Why I am a Skeptic

What do the Brontosaurus, Harry Houdini, and a phrenology bust have in common?

Each played a part in my journey towards skepticism.

I would wager that at one point in their lives, the readers of this newsletter could unabashedly name their favourite dinosaur; mine will forever be the brontosaurus*. As a youngster in the early 90s with a penchant for intense special interests, access to cable TV stations such as the CBC and PBS more or less did a lot of the heavy-lifting in educating me about these long-deceased reptiles when the offerings of my small-town library and the patience of my beleaguered teachers were exhausted. The release of the first movie in what would become the Jurassic Park franchise provided a boon of documentaries of variable quality, but with a consistent message about the science behind the dating of fossils. While these explanations were excessively simplified in retrospect, the knowledge that fossils can be millions or even billions of years old had a seismic impact on an 8-year old who had only heard the earth described as being thousands of years old.

The next step in the devolution of my religious beliefs and the evolution of my skepticism involved seances. I have long forgotten the original context (it was likely Halloween related) but I was introduced to the exploits of Harry Houdini through a school assignment. The reading may have been about the Chinese Water Torture Cell, but I went straight to the school library once I learnt that he was not a fictional character. Luckily, it was more difficult to outpace the school librarian as there were quite a few books on Houdini-related subjects. Unfortunately, many were inclined to say that ghosts existed and presented photographic evidence in support of that thesis, instead of exposing spirit photography as the outright fraud it was. Harry Houdini and his ilk were frequently presented as killjoys, but I was impressed by the methods he applied to debunk mediums, and the simplicity of the challenge he put forth to prove if communication in the afterlife was possible. From this starting point, I was introduced to the efforts of James Randi and others in illuminating the tools of deception utilised by sheisters and scammers. More so than radiometric dating, this knowledge has been incredibly applicable in my day-to-day life when avoiding faith healers, youth groups, and multi-level marketing pitches.

When I was 11, I was in health class and bored with yet another lesson about the food pyramid. As I flipped through a text book that was well past 15 years out of date, I saw this bizarre photograph of a phrenology bust on the first page of a chapter called “Quackery”. Well, shit, I was enthralled by the different devices and treatments that were supposed to cure cancer, diabetes, and hair loss. But alongside the hilarity, there was the gravity of the deceit and greed that motivated these oftentimes literal snake oil salesmen to peddle these products, and the resulting destruction to the health and finances of their victims. This chapter was not included in the curriculum or taught to any of the students nearly 30 years ago and, in light of current events, I wonder if that was short-sighted. Thus, in the pursuit of my own career in health, I've expanded upon that lesson by taking on an evidence-based practice. I see it as my professional responsibility to educate the public about the realities of research informing hospital policies, the marketing of health products, and misinformation in mainstream and social media.

* Do not come at me with Brontosaurus vs. Apatosaurus discourse. I know what I wrote.