Debunked! ESP, Telekinesis, and Other Pseudoscience , Georges Charpak and Henri Broch (translated from French by Bart K. Holland)Johns Hopkins U. Press, Baltimore, MD, 2004. $25.00 (136 pp.). ISBN 0-8018-7867-5
With the media so full of glowing accounts that deal with nonsense such as children with x-ray vision, we need to be better armed and informed. Knowledge helps filter out whatever truth might be contained in an attractive story about a spoon being bent by staring at it or about some new guru who has the secret to eternal life or can communicate with the next “UFO” that darts across the sky.
Debunked! ESP, Telekinesis, and Other Pseudoscience by Georges Charpak and Henri Broch is one of those books I wish I’d written. Charpak is a physicist at CERN who won the 1992 Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of several particle detectors, and Henri Broch is a physics professor at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis in France who also teaches zetetics, the scientific investigation of paranormal phenomena. The authors approach the subjects as dedicated and qualified scientists. I, on the other hand, have to do it from a different direction. My expertise lies in the art of deception. I come from the conjuring profession, and I apply my knowledge of trickery to unravel the deceptions that cunning fakers use to deceive and swindle their victims. 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.
Debunked! was originally published as Devenez sorciers, devenez savants in 2002. I particularly appreciate the authors’ prologue, “Sorcerers and Scientists,” which prepares the reader to assess their analyses. 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, and on the general characteristics and history of nonsense and myth.
The chapters are respectively titled “The First Steps in the Initiation,” “Amazing Coincidences,” “Let’s Play Detective,” “The Right to Dreams and Clarity,” and “A New Millennium Dawns.” At the end of the book is an appendix on how to calculate probabilities. Every subject, from fire walking—which needs only a rational explanation—to other matters that call for a better understanding of natural phenomena and interpretation, is handled in such a manner that one can understand and further pursue the true nature of claims made. My only regret with Debunked! is that it lacks an index. But perhaps the publishers intended readers to leaf through more pages to discover what they are looking for.
Local libraries, which no doubt have a full assortment of pro-paranormal books, need to have Debunked! as well. Consider donating a copy to your nearest public library.
James Randi is president of the James Randi Educational Foundation in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The foundation, which offers $1 million to any person who can prove he or she has supernatural or paranormal powers, provides information to media, researchers, students, and others about pseudoscience and paranormal claims.
