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Pseudoscience
of Animals and Plants
A Teacher's Guide to Non-Scientific Beliefs
by
John Richard Schrock
WATER
DOUSING WITH WILLOW OR OTHER Y-SHAPED PLANT ROOTS OR BRANCHES
What
community doesn’t have adherents to this claim–and they
have their successful wells to prove it too! When a scientific
rationale is suggested for “water witching,” it may often
allude to the observation that willow and other trees roots
do grow toward a source of water–everyone with an old septic
tank has Roto-Rooter bills to prove that! Therefore, it
is certainly “logical” that someone who is very sensitive
should be able to sense this gentle “pull” of plant tissues
toward water.
-People
often think of water running in underground streams just
like it does aboveground. But, except in special limestone
areas where streams do actually erode underground channels,
water usually exists spread out in a water table above layers
of impervious rock, more like an underground lake than a
stream. In most cases you would expect to hit water eventually
on any drilling.
-Therefore,
is hitting water a “proof” of “successful” witching if there
are no additional drillings nearby as “controls?”
-What
would happen to a nursery truck loaded with hundreds of
willow saplings when it crossed a bridge over a river?
(You may need to be careful when using such extended reasoning
with students, so as not to appear sarcastic.)
BREEDING
EXTINCT MAMMOTHS FROM FROZEN MAMMOTH EGG CELLS
In
April 1984, Technology Review, published by MIT,
revealed the exciting news that a Russian scientist had
secured egg cells from a frozen mammoth in Siberia. Although
this woolly relative of the elephant had been extinct for
10,000 years, the frozen DNA was alleged to be preserved
sufficiently to allow, with some effort, fertilization by
Asian elephant sperm and implantation into a surrogate mother
elephant. This supposedly led to the birth of two hybrid
calves which were described in detail. Since Technology
Review is not a science fiction magazine, the story
was picked up by newspapers from Chicago to Europe. The
article submitted on April 1, 1984, (hint, hint) by an MIT
biochemistry student was a “good-natured prank,” and its
history is detailed in the spring, 1985, ISC Newsletter.
As
with much pseudoscience, the sensational story travels far,
the revelation that it was a prank does not. I still occasionally
encounter colleagues who distantly heard about it and ask
what became of the experiment.
A science
teacher should be able to help students “smell a rat” here.
-It
is difficult to verify the physical truth of such distant
research, but in the time since 1985, a real discovery would
have attracted the attention and visits of many researchers,
along with a flurry of photos and headlines.
-While
small cells and embryos can be fast-frozen and thawed, larger
tissues form ice crystals from slow freezing that tear cell
structures to ribbons. Could cell structures, including
DNA molecules, survive a freeze, a thaw, and 10,000 years
in between?
-Would
there be the same number of chromosomes between the two
species? Would the genes line up the same to permit a viable
zygote? How close does the DNA of the two related species
have to be to permit a hybrid?
The
supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things–the
power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the
counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the
bad and the counterfeit.
-Samuel
Johnson (1709-1784)
-A
scientific name was purportedly given to the hybrid calves.
That requires a published description. Where is it?
Acceptance
of the story was undoubtedly greater because of the public's
awareness of recent work in cloning various lower animals.
And David Rorvik had published in 1978 In His Image:
The Cloning of Man, another case of pseudoscience purporting
to have actually produced clones of a wealthy patron. Rorvik
eventually admitted the book was fictitious, but the cloning
of people has become part of our “pop-sci” culture. By
1987, biologists confirmed in the June issue of Bioscience
that “In mammals, there seems to be a unique and complementary
contribution of male and female gametes . . . not true of
other classes of animals.” That means that we cannot clone
mammals; Rorvik's scenario was impossible with current technology.
[2001 Editor’s note: Advances in technology allowed cloning,
including “Dolly” the sheep about one decade after this
issue.]
THE
“HUNDREDTH MONKEY PHENOMENON”
In
1979, Lyell Watson authored the book Lifetide, which
included several pages that reported on the transfer of
a new learned behavior among troops of wild macaques on
Japanese islands. In 1953, a female monkey discovered that
sand and grit could be washed from sweet potatoes. This
behavior was slowly learned by other members of the troop,
and there is nothing unexpected or unusual in this process
so far. But Watson goes ahead to contend that the anecdotal
evidence indicates that by 1958, when one additional monkey
learned the new technique, a “critical mass” was reached
and a group consciousness was formed that resulted in monkeys
spontaneously learning how to wash potatoes, not just on
this island, but on other islands and the mainland, too.
The
term “100th monkey” comes from Watson's framing the claim
on a hypothetical example that 99 monkeys learned the normal
way but when the hundredth one joined in this knowledge,
a new collective consciousness was formed. This theme of
“collective consciousness” has been picked up and promulgated
by other authors for various purposes, greatly expanding
the public’s awareness of this purported “scientific” finding.
To a young generation brought up on Star Wars (“May the
Force be with you.”), isn’t this evidence for a “group mind?”
-Amundson,
in The Skeptical Inquirer Summer 1985, returns to
the Japanese primatologists’ original reports and finds
absolutely no evidence of anything but one-animal-to-another
learning--the “group mind” was Watson's conclusions from
observations that did not provide such evidence. Such intellectual
footwork is very handy to teachers who aren't in the position
to check original documents for every claim.
-Even
without a researcher re-checking the original research,
a class should be able to probe the implications of this
claim. Has any student tapped into revelations about meiosis
in class because a huge number of classmates across the
U.S. are also studying it each fall? Or did their studying
a lesson give someone else a mysterious insight?
ANIMALS
OUT-OF-RANGE
The
recent case of a moose wandering through Kansas, far from
its normal range, is accepted because the wayward animal,
distinctly recognizable as a moose, has been sporadically
located by TV media who air footage of the critter and zoologists
confirm “Yep, that is a moose.” However, are all reports
of extirpated animals (the cougar, timber wolf, bear, etc.)
to be taken as fact? The fact that they did at one time
live here is offered as evidence that the climate and environment
are appropriate or tolerable.
-How
and why would an animal move from a distant area where it
still exists to this location? Are there barriers, from
natural rivers to killer highways?
-How
many are required per unit area to form a breeding population?
-How
long would a single individual last if there was no breeding
population?
-Do
any circuses come through here that might have lost an animal?
-How
could the animal(s) survive in the midst of human populations
without being caught, killed, or seen more often?
A retired
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist R.L. Downing has
noted that in Florida, several cougars are road-killed annually
out of a total population of about 30, indicating that an
area with much traffic but no road kills “. . . is unlikely
to contain cougars” (ISC Newsletter Summer 1988).
Such exercises in reasoning will help students address such
sightings in a logical manner and distinguish between extensions
of normal ranges, exotic or outlying cases, and unlikely
reports.
EXTINCT
CRITTERS
The
coelacanth was an ancient fish only known from fossils until
specimens were fished out of deep ocean near Madagascar.
The ivory-billed woodpecker was considered extinct until
recent observations in Cuba. A rare bowerbird only known
from three old museum specimens was recently found by an
ornithologist. So, why can’t reports of other extinct animals
perhaps be true, since they did exist at one time, and many
wild areas are so remote? What about “Nessie” the Loch
Ness monster as an aquatic dinosaur, Sasquatch as a surviving
Neanderthal or Gigantopithecus, sea monsters as giant octopus
or squid. And maybe the Thylacine or Tasmanian Wolf is
still around?
Such
reports are indeed the very grist for the mills of the ISC
Newsletter where such claims are made in enough detail
that students can again exercise some reasoning skills to
separate the unlikely from the impossible.
Next
Section:
- types of evidence for animals
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