One thing that is guaranteed to get steam coming out of my ears is pseudoscience (or Woo-woo – to use the technical term). Alarm bells started to ring today when I read an entry on David Byrne’s Journal that quoted the following from an article in the New York Times:
Studies suggest that people who speak in tongues rarely suffer from mental problems. A recent study of nearly 1,000 evangelical Christians in England found that those who engaged in the practice were more emotionally stable than those who did not.
That struck me as a somewhat counter-intuitive claim. So I went and read the original article. It describes some experiments done to measure brain activity while subjects are experiencing glossolalia – otherwise known as "speaking in tongues". Unfortunately, the NYT reporter (Benedict Carey) blows his credentials as a careful reporter with his opening paragraph:
The passionate, sometimes rhythmic, language-like patter that pours forth from religious people who “speak in tongues” reflects a state of mental possession, many of them say. Now they have some neuroscience to back them up.
"Now they have some neuroscience to back them up". Er, hello, you mean that they are being mentally possessed? Er, no, the experiments don’t actually show anything of the sort. Mind you, the reporter was probably being led up the garden path by the experimenter, one Andrew Newberg. A clue might be gleaned from Mr. Carey’s report itself. The bit where he writes:
Ms. Morgan, a co-author of the study, was also a research subject. She is a born-again Christian who says she considers the ability to speak in tongues a gift. “You’re aware of your surroundings,” she said. “You’re not really out of control. But you have no control over what’s happening. You’re just flowing. You’re in a realm of peace and comfort, and it’s a fantastic feeling.”
This is clearly a carefully-controlled experiment, then. No danger of experimenter bias whatsoever. Gaah. Excuse me while I go and cool down. Feel free to carry on reading PZ Myers, who punctures this bit of woo with all the contempt that it deserves.
Oh, and that study of 1,000 evangelical Christians in England? Funny that, I can’t find any trace of it via Google. If you are able to track it down, please let me know. I’d be interested to read it. But it may be as real as the Loch Ness Monster for all I can tell.
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