I Want To Believe...But I Will Need To See Peer Reviewed Research: Skepticism in The X Files, Scooby Doo and more

Very minor spoilers for Magic In The Moonlight, X Files, South Park and The Simpsons

Woody Allen has surely become the very shark he talked about in Annie Hall - he has to keep going or he'll die. He continues to make a film a year which regardless of the quality is amazing. At the age of 79 he has 52 directing credits and 76 writing credits (this is according to IMDB) and surely he is going to try and up his rate of writing so he can have written a film a year of his life. The quality of Allen's films does vary a great deal and undeniably the best stage of his career is behind him but he is still more than capable of making great films (Midnight in Paris and Blue Jasmine are both from this decade). Essentially I think any Woody Allen film is worth watching and so it was that I watched one of his very recent films - Magic in the Moonlight. Set in the 1920s Colin Firth played a hugely successful stage magician whose hobby was to expose psychics, mediums, etc as charlatans. Firth's character knew all their tricks and was probably better at them.

A friend and fellow magician approached Firth's character about exposing a psychic who he had been unable to debunk, Firth's character not only doesn't believe in psychics etc but is absolutely sure there is no god, no afterlife etc. One of the reasons I was reluctant to watch this film was because I consider myself a rationalist and a skeptic and whenever issues like skepticism are discussed on film and television nearly always not only is the skeptic incorrect but they are mean for spoiling other people's delusions, have a closed mind, their lives are lacking "magic" etc. I won't get into all my arguments against this but I disagree. Nobel Prize wining physicist Richard Feynman described an argument with an artist friend of his who said that while he saw a beautiful flower as a scientist Feynman would take it apart and make it a "dull thing". Feynman's argument against this and the idea that science and rationality takes away from life is a billion times better than anything I could write -_

So my worry was that in this film Firth's rationalist view would be challenged and he would change his mind and see why he had always been such a fool. I won't get into what happened in the film but I was annoyed and pleased in equal measure. Of course, it is worth pointing out that in any piece of fiction, if Character A believes Premise 1 and the whole film is steadfast in his refusal to change his mind and the film ended with him still thinking the same thing - that's not a film. Character A has to go through some change or crisis so a skeptic must at some point at least have some doubt. What annoys me is that rarely does it go the other way, a believer abandoning their beliefs in light of evidence and this being a good thing.


The X Files

First of all, I will say that I love The X Files. It was a great programme, very original,  both lead actors were very good (especially Anderson) and when it got everything just right it was brilliant. Due to the episodic nature of it, each week they have a new case to solve, some episodes are much better than others but overall I would rate it very highly.

I have recently been rewatching the show from the start. I have seen all the episodes before when I was a lot younger but often out of order and in fits and starts. In terms of dealing with skepticism The X Files is probably the worst offender in all of pop culture as they intentionally set up confrontation between skeptical and non-skeptical worldviews. Virtually every week Mulder's borderline insane theories are proven right and Scully's narrow minded skepticism shown up as thoroughly wrong. Watching the show now with more of an interest in skepticism, science and rationality I watch every episode and think Mulder is an idiot. The man believed any old nonsense that is presented to him. To paraphrase the comedian Nick Doody he will even believe in contradictory forms of bullshit. He was perfectly happy believing nonsense astrology about the alignments of planets giving people superpowers while also that a child can have genuine stigmata wounds - astrology and Christianity can't both be right as they each claim to have the ultimate answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.

Even ardent believers in something like alien abductions think that many of the reported cases will be people who have imagined it or are lying but Mulder is open to anything. Of course, in the show Mulder is right, usually there is no room left for another interpretation of what happened. I do think that him being right is a fluke as the initial evidence did not merit his certainty. I am convinced that for the nine seasons and two movies worth of cases where Mulder was right there are thousands of "unseen episodes" where Mulder has dragged them to the other side of the country to investigate Big Foot and there was a perfectly rational explanation and come his annual appraisal he had to explain all the expense claims.


Boss: "So, a ticket to Michigan..."
Mulder: "Yeah, we thought there was a Big Foot like creature there."
Boss: "Well, lets leave aside why that is FBI business for the moment, but was there a Big Foot?"
Mulder: "Er...no... it was some guy in a suit."
Boss: "Plane tickets, car rental, motel, animal tranquiliser...this is $10,000. How am I supposed to justify this expenditure? Why did you think this creature was there?"
Mulder: "Er...this guy had taken a blurry picture...and..."


A number of years ago I read a non-fiction book called How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World by Francis Wheen and it contained some fascinating information about The X Files. Chris Carter, creator of The X Files, had met a skeptics group to discuss The X Files. They wanted to talk to him about the atmosphere of paranoia and irrationality that, in their opinion, his show had helped create. They cited examples of university students who would use The X Files as a source - and these weren't media students but people studying history or science. When challenged that The X Files was fiction the students often responded, "Yes but it's based on true stuff". Carter was quite clear that as far as he was concerned it was all fiction and he wasn't trying to suggest this stuff was real - they were just interesting stories. Richard Dawkins in his 1996 Dimbleby Lecture suggested if a cop show every week had two suspects of different races, and every week the guilty person was always of the same race people would, rightly, complain of the slanted perception and racist view it was giving. But in The X Files often two different explanations would be given, Mulder's "believer" view and Scully's "skeptic" view and nearly every week the "believer" was right. I don't entirely agree with Dawkins' views as I don't think it's talking about the same issue (I often find myself distancing myself from Richard Dawkins' views these days) and I don't think you can hold Chris Carter responsible for people thinking his fiction is fact.

Then there are the conspiracy theories in The X Files. Just about everything in The X Files is a conspiracy and just about everyone is in on it; the US government, the UN, the army, the police, the medical establishment even the FBI (who for some reason allow Mulder to continue investigating conspiracies). The number of people who would have to be involved in these conspiracies does make it perfectly valid to ask the question - if more people are involved in the conspiracy than aren't, is that still a conspiracy? The X Files does mock it's own madness at times, in 'Jose Chung's Outer Space'
 a writer interviewed Scully about a particular case and he mentioned he'd met with many people involved and everyone had a different take on the events. Some people even think of Mulder and Scully as sinister government agents, that they are part of a conspiracy, with Mulder being a robot and Scully clearly a man in drag. In that episode the real conspiracy is actually that UFO abductions are just people being kidnapped by the government with UFOs being a handy subterfuge. In an interview Chris Carter did said that his original intention was to have the skeptical view proved right as often as the believer but those were very dull stories.

Skepticism is not well served in fiction in any medium and perhaps Chris Carter is right in that rational explanations make bad stories. There are  non-fiction television programmes taking the skeptic side. Most of Derren Brown's career has involved him repeating the tricks of psychics and mind-readers and he goes out of his way to explain how he has no magic or su
pernatural powers - they're just tricks. The American magicians Penn & Teller have a similar line in debunking people who claim special powers. There is a noble tradition of stage magicians showing up charlatans that includes the legendary Harry Houdini. The most famous magician who ever lived despised psychics and their ilk so much so that he fell out with celebrity spiritualist believer Arthur Conan-Doyle - as retold here by Drunk History.

In recent years there has been a crossover between science and stand up comedy. The comedian Robin Ince does shows with Dr. Brian Cox and Dara O'Briain, who has a degree in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, does science shows on television. Tim Minchin, equal parts comedian and musician, has a lot of material on science and skepticism. Minchin's nine minute beat poem Storm took on all manner of irrationality, in one show he told a story concerning a fan of his who was also religious and told him of a "miracle" involving his mother's health and the song that Minchin wrote about this encounter seemingly started with an admission that there is a god, and turned into a song about all the rational explanations of what had happened. An honourable mention to skepticism in fiction must go to Scooby Doo, as Minchin pointed out in Storm, which is indeed the rational explanation television show that Chris Carter couldn't write. Every week in Scooby Doo there was a monster or ghost or some other supernatural mystery which was always revealed to be a person playing an elaborate hoax for nefarious purposes. Sherlock Holmes is a great champion of reason, logic and rationality but as already mentioned Conan-Doyle has form in the irrationality camp (he also believed in fairies).

The Simpsons and Futurama do well in portraying skepticism, science and rationality. In Futurama the Professor is, not surprisingly, a man of science and showed a lot of contempt for religion, alternative medicine etc. even if he does have some odd beliefs and practices. The Simpsons seems to err far more on the side of being god-friendly while not simply buying everything religion is selling. As well as seeing religion as fair game for comedy throughout the show it also has a number of hugely cutting attacks on religion - in an emergency Homer frantically flipping through the Bible and shouting "it doesn't contain any answers", in one episode Homer and Bart convert to Catholicism and Marge has a vision of Protestant Heaven and Catholic Heaven which surely is mocking the very idea of organised religion and in an episode with a Scientology-like cult Reverend Lovejoy denounced the cult as made up rules, silly rituals, only after your money and then after the briefest of pauses passed the collection plate while people recited the Lord's Prayer. There is, of course, The Simpons episode which featured Mulder and Scully when Homer thought he had seen an alien which turned out to be Mr. Burns. That episode is also really introduced Lisa as the go-to skeptic on that show and she reads the brilliant sounding Junior Skeptic Magazine and in the episode Lisa The Skeptic the townspeople find what they think is an angel skeleton and Lisa is...well...skeptical. (I just looked up Junior Skeptic Magazine and found that there is a magazine in America called Skeptic and after this episode made a section that was called Junior Skeptic - such is the power of The Simpsons).


As is often the case it falls to those defenders of rational thought Stan Marsh and Kyle Broflovski from South Park. Let's be clear, they don't advocate a rationalist worldview on South Park and they have episodes which rail against atheists (in particular the already mentioned Richard Dawkins). But consistently they set themselves up against the irrational:

• The Biggest Douche In The Universe - TV psychic John Edwards convinced Kyle his grandmother is watching him from Heaven so he changed his life to please her. Stan goes through complicated arguments which are basically - these are cheap parlour tricks anyone can learn, our attempts to answer the big questions in the universe like why are we here are hindered by these charlatans, and a guy claiming to talk to dead people is a douche.

• Mystery of the Urinal Deuce - basically an episode about 9/11 "truthers". The episode pointed out the problem with most of these grand conspiracies in that they are flawlessly carried out by organisations who struggle to carry out their normal duties.
• Trapped In The Closet - in an episode that was famously never shown in the UK because of our ridiculous slander laws they took aim at Scientology and all they needed to do was repeat what Scientologists believe.
• All About Mormons - A Mormon family moves to South Park who are undeniably lovely people and explain to Stan about their religion. Again all they really do is repeat what the Mormons believe and show the story of Joseph Smith founding their religion with a helpful soundtrack of someone humming "dum de dum dum"during the bits that are hard to believe and "smart sma-smart smart" when people question Joseph Smith's claims.

There are lots more and they go through religions - both major and cult, faith healing, alternative medicine, television evangelists asking for money, the list go on and on. What is very interesting is that as I said they will take shots at liberals, atheists etc and that their message is usually think for yourself and if you find yourself at the extreme on an issue that's probably not a good place to be.

There is perhaps an obvious champion for skepticism I have overlooked; Dana Scully. Aside from a couple of dodgy moments Scully maintained her skeptical worldview throughout the show and would often explain how if evidence was presented to her then she would change her view. As skepticism is often aimed at alternative medicine and other non scientific practices it is forgotten that skepticism is a key component to science. Every scientific theory is challenged by other scientists and they demand evidence. If new evidence comes to light they will abandon theories that do not match the evidence. For example both Isaac Newton and Einstein's theories have been abandoned for ones that better match the evidence. This process isn't a weakness of science but it's strength - unlike faith it will change when confronted with evidence. Scully demanded explanations not just of what happened but how, she remained critical of evidence through hypnosis, and applies Occam's Razor all the time(this being the idea that all things being equal, the simplest explanation is the best) but when confronted with evidence she could not dismiss she would change her mind.   

People have often said to me that a skeptical view isn't fun or lacks magic and mystery. Now, I think that is a tacit admission that they know they're wrong but one reason that annoyed me is that there are genuine miracles in the universe, not religious or supernatural, that are far more impressive. When you tune an analogue radio and hear static, part of that static is the radiation from the Big Bang. All the atoms that make up my body were once in a star. We have been to the moon and discovered DNA yet are meant to be impressed by blurry photographs of UFOs and third-rate conjurer tricks.