefs into French academia. But maybe not. As in the other chapters, the focus, if any, is fuzzy at best. Chapter 5 turns on the apparently subtle fact that being tolerant of others' beliefs is good, but being tolerant of obvious factual errors is bad. The book ends with a brief appendix on calculating probabilities.

I am sure that Prof. Broch teaches an excellent course and indeed I wish I could sit in on it. But this particular book is going to find few if any readers in the English-speaking world.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars explains mechanics, not people, June 12, 2005

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Neal Alexander (Cali, Colombia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Debunked!: ESP, Telekinesis, and Other Pseudoscience (Hardcover)

Nobel prizewinners can be excused for being self-satisfied, but that doesn't help the style or substance of this book.

Some parts are undeniably thought-provoking. On astrology, let's start with the fact that the earth makes one complete circuit of the sun in one year: right? Wrong. Oh. At that point I had to go back a few pages and start again. We choose the length of the year so that seasons don't drift round the calendar. Useful reference points are the equinoxes, when the earth's axis is perpendicular to the plane in which it rotates the sun. But that axis also swivels very slowly, so this year's equinox doesn't occur at exactly the same point on the orbit as did last year's. That means that the constellations _do_ gradually drift through the calendar. So their pattern at the birth of someone in, say, August in classical times is different to that of someone born in August this year. The authors do admit, however, that a minority of astrologers take this into account. And the feasible idea that season of birth could be associated with character traits is not addressed.

Other sections explain, in a tiresomely arch style, how to play pseudo-paranormal tricks on your friends. And others show, at some length, that apparently extraordinary events - - eg light bulbs blowing at the command of a TV psychic - - are really to be expected when you take into account the number of people involved. One of the better chapters is a case study of a French stone sarcophagus which seems to spontaneously fill with water. The most interesting aspect is perhaps not the explanation itself, but subsequent TV programs' persistent denial that one has been found.

The text would've benefited from better editing and translation. For example, when describing Conan Doyle's interest in the paranormal, it's a waste of time including the well-worn joke about Sherlock Holmes camping. And sentences like 'It was so good!' don't work in English.

The dominant mode of argument is the rhetorical question, eg 'How can such stupid things influence anyone of even average education?', after a quote from L Ron Hubbard. The fact is that they _do_ influence such people, but the authors lack either the imagination or inclination to try to find out why.

'Multinationals' are blamed for promoting the occult as a new kind of mass opiate, but none are named: the only specific example in this section is public TV. The authors don't seem to have noticed that business spends billions on orthodox scientific R&D, while 'New Age' ideas are spread by enthusiastic amateurs operating by grass roots networks, fly posting, and cramped stores in low rent neighbourhoods. If the authors are really as concerned as they profess about democracy, they should try to answer their own questions as to why so many curious people don't find answers in science.