c. 1996 Religion News Service
AMHERST, N.Y. _ A leading scientific group, frustrated by a rash of documentary-style TV shows that presented alien autopsies and humans coexisting with dinosaurs as credible, is forming a “media integrity” council to monitor shows and pressure TV networks and other media into presenting less mysticism and more real science.
The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), which recently concluded its first World Skeptics Congress near Buffalo, N.Y., said that scientific ideas are increasingly being shut out of mainstream media in favor of sensational claims of paranormal phenomena and the irrational ideas of fringe groups.
The committee is a 20-year-old skeptics organization founded by scientists. It has become the country’s leading group to challenge psychics and pseudoscience.
Its purpose is to debunk all manner of nonscientific ideas, from the age-old claims of astrology to newer ones like alien abduction and unproven “alternative medicine” cures. It also is focusing on ideas like “scientific creationism,” which are attempts by some Christians to present scientific proof for the Bible’s literal account of how the universe and humans came to be.
Such ideas were part of a recent NBC special, “The Mysterious Origins of Man,” narrated by actor Charlton Heston. It presented a minister asserting that he has found in Texas a site where human and dinosaur footprints are together _ proving the two lived on Earth at the same time. Scientists say the human prints are actually erosion marks and that all the fossil and DNA evidence indicates that dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years before humans evolved. But those views were not included in the show.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science protested after the show aired in February, but NBC rebroadcast it earlier this month. “It was an entertainment program, and we have the right to run it,” an NBC spokesman in California said. He declined to comment further.
Even worse, organizers say, was the widely criticized “alien autopsy” that aired on Fox television last year. It purported to show surgeons conducting the procedure on a creature from outer space, complete with commentary from a pathologist. It has been discredited as fake, but CSICOP fellow Joe Nickell said he frequently runs into people, including children, who saw the program and believe it is true.
“I’m now encountering children who believe that they might be abducted by extraterrestrials,” Nickell said. “This is not funny. This is a frightening development, to have television programs that are putting out misleading stories purely to take advantage of ratings.”
Fox could not be reached for comment, but Nickell said the network’s executives have told him they consider shows that give credence to paranormal phenomena without presenting much, if any, rebuttal to be entertainment.
CSICOP Chairman Paul Kurtz said the media integrity council won’t be advocating censorship, but will instead try to convince TV producers to provide meaningful balance when they take up paranormal phenomena. But he also acknowledged that the group’s entreaties may fall on deaf ears.
It’s not just broadcast media through which these ideas are being spread, however. Some at the conference warned of the awesome power of the Internet to make fringe ideas available worldwide, alongside credible ones.
“We are seeing a new delivery system for pathological states of mind,” said Phillip Adams, an Australian columnist and TV moderator.
Organizers called it a threat to democracy to have large numbers of people abandoning common sense in favor of mystic, fantastic and New Age ideas that are not grounded in rational thought or able to withstand scientific scrutiny.
MJP END TORASSA
