Secrets of Science

By Graham Phillips. Pan, 1990. 168pp. $9.95 (paperback).

Reviewed by Denis Dutton

Will animals ever be able to talk with humans? Australian astrophysicist and science journalist Graham Phillips points out that there has been much wishful thinking in experiments to show that animals can use language. Koko, the gorilla taught to use sign language by California researchers, is a famous case. Among her reported feats was to look at a horse with a bit in its mouth and sign "sad horse." When asked why, she signed "teeth."

But careful studies of videotapes show that Koko and her simian cousins in other experiments randomly produce many signs when they want a banana, a hug, or something else. Their doting trainers tend to read more intelligent intent into this than is actually there. Anyone who has watched, or been, an overenthusiastic parent will understand.

Animal language is just one of the topics of this entertaining book. Phillips ranges over Atlantis, evolution, extraterrestrial life, lasers, the next ice age, quasars, cholesterol confusion, space elevators, time travel, nuclear radiation and many other topics. Each of the 40 short chapters presents a single scientific curiosity.

For instance,, you may be interested to know that if you commit suicide by jumping off the Empire State Building, you'll hit the pavement at 190 km per hour. This, however, is the same as jumping out of an airplane at 10,000 metres, because of air resistance. At exactly that speed, air resistance cancels out gravity for a falling body that is spread out. Keep yourself straight upright, Phillips says, and you can add to your speed. Perhaps he ought to have forewarned readers that this will decrease life expectancy by a second or two. Now consider the moon, where there is no air. A feather dropped from 3,000 metres on the moon would hit the ground at an explosive 360 km per hour. Imagine an astronaut sliced in half by a falling feather.

No, don't imagine it. Think instead of what happened to an elderly Australian couple who were sucked out of their car by a tornado in 1976. Their bodies were found stripped naked, 60 metres from their car, which had been blown 100 metres from the road. The passenger seatbelt was still buckled. In fact, it's surprising to learn that Australia is second only to the United States in frequency of tornadoes.

Some of Phillips's chapters are on medicine, and they are generally excellent reading. In explaining the power of the placebo effect, he tells of a cancer sufferer who in the 1950s was taking, with apparent benefit, a worthless medication called Krebiozen. The man then read a newspaper article which described Krebiozen as a quack drug. He suffered an immediate relapse, only to be brought around by his doctor, who administered distilled water, telling him that this was actually an improved, effective form of Krebiozen. Again, the patient improved markedly until, two months later, he read another, even more scathing report on Krebiozen. The poor fellow died soon after.

That was the late 1950s, and while the anecdote helps explain the success of charlatans like Milan Brych, Phillips does not take into account recent research showing that positive-thinking cancer patients who take "alternative" cures as well as conventional treatments often fare worse than cancer patients who submit to conventional treatment alone. The placebo effect is powerful for diseases with a significant psychological component, but the unwelcome news is that it is apparently no help in the ultimate outcome of an affliction such as cancer.

Much of Science Secrets is splendid gee-whiz material, but there is one section sure to elicit yawns from readers who have partaken in what has become by now a Canterbury tradition: firewalking. Old hands, er, feet, at firewalking will be surprised that Phillips insists the coals must be heaped out of their pit onto a lawn, as walking directly into the pit may be "dangerous." The New Zealand Skeptics have no hesitation about wading directly, barefoot, into a deep pit of hot coals.

Maybe we're just made of tougher stuff than Australian astrophysicists.

The Press, Christchurch