CofS critique part 5
Jeff Jacobsen
PART 5
by Jeff Jacobsen
PO Box 3541
Scottsdale, AZ 85271
copyright 1992 by Jeff Jacobsen
may be reprinted so long as it is kept in its entirety and not
edited.
SCIENCE AND DIANETICS
L. Ron Hubbard constantly makes the claim that dianetics is a
"scientific fact." In fact, he makes that claim 35 times in
Dianetics. For example, "All our facts are functional and these
facts are scientific facts, supported wholly and completely by
laboratory evidence."1 Hubbard shows that he regards correct
scientific experimentation to a high degree by carefully hedging
his approval of another scientific experiment done by someone
else. This test was conducted in a hospital to see whether
unattended children became sick more often than attended
children. "The test... seems to have been conducted with proper
controls,"2 he cautiously states, not having apparently seen the
entire written report.
In The Phoenix Lectures Hubbard is also critical of the early
psychiatric work of Wundt in the latter 1800's; "Scientific
methodology was actually not, there and then, immediately
classified... what they did was unregulated, uncontrolled,
wildcat experiments, fuddling around collecting enormous
quantities of data..."3 And in a lecture in 1954, Hubbard
complained loudly and long about how poorly psychologists and
psychoanalysts conducted research and how they neglected to
maintain proper records.4
I am similarly cautious about Hubbard's experiments, especially
since there seems to be no record of how they were done, what
exactly the results were, what kind of control group was used,
whether the experiments were double blind, how many subjects
there were in each experiment, and other pertinent data. I have
asked ranking scientologists for this data, and have fervently
searched for it myself, and have yet to see it. This brings up
the question about whether Hubbard can call his original research
science.
And, in keeping with the need to understand each word we use,
it brings up the question of just what science is. What does it
take for someone to legitimately make the claim that his ideas
are scientifically proven? When can something be called a
scientific fact?
As with many subjects in life, the deeper one looks into
science, the more complex it gets. There is not even one single
agreed upon definition for science in the scientific community.
Those people who seek to establish a unifying definition are
dealing in what is called the philosophy of science. One of the
most respected and most influential of these is Karl Popper.
Popper claims that no theory can be called scientific unless it
can be demonstrated that deliberate attempts to prove a theory
wrong are unsuccessful. Thus, a theory must open itself up to
criticism from the scientific community to see whether it can
withstand critical scrutiny.
Popper's formulation for scientific validation is;
(1) It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for
nearly every theory - if we look for confirmations.
(2) Confirmations should count only if they are the result of
RISKY PREDICTIONS; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the
theory in question, we should have expected an event which was
incompatible with the theory - an event which would have refuted
the theory.
(3) Every 'good' scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids
certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better
it is.
(4) A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is
non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as
people often think) but a vice.
(5) Every genuine TEST of a theory is an attempt to falsify it,
or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are
degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more
exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were,
greater risks.
(6) Confirming evidence should not count EXCEPT WHEN IT IS THE
RESULT OF A GENUINE TEST OF THE THEORY; and this means that it
can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify
the theory (I now speak in such cases of 'corroborating
evidence'.)
(7) Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false,
are still upheld by their admirers - for example by introducing
AD HOC some auxiliary assumption, or by re-interpreting the
theory AD HOC in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a
procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from
refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering,
its scientific status.5
The falsifiability approach is a good one, because no theory
can be proven unless every case possible is individually examined
to see that it applies to every possible case, which is normally
impossible to do. For instance, a popular example of a "fact" in
science classrooms of the 19th century was that "all swans are
white." This was, however, shown to be untrue when a variety of
swan in South America was discovered to be black. This "fact"
was proven wrong by a previously unknown exception to the rule,
and this example points out that it is never entirely possible to
prove a theory in the positive without examining every possible
case of that theory. (It is, of course, not possible to
completely falsify many theories also, but for the sake of
brevity I would refer the reader to Popper's Logic of Scientific
Discovery for further arguments on this subject.)
Let us go now momentarily to one of Hubbard's scientific
claims:
Its [the reactive mind's] identity can now be certified by any
technician in any clinic or in any group of men. Two hundred and
seventy-three individuals have been examined and treated,
representing all the various types of inorganic mental illness
and the many varieties of psychosomatic ills. In each one this
reactive mind was found operating, its principles unvaried.6
After the brief previous discussion of science, we can begin
to question Hubbard's claim to scientific validity. Exactly who
were these 273 people? Were they believers in Hubbard's theories
or a representative sample of the public at large? Exactly how
was the experiment conducted that proved the existence of the
reactive mind? This needs to be known so others can try it to
test for variables that Hubbard may have overlooked, to see if
his experiment produced a statistical fluke, and to help in
conducting experiments to try to disprove the theory. The more
times an experiment is conducted, the more likely it is shown to
be true, keeping in mind of course that no matter how many times
an expedition went looking for white swans, it would find them,
so long as they didn't go to South America.
Was Hubbard seeking confirmation in his experiments or was he
attempting to refute his theory, as Popper suggests a true man of
science would do? Designing a test that will provide
confirmation of a thesis is not difficult. Below is such a test.
A REAL EXPERIMENT COMES UP DRY
Hubbard does mention an experiment to perform that can prove
the existence of engrams:
If you care to make the experiment you can take a man, render him
"unconscious," hurt him and give him information. By Dianetic
technique, no matter what information you gave him, it can be
recovered. This experiment should not be carelessly conducted
because YOU MIGHT RENDER HIM INSANE.7 {emphasis in original}
Three researchers at the University of California, Los
Angeles, decided in 1950 to give this experiment a try.8
If an individual should be placed, by some means of [sic] other,
into an unconscious state, then, according to traditional
psychology, no retention of the events occurring about him should
take place and consequently, no reports of such events can be
elicited from the individual, no matter what methods of
elicitation are employed (hypothesis I). According to dianetics,
retention should take place with high fidelity and, therefore an
account of the events can be elicited by means of dianetic
auditing (hypothesis II).9
The Dianetic Research Foundation of Los Angeles cooperated
with the experimenters by providing a subject and several
qualified auditors. The subject was a 30 year old male who
worked for the foundation and was considered a good candidate for
the experiment by the foundation since he had "sonic" recall and
had been audited. The experiment was carefully laid out
according to dianetic theory and was at all times done under the
cooperation and suggestions of the Foundation.
The subject was knocked unconscious with .75 grams of sodium
pentathol by Dr. A. Davis, MD, who is one of the authors of the
experiment. When the subject was found to be unconscious, Mr.
Lebovits was left alone with the subject while two recording
devices recorded the session. Mr. Lebovits read a 35-word
section of a physics book to the subject, administering pain
during the reading of the last 18 words. He then left the room,
and the patient was allowed to rest for another hour, at which
time he was awakened.
Two days later, the professional auditors from the Dianetic
Research Foundation began to audit the subject, trying to elicit
the engram, or recording of the spoken text that according to
dianetic theory resided in the subject's reactive mind.
The auditors did elicit several possible passages from the
subject and supplied these to the experimenters. The results
were that "comparison with the selected passage shows that none
of the above-quoted phrases, nor any other phrases quoted in the
report, bear any relationship at all to the selected passage.
Since the reception of the first interim report, in November
1950, the experimenter tried frequently and repeatedly to obtain
further reports, but so far without success."10
The experimenters concluded by stating that while their test
case was only one subject, they felt that the experiment was well
done and strongly suggested that the engram hypothesis was not
validated. I know of no other scientifically valid experiment
besides this one by non-dianeticists which attempted to prove
Hubbard's engram theory.
Here was an experiment designed to confirm the engram
hypothesis which, according to Hubbard, was a "scientific fact."
Apparently (or, perhaps, IF) Hubbard did this test he got
positive results. But this is a good example for showing that
even one type of experiment should be conducted several times in
order to be sure of its outcome. Perhaps some neutral party
today could be persuaded to attempt it again.
There is one point I consider the most damning to Hubbard's
attempt to cloak dianetics in scientific validity. While he
seems to be inviting others to conduct their own investigations
(and thus seems to be open to attempts to refute his claims), he
never explains his own experimental methods, thus closing the
door to the scientific community's ability to attempt to verify
his claims. In order to evaluate Hubbard's claims, the
scientific community would seek to replicate his experiments to
see if the same results were obtained and to check for possible
influences on the experiment Hubbard may have overlooked. They
would also, as Popper suggests, try to shoot holes in the theory,
either on a logical basis or by conducting refutational
experiments.
If Hubbard really respected science, he would have welcomed
and helped the scientific community in its attempts to both
support and attempt to refute his theories. But he and his
successors in dianetics and Scientology refuse to join in
scientific debate over the merits of Hubbard's ideas, maintaining
a dogmatic rather than scientific stance.
My attempts to get the experiments from the Church of
Scientology have been in vain. I have never heard of anyone who
has seen them, nor even anyone who claimed to know how they were
conducted. It is mainly for this reason, I believe, that
dianetics cannot claim scientific validity. Until Hubbard's
supposed original experiments are released to the public,
dianetics can only be called science fiction.
As a footnote, the only references I found to Hubbard's actual
notes on any original experiments were on taped lectures by
Hubbard in 1950 and 1958. He stated in 1950 that "my records are
in little notebooks, scribbles, in pencil most of them. Names
and addresses are lost... there was a chaotic picture..." A
certain Ms. Benton asked Hubbard for his notes to validate his
research, but when she saw them, "she finally threw up her hands
in horror and started in on the project [validation] clean."11
In another lecture in 1958 he explained "the first broad test"12
of dianetics, wherein he would audit some patients of Dr.
Yankeewitz at the Oak Knoll Hospital without the knowledge of the
doctor. Hubbard called these shoddily done tests "significant",
but added that they are "unfortunately not totally available to
us".13
If this is the type of material Hubbard was basing his
"scientific facts" on, then there is probably no need to even see
them to be able to reject them with good conscience.
1 DIANETICS, (1987 edition) p. 96
2 DIANETICS, p.143
3 L. Ron Hubbard, THE PHOENIX LECTURES, (Los Angeles; Bridge
Publications, 1982) p.203
4 L. Ron Hubbard, "Lecture:Universes", 1954, from the "Universes
and the War Between Theta and Mest" collection, cassette tape
#5404C06
5 Karl Popper, CONJECTURES AND REFUTATIONS: THE GROWTH OF
SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE (NY; Harper Torch Books, 1963) pp. 36,37
6 DIANETICS, p.70-71
7 Dianetics, p.76
8 Psychological Newsletter (Dept. of Psychology, New York
University, New York, NY) 1959, 10:131-134 "An Experimental
Investigation of Hubbard's Engram Hypothesis (Dianetics)", by
Fox, Davis, and Lebovits
9 ibid. p.132
10 ibid. p.133
11 L. Ron Hubbard, "What Dianetics Can Do", lecture series 2,
1950, cassette tape #5009M23
12 "The Story of Dianetics and Scientology"
13 ibid.
--
cult...@indirect.com
Jeff Jacobsen
PO Box 3541
Scottsdale, AZ 85271 Here I stand - I can do no more.