The Arizona Skeptic A Journal Promoting Critical Thinking Volume 6, Issue 2 September/Octo

 The Arizona Skeptic
 A Journal Promoting Critical Thinking
 Volume 6, Issue 2               September/October 1992

 How Much of Your Brain Do _You_ Use?
 By Mickey Rowe
 The claim is frequently made that the average individual uses only
 10% of their brain's potential.  This claim is usually buttressed
 by a reference to the generic "experts," thus making the
 statement's validity of unquestionable value.  But who are these
 experts, and how did they reach this conclusion?  I've heard the
 claim so many times in my life that I've naturally been curious to
 discover its basis.  Unfortunately,  after asking many of the
 people that might reasonably be considered experts and searching
 through some of what I thought might be the relevant literature,
 I'm left with a mystery even more puzzling than that which I faced
 at the outset of my search.
         Although I can't yet delineate the origins of the belief in
 our untapped mental potential, I can at least shed some light on
 the merits of the claim.  There are three topics which I wish to
 pursue for the remainder of this article:  what _have_ the
 experts typically thought about tapping our  brain's potential,
 where might  a belief in our untapped potential have arisen, and
 finally, what does current neuroscience have to tell us about the
 verisimilitude of "the 10% hypothesis"?

 The Mental and the Physical
 The significance of the 10% hypothesis seems to be that people are
 generally more intelligent than they appear, or even perhaps than
 think they are.  As such it seems likely that the claim must have
 its origins with some understanding that intelligence (whatever
 that may be) is a product of our brains.  Perhaps one of the
 seminal points in the history of scientific thought in this area
 was the turn of the 19th century--particularly the writings of
 Franz Joseph Gall.  Gall pushed two major propositions:  that
 brains are composed of multiple "faculties", each underlying a
 different mental "faculty"; and that the size of individual brain
 faculties--and hence the size of the bumps on the overlying
 cranium--varied according to their strength in any given
 individual.  Unfortunately for Gall, he is principally remembered
 for the last bit of the second proposition, which served as the
 basis for one of the worst offenses of pseudoscience in the 19th
 century, phrenology.  Later historical revisionism has attempted
 to distance science from that unfortunate offshoot of his
 theories, but in fact Gall had a large effect on the study of
 neuroanatomy and the field that would later be labeled psychology.
         For instance, in 1832, Samuel Jackson described Gall's
 proposition that "intellectual faculties and cerebral organs
 executing them are multiple" with this endorsement:
         The testimony, as to its general truth, presented by the
         morbid phenomena of the nervous system, and of the
         intellectual and moral faculties, is so conclusive, that few
         well instructed and observing physicians, accustomed to
         analyze and reflect on what passes under their observation,
         have any difficulty yielding to this proposition.  No problem
         in physiology rests on a clearer demonstration.
         Gall's ideas set the stage for much of the later
 investigations on the physical basis of intelligence.  Toward that
 end, we should take particular note of Gall's belief that the size
 of different brain regions was an objective measure of the
 particular mental ability which that brain region subserved.
 Although often appearing in slightly different guises, this has
 been a recurrent theme in investigations of the physical
 correlates of mental ability.
         In this pursuit much time and effort have been wasted.
 Although for many years quite popular amongst the  general public,
 the idea that the sizes of bumps on the skull could lead to
 significant insights into the mental abilities of the bearers of
 those skulls did not take root among many experts except for those
 of the self-proclaimed variety.  The real experts, those with
 scientific training, pursued other avenues.  One of the most
 popular avenues among these circles was the attempt to demonstrate
 that the size or weight of the brain relative to the body
 containing that brain correlated with intelligence.1  When such a
 correlation proved elusive, other researchers attempted to measure
 the mass or size of particular parts of the brain.2  These
 measurements included surface area of individual cerebral lobes as
 well as their mass.  The measurements of surface area were an
 attempt to demonstrate another belief often heard today--that the
 size or number of convolutions of the cerebral hemispheres (or
 parts thereof) is an indication of the power of the brain bearing
 them.  In all of these cases (and a few others), the implicit
 assumption seems to be either a) a person who is of above average
 intelligence is so because some particular physical aspect of her
 brain is larger, or b) the size of the brain (or parts thereof),
 like that of muscles, is a function of the amount of training
 which it undergoes by virtue of the thinking of its owner.3
         If the average person did use only 10% of their brain's
 capacity and assumption a) above was correct,  it might still make
 sense to search for a correlation between say, brain size and
 intelligence.  If instead, assumption b) is correct, it would make
 little sense to claim that humans typically use only a portion of
 their brains--why would our brains respond to use if we weren't
 pushing them to their limits?  However, there is at least one
 other possible assumption about the relationship between brains
 and intellect.  It might be that all of our brains possess the
 same (or similar) potential, and intelligence is correlated with
 the extent to which we make use of that potential.  Although this
 assumption would seem to make the most sense in terms of a
 backdrop for the statement that on average humans use only 10% of
 their brains, it seems to be an assumption that never occurred to
 those looking for the physical basis of intelligence.  At the very
 least, serious discussion of this possibility seems to have evaded
 reviews of the primary literature.  For this reason I'm doubtful
 that any expert ever actually made the claim.  So how did the
 urban legend originate?

 Who said what?
 One possibility immediately suggests itself.  People are often
 misquoted, particularly in reference to technical subject matters.
 An almost humorous account of such misquoting appeared in a
 footnote to the printed version of a lecture given by Karl Pearson
 in 1924.  After Pearson indicated that the speed at which humans
 can respond to an auditory stimulus is a maximum at age 21, he
 reports:
         A light headed pressman who unfortunately got access to my
         lecture theatre reported next day that I had said that a man
         reached his "intellectual prime" at 21 years.  From his
         newspaper the report spread round the world and formed the
         thesis of an after dinner speech by the late Lord Curzon.  If
         intellect were identified with mental agility, then and then
         only there would have been truth in the report.  It is,
         indeed, impossible to interpret our curves with regard to
         mental agility in any other sense.
         To make the story of a misquote plausible, one must suggest a
 statement of fact (true or not) which could then be misquoted.
 Fortunately (or perhaps not) there are many possibilities.  Rather
 than provide a fully exhaustive list, I'll discuss only some of
 the top contenders, i.e. those that I've heard most often, or
 sound the most plausible.  Before proceeding I would like to
 emphasize that I have no hard evidence backing _any_  of these
 scenarios.  In a sense, each is a meta-urban legend ostensibly
 created to make sense of a previous urban legend.
         One area that might have lead to the 10% hypothesis with the
 least amount of misquoting is early studies of brain lesions.
 These studies have come in two flavors--the examination of
 patients that acquired accidental injury, and the study of animals
 in which injuries were deliberately applied.  In both cases,
 attempts are made to correlate dysfunction with neurological
 damage to discrete brain regions.  Naturally, the ability to
 discover a dysfunction is highly dependent upon the expectations
 an observer might have on what a "dysfunction" is.  It's not
 unexpected that such studies will often lead to the conclusion
 that there are no lasting deficits resulting from the destruction
 of a particular region, because the deficits just aren't
 recognized.  It wouldn't be too surprising to find that someone
 had added up all of the different brain regions that have been
 destroyed with no obvious harm, and this summation could then have
 been twisted into a claim that this much of the brain is
 unnecessary.  By implication it would seem that if these areas
 aren't necessary, then most of us must be getting by without using
 them.
         An obvious problem with this conclusion is that humans and
 other animals have some ability to recover functionality because
 some functions can be carried out by more than one anatomical
 pathway.  That is to say that biological systems are robust due to
 their considerable redundancy.  However, this redundancy is both
 limited and specific.  It's limited in the sense that "backup"
 systems perform some functions even when the "primary" systems are
 undamaged.  For instance, one might conclude that our left eyes
 are unnecessary; why do we need two eyes when only one is required
 for vision?  Of course, the answer is that two eyes give us a
 larger visual field and some cues for depth perception that are
 not available to cyclopean individuals.   As suggested above,
 nuances in the benefits of particular structures can easily escape
 detection. Redundancy is specific in that not all brain regions
 can perform the tasks of all of the others.   As more and more of
 a given brain is damaged, fewer and fewer cells will be around
 that can take over for those already destroyed.
         We now have an obvious test of the 10% hypothesis if it came
 about from lesion studies.  Find a human (or use inference from
 other animal models) in which 90% of the brain has been destroyed.
 Even the most casual observer would discover some dysfunction in
 such an individual.  If a scientist ever arrived at the 10%
 hypothesis from this direction, it would seem unlikely that he
 would fail to test it by seeking an individual with 90% of his
 brain damaged, or claim the 10% hypothesis with any conviction if
 he hadn't.  I'm not aware that anyone has attempted this
 falsification (and I honestly hope that this silly idea was never
 considered worthy of such a test).
         The opposite of discovering function by destruction is
 exploration by stimulation.  Nervous tissue is easily excited by
 the passage of small electrical currents.  Although we don't yet
 have the technology to stimulate an arbitrary set of neurons in a
 pattern resembling that which those neurons would see under normal
 physiological conditions, it is possible to stimulate all of the
 neurons in some reasonably small volume (in some experimental
 setups, it is possible to impale a single neuron and stimulate it
 alone).  Prior to surgery for intractable epilepsy, it has become
 quite routine to stimulate the brains of alert patients who can
 report any sensations they experience as a result of that
 stimulation.  Regions where stimulation lead to no particular
 sensation, loss of ability, or discernible bodily movement were
 initially lumped into a wastebasket category called "association"
 areas.4  I've also heard that these association areas extended to
 90% of the brain's surface, thus potentially leading to the 10%
 hypothesis.  An obvious problem with this conclusion is that the
 stimulation is very different from the natural excitation of
 neurons.  Although patients might report a particular type of
 sensation (e.g. visual or auditory), they do recognize that the
 sensations arise from stimulation--the appearance of the percepts
 is not normal.  Given the abnormality of the neural activity
 produced even by the most refined techniques of electrical
 excitation, it's almost surprising that any of it leads to
 specific perceptions or movements.  Additionally, there is a self-
 report problem.  Not only do patients have to be aware of a change
 brought about by the electrical stimulation, they must be able to
 verbalize that feeling for the experimenters to be able to
 document the function of the stimulated region.
         Currently far more common than either of the above two
 approaches to elucidating the function of different brain regions
 is the use of recording electrodes.  In a general sense,
 electroencephalography (EEG) is an instantiation of this
 technique, since an EEG trace is just a recording of the electric
 potentials resulting from the activity of billions of neurons.
 Much more precise localization is possible, however, with the
 surgical insertion of smaller electrodes.   The advantage of
 recording vs. lesioning or stimulation is that it's a passive
 technique, so the information obtained is less tainted by the
 effects that the "measurement" has on the system under study.  On
 the other hand, in order to obtain that information the
 experimenter has to be creative in the presentation of stimuli or
 the training of subjects in order to discern what sorts of
 sensations or activities are correlated with changes in the
 activity of neurons in the region under investigation.  We now
 have an additional explanation for the 10% hypothesis, that early
 researchers who were unable to discover what activated specific
 regions  might have thought those regions uncommitted to any
 specific function.  Naturally it could be argued that an inability
 to find a specific function is more easily attributed to
 experimenters not knowing what to look for than to the brain
 region in question not having a function.
         Another common story about the origination of the 10%
 hypothesis relates to severe cases of hydrocephaly.  Deep within
 the cerebral hemispheres and extending down the brain stem and
 into the spinal cord there are fluid filled ventricles in all
 normal humans.  The fluid is continuously extruded from the blood
 supply to the central cavities, and it circulates around the brain
 and spinal cord.  During the course of that circulation the fluid
 must drain out of the central cavities through one small tube
 which travels down to the brain stem.  If that tube is blocked--a
 condition brought about by the growth of nearby tumors, or more
 frequently by congenital defects--the ventricles swell at the
 expense of the surrounding cerebral tissue.  This condition is
 known as hydrocephalus.  In some severe cases, the cerebral
 hemispheres are compressed into a narrow ring of tissue around the
 interior of the skull.  If such a condition obtains in a young
 child, the person may grow up to be of normal intelligence.
 Seeing that the volume of the cerebrum had been condensed to 10%
 of normal size without gross defects in mental abilities, it is
 conceivable that someone could draw the conclusion that our brains
 are much larger than they need to be.  However, the brains of
 these patients are compressed, not destroyed.  A brain compressed
 to 10% of its normal volume is not 10% of a normal brain.
         It's probably not commonly known, but one thing experts _do_
 say is that the number of non-neuronal cells in the brain is ten
 times as large as the number of neurons.  These cells have many
 known functions, which can be summed up here as being supportive
 of the activities of neurons.  No one currently believes that
 these cells play any active role in the mediation of our
 perceptions, motions or thought processes.  This information could
 easily be twisted into the 10% hypothesis if it began as "90% of
 the cells in our brains are not used for thinking, remembering,
 perceiving, etc."
         This list is not exhaustive, but I think it covers most of
 the meta-urban legends.  As I've indicated after each scenario,
 none of these "explanations" really seem to offer any support to
 the conclusion that our brains have a wealth of untapped
 potential.  So what can we confidently say about the subject?

 I Hope I Use Less than 10% of My Brain...
 If you ask a neuroscientist if it's true that you use only 10% of
 your brain, the most common response is a laugh followed by one of
 the above meta-urban legends of the origin of the statistic.  If
 you press on, then the story is typically followed by an
 explanation revolving around the prematurity of the 10%
 hypothesis.  From a scientific standpoint, not enough is
 understood about the relationships between brains and mental
 ability to make any sort of definitive statement about how much
 mental ability a given brain can produce.  A common sense approach
 to biology would indicate that the 10% hypothesis is false,
 however.  Our brain is the most energy intensive structure of our
 bodies, especially on a per weight basis.  Much of our metabolism
 is devoted to feeding the ion pumps that make electrical activity
 across nerve cell membranes possible.  Considerable effort is also
 required to keep our brains from overheating as a result of that
 metabolism.  Biological systems aren't known for investing such
 efforts needlessly.
         Sometimes experts will offer a different sort of response,
 however.  The response is posed in the form of a question:  What
 does it mean to say that we only use 10% of our brains, or how
 would you go about measuring it?  Because of the difficulties
 described above in association with lesion, recording, and
 stimulation studies, firm conclusions cannot be drawn from them
 about the lack of a particular finding.  In addition to the
 aforementioned difficulties, one also has the problem that even if
 a particular region isn't necessary at the time of the
 observation, that doesn't mean that it isn't ever necessary.  This
 train of thought could lead to the question "how much of my brain
 am I using _right now_?".  Once again, the question isn't
 immediately answerable, but there are two lines of evidence which
 can shed some light on the significance of whatever the answer
 might be.
         The first line involves the activity of individual neurons.
 Most neurons have some basal activity level even at "rest."  In
 that sense it could be argued that we're always using _all_ of our
 neurons.  At any given time, perhaps most neurons are exhibiting
 only basal activity, but even that carries information.  The
 information conveyed by such a neuron is similar to a guard at a
 watchtower calling out "9 o'clock and all's well."  The neuron is
 basically saying that its inputs aren't changing; it has nothing
 new to report.  Much as the guard's report conveys an important
 message--that nothing interesting is happening--so does the basal
 activity of an individual neuron.
         The second line involves the activity of groups of neurons as
 indicated by PET and SPECT scanners.  These experimental
 techniques weren't included in the list of sources for the 10%
 hypothesis because I'm pretty certain that the urban legend
 predates them.  However, they provide a wealth of information
 pertinent to the question of how much activity is going on in a
 living brain at a given point in time.  The experiments rely on
 radioactive tracers injected or inhaled by subjects.  Typically
 the tracers are atoms in a water molecule, an inert gas, or best
 yet a glucose analog.  The first two give information about
 regional blood flow; the third gives information about local
 metabolism.  Although a determination from these measurements of
 _absolute_ levels of activity requires some assumptions about the
 distribution of the tracer in the rest of the body, the techniques
 give a tremendous amount of direct information about the
 _relative_ amount of activity in different brain regions as well
 as the relative changes in activity in a given region under
 different conditions.
         An interesting finding from PET studies is that as patients
 get better at performing different tasks, the changes in activity
 that accompany the performance decrease in magnitude.
 Furthermore, subjects that are better at performing a given task
 generally don't seem to work as hard--activity levels don't rise
 as much to meet the challenge.  Much as an Olympic marathon
 runner's body doesn't have to work as hard as the average persons
 to complete a six minute mile, a person who is good at say,
 mentally rotating a given object, is good at it not because her
 brain is bigger, but because her brain is more efficient.  This
 leads to the interesting speculation that "more intelligent"
 people typically use less of their brains than "less intelligent"
 people.  If you think that you _do_ use more of your brain than
 the average person, perhaps you shouldn't brag about it!

 Further reading:
 Those interested in learning more about the functioning of our
 brains might want to look at the September issue of _Scientific
 American_,  which is a special issue devoted to "Mind and Brain".
 Also on that topic is:  P.S. Churchland's _Neurophilosophy_, MIT
 Press, Cambridge 1986.  Readers might also look for an exhibit
 entitled "It's All in Your Head" which opened this summer at the
 Franklin Institute and is about to tour eight U.S. cities.  Its
 final stop is the California Museum of Science and Industry in Los
 Angeles, where it will appear in October 1994.  For more
 information on the history of thought behind the physical
 correlates of mental abilities, there is S.J. Gould's _The
 Mismeasure of Man_, W.W. Norton and Co., New York, 1981, and J.D.
 Davis's _Phrenology: Fad and Science_, Yale University Press, New
 Haven, 1955.  An additional reason to read Gould's book is that it
 attacks another assumption that was left unchallenged in this
 article, the assumption that "intelligence" is a single thing
 whose basis can be found in a single measurement.  The sources of
 my two quotes are S. Jackson, _Principles of Medicine_, Carey and
 Lean, Philadelphia, 1832, and K. Pearson, "On Our Present
 Knowledge of the Relationship Between Mind and Body," _Ann.
 Eugen._ 1(1925):382-406.  The quotes come from pages 208 and 397
 respectively.

 Notes
 1 Indeed the search for this holy grail of a correlation continues
 today, as one or two papers per year are still published
 purporting to show that it really exists.
 2 For good reviews of some of this research, see Hamilton, J.A.
 (1936) "Intelligence and the Human Brain," _The Psychological
 Review_ 43:308-321.  and Donaldson, H.H. (1932) "The Brain
 Problem--In Relation to Weight and Form," _American Journal of
 Psychiatry_ (sometimes bound as _American Journal of Insanity_)
 12(2):197-214.
 3 Actually human brains apparently grow and then shrink as we
 mature and then age.  During childhood, brain cells enlarge, and
 new connections between brain cells are made (in humans, few if
 any brain cells are added after birth).  As we age, some brain
 cells die and are resorbed; other cells shrink.
 4 "Association" cortex is rapidly disappearing in the face of
 continuing research into functional anatomy.  At present, the term
 is mainly of historical interest.

 Acknowledgments
 I'd like to thank Alan Rosenquest and Teresa Pantzer for making
 suggestions in the writing of this article.

 _Mickey Rowe received a B.S.E. from Arizona State University in
 1986, where he majored in biomedical engineering.  He is presently
 completing his Ph.D. thesis in the neuroscience graduate program
 at the University of Pennsylvania.  His thesis involves the
 mechanism of detection of polarized light by fish._

 Phoenix Skeptics and the Sedona Harmonic Diversion
 By Mike Johnson
 I visited Sedona during the recent Harmonic Convergence and again
 found overwhelming evidence of psychic energy transfer to my car;
 there was a consistent 20% increase in my car's mileage on the
 return ride from Sedona to Phoenix.  It seemed quite reasonable to
 attribute this increased mileage to the energy added to my fuel by
 the Psychic Vortex in Sedona.
         When I presented my case to the Phoenix Skeptics meeting in
 August, I was met with their usual glib scientific rebuttals.  The
 _scientists_, in their ignorance, believed the increased mileage
 was due to Sedona being 4,000 feet higher than Phoenix.  While I
 admit that elevation may have had a slight effect, clearly with
 4,000 feet being less than one mile, and Sedona being 120 miles
 away, the effect should have been less than 1%!
         I challenged them to devise an experiment to refute my claim.
 They suggested running more cars.  I consider this irrelevant;
 however, I did happen to have some data on friends' cars which
 demonstrated a similar 20% effect.  Eventually, someone suggested
 running my car to Payson, which is about the same altitude and
 distance as Sedona, but without a vortex.  I had already done this
 and also found a 20% effect.  The scientists misinterpreted this
 as supporting the altitude theory.  To me, it was clear that
 Payson must have a psychic vortex too, albeit unrecognized (the
 Psychical Society will discover it soon, now that I've put them on
 the right track).
         Mount Lemmon came up.  A very strong mileage effect was
 reported.  The scientists noted that Mount Lemmon is at 9,000
 feet, therefore altitude was the cause.  It's amazing how myopic
 these scientists can be.  I could see absolutely no reason not to
 accept that there must be a particularly strong vortex on Mount
 Lemmon.
         Data for other trips uncovered a similar relationship between
 high altitude and gas mileage modification.  In a rare flash of
 creativity, I recognized a broad new psychic principle:  _Vortices
 are much more widespread than previously realized, and their
 strength is proportional to their altitude._  This is likely due
 to their proximity to extraterrestrial psychic emanations and will
 be easily understood when we overcome the inhibitions wrought by
 rigid scientific thinking!
         The discussion led to Occam's razor:  the principle that the
 simplest explanation is preferred.  So, whose explanation is
 simpler, the altitude or the vortex?  (Some thought that defining
 "simplicity" was by no means simple.)  For the Sedona phenomenon,
 it might be hard to choose based on simplicity alone.
         I thought we might add _generality_ to the simplicity
 requirement.  The altitude theory is based on well-established
 principles of physical energy.  It works for cars going up and
 down hills (if you do the right calculations), for planetary
 motion, bullets, aircraft, and a zillion other phenomena.
 Vortices don't predict well for these.  In a given case,
 simplicity may be unclear, and only resolved when you broaden the
 application to other cases.  I think this will be the subject of
 much debate by the Skeptics.
 _A slightly longer version of this article appeared on p. 20 of
 the September 1992 issue of_ Much Ado About Mensa_.  Reprinted by
 permission of the author._

 Jehovah's Witnesses and Earthquake Frequency
 By John Rand
 Like many evangelical groups that claim the "end is near," the
 Watchtower Society claims there has been a tremendous increase in
 earthquake frequency in recent times, specifically since 1914.  A
 perusal of the actual data shows this claim to be without
 foundation, but they have often misused statistics to confirm
 their views.  Sometimes this seems to be a result of perennially
 poor scholarship; other times it seems more like deliberate
 deception.
         1.  The _Awake!_ magazine of Feb. 22, 1977 said:
         Interestingly, for a period of 1,059 years (856 to 1914
         C.E.), reliable sources list only 24 major earthquakes, with
         1,972,952 fatalities.  But compare that with the accompanying
         partial list citing 43 instances of earthquakes, in which
         1,579,209 persons died during just the 62 years from 1915 to
         1976 C.E....  The dramatic upsurge in earthquake activity
         since 1914 helps to prove that we are now living in the time
         of Jesus' presence.
         The fact is that reliable sources list thousands of
 destructive earthquakes for this period.  The U.S. Geological
 Survey's Earthquake Data Base System shows that the 20th century
 is pretty much the same as any other in terms of frequency of
 quakes.  Many other sources show the same for both the frequency
 and the number of deaths caused per year.
         In 1978 the Watchtower Society began using a "neutral" source
 to prove its contentions about earthquakes.  A close look at this
 source provides an interesting lesson in the art of "proving" by
 quotations.
         The October 8, 1978 issue of the Italian journal _Il Piccolo_
 stated (quoted from _The Watchtower_ magazine, May 15, 1983, p.
 6):
         Our generation lives in a dangerous period of high seismic
         activity, as statistics show.  In fact, during a period of
         1,059 years (from 856 to 1914) reliable sources list only 24
         major earthquakes causing 1,973,000 deaths.  However, if we
         compare this figure to the partially complete list of recent
         disasters, we find that 1,600,000 persons have died in only
         63 years, as a result of 43 earthquakes which occurred from
         1915 to 1978.  The dramatic increase further goes to
         emphasize another accepted fact--our generation is an
         unfortunate one in many ways.
         A comparison of this statement with the above shows that the
 Italian journal was quoting virtually word-for-word from the 1977
 _Awake!_ magazine article, without attributing the quotation.  A
 few numbers were rounded off and the origin date of 1977 was
 changed to 1978, but that's about it.
         The problem with this is that the Watchtower Society used the
 Italian journal quotation at least ten times in various
 publications through 1985 to "prove" its contention about
 earthquakes.  Very nice, the Watchtower Society quoting its own
 magazine _Awake!_ via _Il Piccolo_.
         Here is one instance where _Awake!_ quotes itself this way.
 The Oct. 8, 1980 issue said, p. 20-1:
         Has the frequency of earthquakes really increased?  The
         Italian magazine _Il Piccolo_ observed:  "Our generation
         lives in a dangerous period of high seismic activity, as
         statistics show."  And then it produced figures for the past
         thousand years to prove it.
         With this sort of scholarship as a base, any reader of
 Watchtower publications should ask if this Society is deserving of
 his or her confidence.

 2.  Earthquakes are a random phenomenon, of course, so that there
 will be random statistical variations in the number of them in any
 given time period.  The _Watchtower_ magazine of May 15, 1983, p.
 6, said:
         Some seismologists believe that the earth is now in an active
         earthquake period.  For example, Professor Keiiti Aki of the
         Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the
         Massachusetts Institute of Technology speaks of "the apparent
         surge in intensity and frequency of major earthquakes during
         the last one hundred years," though stating that the period
         from 1500 through 1700 was as active.
         The impression given is that this seismologist is using
 "apparent surge" in the sense of "obvious surge," but that is not
 his intent.  His full statement was:
         The apparent surge in intensity and frequency of major
         earthquakes during the last one hundred years is, in all
         probability, due to improved recording of earthquakes and the
         increased vulnerability of human society to earthquake
         damage.  The main reason is the well established plate
         tectonics which indicates a very steady fault motion over the
         past many millions of years.
                 A measure of earthquake strength more objective than
         casualty is the Richter scale.  It is in general difficult to
         assign the Richter scale to earthquakes more than 100 years
         ago.  An attempt, however, has been made in China, where
         historical records are kept in better shape than in other
         regions.  Enclosed figure shows the Richter scale (M) of
         earthquakes in China during the period of about 2000 years.
         The past 100 years are certainly active, but there have been
         periods as active as that, for example, from 1500 to 1700.
         Clearly the professor is talking about a "seeming surge" due
 to better reporting, etc.  His true position is that there has
 been no increase at all in earthquake activity in our century, and
 that the seismicity of the earth has been stationary for thousands
 of years.  In private letters to one author he stated:
         I feel strongly that the seismicity has been stationary for
         thousands of years.  I was trying to convince Jehovah's
         Witnesses about the stationarity of the seismicity, using the
         data obtained in China for the period 1500 through 1700, but
         they put only weak emphasis in the published statement....
         It is clear that they quoted the part they wanted,
         eliminating my main message.
         Obviously the Watchtower Society quoted the professor in a
 way that misrepresented his true statement and views.  Other
 recent articles show similar distortions of fact in Watchtower
 literature (e.g., Hector Avalos, "The Jehovah's Witnesses and the
 Watchtower Society," _Free Inquiry_ 12(2, Spring 1992):28-31;
 Malcolm P. Levin, "Life--How It Got Here: A Critique of a View
 from the Jehovah's Witnesses," _Creation/Evolution_ 12(1, Summer
 1992):29-34).  _The Sign of the Last Days--When?_ by Carl Olof
 Jonsson and Wolfgang Herbst (1987, Commentary Press, P.O. Box
 43532, Atlanta, GA 30336) thoroughly debunks end-times predictions
 and was used as a source for this article.
 _"John Rand" is the pseudonym of a former Jehovah's Witness who
 wishes his true identity to remain secret because of his
 continuing relations with Watchtower Society members.  He has
 assembled detailed critiques of misrepresentations by the
 Watchtower Society on numerous issues._

 The Institute for Creation Research and Earthquake Frequency
 By Jim Lippard
 The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) offered some commentary
 on "end times" earthquake frequency in its _Impact_ No. 198,
 December 1989.  ICR geologist Steven A. Austin, known for his
 claims that Mt. St. Helens proves various aspects of young-earth
 creationism and his Grand Canyon Dating Project, writes about
 "Earthquakes in These Last Days" by pointing out various occasions
 in the Bible where earthquakes were signs of momentous events.
 Among these was the earthquake described in Matthew 27:51-54 at
 the moment of the death of Jesus, which was allegedly accompanied
 by the resurrection of many dead saints (though no other gospel--
 or historical source of any kind, for that matter--notes this
 major miracle).*
         After a brief survey of the significance of earthquakes,
 Austin points out that Jesus spoke of earthquakes as signs of his
 Second Coming.  He cites Jesus' statement that "There will be
 earthquakes in divers places (Matthew 24:7; Mark 13:8)" as "a fact
 now verified by the global distribution of earthquakes recorded on
 seismographs."  Austin seems to imply that this is something new,
 yet he gives no evidence that the global distribution of
 earthquakes has ever been any different.
         Strangely, he then goes on to debunk the claim that
 earthquake frequency has been increasing.  He writes:
         Some people have supposed that earthquake frequency and
         intensity have been increasing significantly in recent times,
         and that this is fulfilling prophecy.  This is an illusion
         caused lately by more frequent detection of earthquakes (more
         seismographs with greater sensitivity). (p. iv)
         He goes on to point out that there was a peak in global
 earthquake energy release between 1952 and 1965, and that the 1989
 global energy release will be only about a tenth of the amounts of
 those peak years.  Yet even though he engages in this debunking,
 he still concludes that earthquakes should be understood as
 fulfilling the divine purposes of "judgment, deliverance, and
 communication."
         It is pleasing to see something approaching a debunking
 issued by the creationists (also see "Dissension in the Ranks of
 the Institute for Creation Research," _AS_, February/March 1990).

 Notes
 * John Rand notes that the JehovahUs Witnesses New World
 Translation of the Bible makes this verse sound as though there
 are simply observers of the earthquake in the cemeteries who then
 go into the city, and other Watchtower Society literature claims
 that the earthquake simply opened up graves and revealed dead
 corpses.  This interpretation is not supported by any reputable
 translations.

 QUAKE DAY - Minus 7
 By Mike Jittlov
 It's 1:47 a.m., 9/15/92, and we just had a little rock & roller in
 Hollywood.  It's probably a good time to bring this up, without

 :@  ALARMING EVERYONE!!!  :@

 An 8.3 (-/+.5) earthquake is being predicted to occur, between now
 and September 22, 1992, and epicentered within 100 miles of Palm
 Springs, California.  Lest you Northerners think you're home-free,
 there's a 7.8 (-/+.4) scheduled for Sonoma County, by September
 28th.  And a 7.1 for San Diego, by October 14.
         This information comes from Gordon-Michael Scallion, a
 clairvoyant living quite safely in faraway New Hampshire.
 Scallion publishes a newsletter, and therein has reportedly been
 quite accurate in predicting the recent Florida hurricane, and
 other natural disturbances.
         I have seen his new "Future Map of the United States."  It's
 22x34, in color, with the new coastline all the way to Denver,
 plus lots of new islands, and even the resurfacing of Atlantis
 just east of Miami.  (Hey!  Our old family deed might be worth
 something!)  Needless to say, this is quite impressive and should
 be hanging in everyone's bunker or shelter.  It includes Early
 Warning Signs, Migration Regions, Political Changes, Weather
 Insights, and more--all this for just $11.95.  "Not Sold in
 Stores, Available only through the Matrix Institute, RR1 Box 391,
 Westmoreland, NH 03467, 603-399-4916."
         I'm sending for mine, today.  Hopefully it'll arrive before
 the postperson has to deliver it by rowboat.
         Can't say I'm entirely unhappy about all this.  My ex-
 business partner (who played the evil, slimy, embezzling,
 sociopathic producer in my movie) is secretly living in Arleta.
 Only seven more days, and he could be 50 feet under sea-level.
         Those of you located near the epicenter/shoreline could
 probably give any house-cleaning a rest, for a week.  Might be
 depressing to do all that work, just to have a collapsing roof
 mess it up.
         Let the count-down begin.
 _Mike Jittlov directed, wrote, and starred in "The Wizard of Speed
 and Time," a 1988 feature film adapted from his short subject of
 the same name.  This no longer timely article was originally
 posted to the alt.fan.mike-jittlov and sci.skeptic Usenet
 newsgroups._

 New Skeptical Group/Magazine
 A new skeptical group, the Skeptics Society, has formed in Los
 Angeles.  They publish a quarterly magazine, _Skeptic_, the first
 issue of which has just come out.  It features a tribute to Isaac
 Asimov by Steve Allen, Harlan Ellison, and Martin Gardner, "A
 Skeptical Manifesto," and the text of an address by James Randi
 given at Caltech, among other articles.
         A one-year subscription to _Skeptic_ is available for $30
 from Skeptics Society, 2761 N. Marengo Ave., Altadena, CA 91001,
 (818) 794-3119.

 Upcoming Meetings
 The Phoenix Skeptics will meet at the Jerry's Restaurant on
 Rural/Scottsdale Road between McKellips and the river bottom, with
 lunch at 12:30 on the first Saturday of each month except where it
 conflicts with a holiday.
         The October meeting speaker will be Peter Lima on the search
 for the historical Jesus; the November meeting will be for
 collecting predictions for 1993.

 Articles of Note
 _Fortean Times_ Issue 64 (August/September 1992) contains
         articles about the Filipino who (falsely) claimed to be a
         pregnant hermaphrodite, waterspouts and seiche waves, the
         "Alternative 3" life on Mars and the moon hoax, more UK
         allegations of Satanic Ritual Abuse, and much more.
 Richard A. Kerr, "The Lessons of Dr. Browning," _Science_
         253(August 9, 1991):623-633.  Reports on the widely
         disseminated Missouri earthquake prediction of self-taught
         climatologist Iben Browning.  Browning predicted that the New
         Madrid Fault would be responsible for a major quake on
         December 3, 1990, which created somewhat of a panic but
         failed to occur.  One of Browning's supporters, David
         Stewart, director of the Southeast Missouri State University
         Earthquake Information Center, with a Ph.D. in geophysics,
         had previously promoted California psychic Christa
         Bernhardt's prediction of a 1975 earthquake in Wilmington,
         North Carolina, at a nuclear reactor site (Stewart opposed
         its construction).  That quake also failed to occur.  Stewart
         was then denied tenure at the University of North Carolina at
         Chapel Hill, and subsequently moved to Missouri.  (See
         sidebar, "Will the Fourth Time Be a Charm," p. 625.)
 Mathews, Jay.  "The Big One," _The New Republic_ 207(July 27,
         1992):26,28.  Corrects misinformation about a supposed
         "megaquake" hitting California in the future.
 "Circle Hoax Contest," _Science_ 257(July 24, 1992):481.  A news
         report on a crop circle making contest sponsored by _The
         Cerealogist_ and Rupert Sheldrake to see if humans can make
         "real" crop circles, with a $5,200 prize for the winner.  The
         Wessex Skeptics declined to enter, but twelve others did,
         some producing impressive results.  (One of the judges,
         however, claimed that none of them were quite as good as the
         "real" thing.)  The winners were a team of three design
         engineers from the Westland helicopter company who used a
         rope, plastic piping, and a ladder suspended from a trestle.
         The first runner-up was Jim Schnabel, an American working on
         his Ph.D. in sociology of science at the University of Bath.
         Schnabel was the only contestant to work alone, and he did so
         using only a plank, some rope, and a garden roller.


 The Arizona Skeptic is the official publication of the Phoenix
 Skeptics and the Tucson Skeptical Society (TUSKS).  The Phoenix
 Skeptics is a non-profit scientific and educational organization
 with the following goals:  1. to subject claims of the paranormal,
 occult, and fringe sciences to the test of science, logic, and
 common sense; 2. to act as clearinghouse for factual and
 scientific information about the paranormal; and 3. to promote
 critical thinking and the scientific method.  The contents of The
 Arizona Skeptic are copyright (c) 1992 by the Phoenix Skeptics
 unless otherwise noted.  Material in this publication with Phoenix
 Skeptics copyright may be reprinted provided that The Arizona
 Skeptic and the author are provided copies of the publication in
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 Phoenix Skeptics, P.O. Box 62792, Phoenix, AZ 85082-2792.
 Submissions for publication in The Arizona Skeptic may be sent to
 Jim Lippard, P.O. Box 42172, Tucson, AZ 85733 or electronically to
 LIPPARD@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU.  All manuscripts become the property of
 the Phoenix Skeptics, which retains the right to edit them.
 Subscription rate is $12.50 per year.  Editor:  Jim Lippard.
 Production:  Ted Karren.