“There exists in society a very special class of persons that I have always referred to as the Believers. These are folks who have chosen to accept a certain religion, philosophy, theory, idea or notion and cling to that belief regardless of any evidence that might, for anyone else, bring it into doubt. They are the ones who encourage and support the fanatics and the frauds of any given age. No amount of evidence, no matter how strong, will bring them any enlightenment. They are the sheep who beg to be fleeced and butchered, and who will battle fiercely to preserve their right to be victimized…”
Those are the words of James Randi, a.k.a. “The Amazing” Randi. A Canadian magician, author and philosopher who was highly regarded in the skeptic community as a pioneer in critical-thinking. His videos, TV appearances and live seminars over the last 50 years are the stuff of legend, as he dedicated his entire life to debunking those who would act as charlatans and thieves, snake oil salesman and psychic mediums, those who would victimize the credulous using pseudoscience and the supernatural as a weapon to fill their pocket books. James Randi died at the age of 92 this past week and it couldn’t have been at a worse time. One can only imagine how he felt in his final weeks and days knowing that we now live in a time where people seem to be now more susceptible to false claims, conspiracy theories and their own confirmation bias than ever. But unlike in Randi’s day, these beliefs and misconceptions are no longer relegated to stories about ghosts, UFOs and religious miracles. They now come in the form of entrenched socio-political ideology and the questioning of legitimate journalism and science.
The furious political debate that has raged during the Trump presidency over the last 4 years and the recent COVID pandemic, has not been about policy, but more about far reaching conspiracies and a full-scale assault on science. We live in the age of the death of expertise, where no matter how potent the facts are in counteracting a belief, they hardly make a dent. But I’d like to take us back to a more classical form of debunking, the kind that Randi himself used to master and a way less esoteric form of unmasking. A kind that perhaps could help pave the way to a larger and more complex tactical demystifying that can be used as a weapon against anti-maskers, QAnon followers, conspiracy theorist and others who have become steadily fortified in their absurd presuppositions.
The last couple of weeks have not only marked the death of The Amazing Randi, but it has also been marked with a controversy surrounding the New York Post. The Post recently released an article concerning the alleged shady activities of Hunter Biden, the son of Presidential candidate Joe Biden, and the existence of emails that condemn them both for wrongdoings in Ukraine. The polarization between America’s two tribes hit another peak as Twitter decided to suspend the Post’s account completely, muting the story and removing any indication of it on its platform.
Any seasoned reader of news media understands that Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post has a notorious reputation for its sensationalism and its frequent flirtation with unsubstantiated reports and stories. When I heard about the article I rushed to read it immediately to make my own decision on its validity, and like most of the nonsense rooted in far right or far left propaganda that pops up on one’s timeline or YouTube algorithm, there is nothing to suggest that it’s based in any sort of reality and I quickly dismissed it, or at least decided to wait until there was more information to back it up. After all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But in scrolling throughout the Post’s website, I came across another interesting article that had nothing to do with the Biden accusations, the Presidential race or even the pandemic at all. It was an article accompanied by a video of your good old-fashioned, run of the mill ghost story. I love ghost videos, and I always watch whenever I come across one. Not because they creep me out or because I like being scared, or believe for a second that any of it is real, but because I enjoy finding the smoking gun that reveals their deceptive quality. I’ve noticed I’ve become pretty good at it, so I was happy to come across one in the New York Post.
The video was taken from the inside of a car that was travelling down the road through the Civil War battlefield at historic Gettysburg, and where its passenger claims he came across several apparitions near a firing line of old cannons. Here, watch for yourself:
Ooooooooooo pretty creepy huh? And those phantoms can really move! Well, now watch the video again but this time keep your eye on the bottom right hand corner of the screen. There is a little dot that seems to be a blemish on the windshield. See it?
Now if you follow that dot with your eyes as the car approaches the cannons, but this time concentrating on the inside of the windshield and ignoring the background, you can see that the dot is actually the bottom of a liquid trail dripping down from the top of the window. That’s what causes the optical illusion. If you keep your eye on that little dot the whole time, and not the cannons, you’ll see that the dripping pattern remains there and that it’s simply light reflecting off of it on the glass at the right moment that makes it look like ghosts are running across the field. When you follow that vertical wet trail, you’ll find that you won’t even see them as ghosts anymore! Sooo….what you’re actually seeing is most likely bird shit, and therefore, bullshit as well.
Boom, and just like that, the belief of literally tens of thousands of people who watched that video and were convinced that Union soldiers had returned from the spirit dimension in ethereal form to our Earthly domain in order to hold a Civil War re-enactment in the middle of the night for a passing dude from New Jersey, has been completely destroyed. Yet, even when I pointed this fact out on several platforms on social media, a disturbing number of unfettered believers still refused to accept the overwhelming evidence in front of them, and were determined to be unassailable in their convictions. Proving once again, that when people have certain ideas about the universe around them, when they are unable or unwilling to accept anything that may steer them away from their reality because of fear, or pride, or because it threatens what they feel is their only means to being unique or standing out in a crowd, they most likely cannot be persuaded to look at it from another perspective.
And how does the New York Post fit into all of this? Well, the authors of the article didn’t hesitate to accompany the video with a spooky soundtrack and a caption describing a bunch of “ghosts” who “ran across the road in this bone-chilling video.” Even implicating the historic battle at Gettysburg as playing some sort of role in the occurrence. No attempt at pointing out the obvious drip down the windshield, no suggestion that perhaps you should look at it with a skeptical mindset and make a decision for yourself. Nope, just a complacent narrative that furthers the unproven and absurd concept of poltergeists. Harmless fun you say? A tongue-in-cheek story by the paper to attract some attention? Perhaps. Maybe harmless to those of us who are aware of the intent of the article and who have the ability to perceive it three dimensionally. But get this, according to the data website YouGov, 45% of Americans believe that demons and ghosts are real. 45%! Think about that.
So as much as we may think that fun little ghost articles like the one in the New York Post are innocuous, they still feed the dogmatic psyche of a certain demographic, and that can still be detrimental. Just think of it this way, I will bet you all of my Christmas presents this year that you will not be able to find one person you know who doesn’t remember the moment they found out Santa Claus wasn’t real. Why? Because being confronted with a harsh revelation that forces you to rethink your entire perception of reality can almost be a form of trauma, even as a child. Now imagine attempting to thwart the magical thinking rooted in the political ideology and philosophical worldview of fully developed adults who may just take a damning article about Joe Biden’s family that doesn’t present any hard facts to back it up, as gospel.
Do I believe in the censorship of media? No I don’t, not in the strictest sense. I believe that one must go after the publisher, not the platform, and expose them. The same way that James Randi would unmercifully take down “psychic” spoon benders on the Tonight Show in front of millions.
But that’s easier said than done.
