Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?: Debunking Pseudoscience
by Martin Gardner
Norton, $14.95, ISBN 0393322386

Did HG Wells predict the Internet? Does reflexology have a foot to stand on? Is cannibalism a myth? Read this book and find out.
The ever-prolific Martin Gardner has compiled another selection of his fascinating (and highly skeptical) magazine columns. Covering aspects of creationism, astronomy, physics, medicine, psychology, social science, UFOlogy and religion, this is an eminently browsable collection. Gardner has added further comments and updates at the end of each article, creating a vastly entertaining book which deflates the pomposities of pseudoscience with wit and humour.
The title essay gently mocks Christian Fundamentalist myths of the Creation. From the Renaissance onwards, theologians tied themselves into knots of argument over whether beings who were created rather than being born could have navels. It comes as rather a shock to know that one US Congressman seemed to accept these myths even as late as 1944. At his best, Gardner is both scholarly and fascinating. His essay on the myth of the Wandering Jew traces the roots of this myth. He has even found a folk tale about a female Wandering Jew – Beffana, who was too busy doing her housework to stop and watch the Three Wise Men as they rode past. I always knew housework was a bad idea.
I particularly enjoyed Gardner’s debunking of the wilder extremes of Freudian dream theory. Is there no end to the number of things Freud could interpret as phallic symbols? Gardner’s essay is a timely reminder that sometimes a cigar is only a cigar.

Hauntings and Poltergeists: Multidisciplinary Perspectives
by James Houran and Rense Lange (Editors)
McFarland & Company, £76.50, ISBN 0786409843

This is an excellent book for anyone with a serious interest in the topic (and a healthy bank balance). The authors are to be congratulated for getting contributions from many of the biggest names in the area. Not only is the book multidisciplinary in its approach, it also reflects the entire range of belief from absolute skeptic to true believer. For example, the editors themselves are firm skeptics with respect to this topic: “our research suggests that hauntings and poltergeists are delusional in nature” (p. 305). The foreword and afterword, however, are written by two veteran parapsychologists with strongly pro-paranormal views (John Beloff and Gertrude Schmeidler, respectively). The book is all the more interesting for that. You won’t find definitive answers here, but you will ask much more interesting questions.
The book is divided into three sections, dealing with sociocultural perspectives (Finucane, Hufford, Evans, McClenon, Edwards), physical and physiological perspectives (Roll & Persinger, Radin, Persinger & Koren, Brugger, Nickell), and psychological perspectives (Machado, Lawrence, Kumar & Pekala, Lange & Houran). It would be invidious for me to point out my personal favourite chapters. I can honestly say that I enjoyed and learned from every chapter – except one, which I admit I gave up on. Again, I will not say which one it is, but if other readers want to send in their guesses to me, I will let them know if they are right.
The book is far too expensive to recommend to anyone with only a mild interest in the topic. This presumably reflects the fact that the serious academic treatment on offer in this book is unlikely to make it into a best seller. From my personal point of view, that is not a problem. Not only did the book give me lots of food for thought, I got my copy free for reviewing it.

The Universe in a Nutshell
by Stephen Hawking
Random House, £16.99, ISBN 1856866661

In 1995, my wife and I went on a tour of Egypt, booked from London. We became friends with an English lady who was a double widow, both husbands having been “joiners” (carpenters in American). She had brought along a copy of Stephen Hawking’s phenomenal best seller, “A Brief History of Time”. She did not open it once during the trip. Later, back in England, we visited her home. “Had she read the book?” I asked. No, she had not.
I had heard it said that Hawking’s book was probably the least read of any bestseller, although I imagine that is just speculation. I reviewed “Brief History” after it came out and and found it enjoyable, although not particularly informative. Like a lot of popular science, the only people who understood it were those who already knew the subject. Oh, you pick up a few pedagogical pointers when a book is well-written, as “Brief History” was, but that is about all. I doubt anyone can much learn science from popular books. Only the science literate should read them. Thankfully, the science illiterate do not, because the romanticized view of science they inevitably present is nothing like the real thing. “The Universe in a Nutshell” is read in the pearshaped tones that only a British actor can provide. Hawking should use Simon Prebble as the voice in his synthesizer, in place of that simulated Swedish accent.
But then, the “wheelchair guy,” as Homer Simpson calls him, has a great sense of humor which comes out in his writing. And, once again that writing is excellent. Except for the first chapter, which is just boiler plate about Einstein probably written by a hack, I believe the rest of the book is largely Hawking’s creation, with only editorial help provided.
Still, it will be even much harder than “Brief History” for the uninitiated to follow, with discussions on space-time loops and m-branes that can only make your head spin if you haven’t heard these ideas before.
There are some interesting interludes where Hawking talks about the possibilities of time travel and the future prospects for humanity, neither very optimistic. So, the tapes, which take about four hours, are still worth listening to.

Netherworld: Discovering the Oracle of the Dead and Other Ancient Methods of Divination
by Robert Temple
Century, £17.99, ISBN 0712684042

A frustrating book on an interesting subject. It’s a study of historical methods of divination from both the West and the East, leaving out astrology (on the sensible grounds that there’s been an awful lot written about that already) but including the “I Ching”. The Western section is fascinating, but the interest drops off as he moves Eastward.
Still, it starts well. The discovery and (very) partial excavation of the giant underground complex that once housed the Oracle of Baiae is fascinating stuff, and it’s shameful that this amazing structure hasn’t been properly investigated yet. The beginning of the book is taken up with its rediscovery and structure, which leads into an entertaining potted history of classical oracles, both deliberately faked and honest. He shows evidence for drug use both by oracles and by unwary questioners, who could easily be drugged to the eyeballs by the oracular priests and then killed if they showed any signs of being less than impressed when regaining consciousness. Other suggested methods of sacred cheating include the use of carrierpigeons – doves and pigeons were apparently a feature of ancient temples, though there’s no mention of how they would be transported between them. Then we come to what Temple considers the other main technique of Classical divination – haruspicy; divination by entrails. Sensitive readers may not wish to read further, as his hands-on research involved persuading his local abbatoir to let him study the entrails of just-killed animals. Valuable for understanding the ancient methodology and casting light on some obscure texts, though with a high yuk factor for us squeamish cityfolk.
I don’t think it’s much worth reading further, though. Up till this point, while you get occasional reminders that this is a “fringe” book, they’re fairly minor.
The occasional complaint about closed-minded academia and a spirited defence of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe’s “Lifecloud” theories in the context of comets and meteors as portents is about as strong as it gets. But once he gets on to the “I Ching”, he takes it as a licence to explain his pet theories on “event lattices” and the book suffers accordingly. A pity, really. The Shang Oracle Bones deserve a better popular treatment than this.
As I said, the first part is worthwhile reading in spite of this, but I can’t imagine this book will gain him any credit in academia, which, alas, is still the acid test for theories.

The Book of Nothing
by John D Barrow
Vintage, £8.99, ISBN 0099288451

Barrow is a professor of mathematical sciences, and author of “Theories of Everything” and “Impossibility”.

This is a curiously substantial book about how nothing can amount to something (rather than the dire idea that nothing can amount to anything). The first part concerns the significance of zero: “The Indian system of counting is probably the most successful intellectual innovation ever devised by human beings.” Ever tried reckoning with Roman numerals? The zeros in our computers’ binary logic are, so to speak, much more than half the story. (Small numerical complaint: which nowt – archaically an oafish person – chose for a science book a font where 1 is indistinguishable from capital I?)

Here we find an amazing demonstration of how the natural numbers can be generated from the null set, and Barrow provides a very fine illustration of the null graph on p.163.

The second half discusses the nature of the vacuum. This soon leads into relativity and quantum theory, in as clear a way as one could hope for in a popular science book. It emerges that there is more to the vacuum than the mechanical difficulty of creating a perfect one: it is neither empty nor inert, “and without its powerful contribution, the unity of Nature could not be sustained”.

There is a peculiar cosmic significance for ourselves: “Universes that contain life must be big and old, dark and cold. If our Universe was less of a vacuum it could not be an abode for living complexity.” One of Barrow’s pet themes is the Anthropic Principle, although he is restrained about it here. On the other hand, for this reviewer there is rather too much space devoted to old theological ruminations about creating something out of nothing.

One last word – a gift that we might like to make use of – nullibilists: those who believe that no spiritual beings exist.

Paul Taylor

An Entertainment for Angels: Electricity in the Enlightenment
by Patricia Fara
Icon Books, £9.99, ISBN 1840463481

“Electricity has one considerable advantage over most other branches of science, as it both furnishes matter of speculation for philosophers and of entertainment for all persons promiscuously.” Thus Joseph Priestly in the 1790s, providing a succinct summary of the subject of this thoughtful and lucid book by Patricia Fara, an historian of science and an expert on 18th century magnetism.
Between about 1730 and 1790 entrepreneurial philosophers and self-styled “electricians” (not scientists yet – that word would not appear for another forty years) like Benjamin Franklin, Volta, Nollet, Boyle and Galvani began the work that would one day make a world run by electricity possible.
While theories about electricity and magnetism were plentiful, money and resources were not and for most experimenters publicity and the ability to earn money from entertaining shows and practical devices were as important as obtaining and publishing results. Hence the long running Anglo-American dispute over pointed versus rounded lightning conductors, the popular treatments available at the London Electrical Dispensary and Graham’s (literally) sparky “Celestial Bed”.
The history of scientific discovery is never a simple, linear narrative progressing towards the inevitable triumphant conclusion and Fara charts the usual false starts, blind alleys and squabbles that are as much personal as theoretical. Distinct national schools were important too: the French favouring an algebraic approach to their experiments, the British tending towards theologically flavoured theories concerning aethers, particles and “the Electrical fluid”.
Once the dramatic effect of electricity on isolated muscles had been shown, thoughts about treating the paralysed or resuscitating the dead inevitably followed, leading to some gruesome experiments on fresh corpses and subsequent speculation about the link between life, death and electricity. Speculation that would lead Mary Shelley, whose husband had enthused as an Oxford student over ‘a new engine’ (the galvanic battery), to produce in 1818 an enduring literary classic describing the career of a certain fictional experimenter by the name of Frankenstein.

How to Build a Time Machine
by Paul Davies
The Penguin Press, £9.99, ISBN 0713995831

Like “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” with a bodice-ripping cover, this little book will not satisfy. Not only did I not learn HTBATM, I learned that it is not possible in the world as we know it (that is to say without our being able to harness antigravity, space warps, wormholes or other devices from Star Trek).
Although a hardback, the text is only 11 by 14 cm and the 136 pages are interspersed with 36 full-page illustrations which add little to the product. Most of them are sketches of famous scientists which appear to have been created by tracing a photograph with a thick felt pen. Where the illustrations are referred to in the text they are identified by page numbers, but the pages that have illustrations are not numbered. You get used to this after a while. Don’t expect any sex, maths, religion or UFOs and you won’t be disappointed. Although he is no Carl Sagan, Professor Davies’ reputation as a physicist is imperilled from time to time by such remarks as:
“CERN propels electrons at 99.999999999 per cent of the speed of light… so fast that it falls short of the speed of sound by a literal snail’s pace.” “Cylindrical surfaces have no intrinsic curvature.” (Don’t write me: I know what he meant and he should have said “right circular cylindrical surfaces”.) “…thus rescuing the cherished law of change conservation.” (I think he meant “charge conservation”.) “…the motion of two (billiard) balls after collision is completely determined by the initial speed and direction of the cue ball.” Clearly he doesn’t play billiards or pool or snooker. I also found irritating his quoting all very small numbers in the form “a billion trillion trillionth of a centimetre”.
Conclusion: science-popularisation-wise this book doesn’t cut the mustard.

A Magick Life: The Life of Aleister Crowley
by Martin Booth
Coronet Books, £8.99, ISBN 0340718064

If you believe in magic as much as in little green men from Mars, it is difficult to be impressed by the most famous magician of the last century. Edward Alexander Crowley was born into the peak of the Victorian Age in 1875 and lived until 1947 to see the first and second World Wars. Before Crowley discovered magic at age 22 he was a chess player of repute and he wrote poetry of more than ordinary ability. He became a mountaineer with numerous first ascents to his name; initially in England and Scotland, later in the Alps, and eventually in the Himalayas. For all his daring and pioneering climbs, he was known as an exceedingly careful and deliberate mountaineer. Yet, “Crowley was to develop into a person forever pushing the boundaries of experience, reacting to emotions and impulses rather than reason.” (p. 22).
He was considered the greatest magician of his age. This means he was opposed to Christianity, he borrowed from Theosophy, Spiritualism, and other psychic beliefs of the time. Crowley described magic as using one’s will power to accomplish things without obvious means. “Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.” (p. 82). He compared this to the Roman Catholic Mass where the will of the priest changes the bread and the wine. The astral body of light, the universal ether, and human thought were part of the faculties needed for accomplishing magic. The author of the biography says that much of what Crowley suggested as magic, that is the imagination, the subconscious, the reaching for control by the mind, have today become topics in the psychiatrist’s office (p. 85).
Crowley claimed to have been inspired by the Rosicrucians, by the history of the Knights Templar, the Cathars, and Albigensians. Organizations Crowley founded or belonged to bore such names as the Golden Dawn, “Lichte Liebe LebenTempel”, the Theosophical Society, “Ordo Templi Orientis”, or “Argentinum Astrum”. Clearly the concepts of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries regarding what was magic and what is real differed from the ideas of later periods. Booth has written a competent biography of an exceptional character. It is easy to read, but much more difficult to understand or to sympathize with.