Molly Ivins November 23

"I know there's no evidence that shows the death penalty has a deterrent effect, but I just feel in my gut it must be true." -- A very, very high-ranking Texas public official

AUSTIN, Texas — Well, good buddy, let's go with your gut; why bother with the evidence?

I bring this up not to argue the death penalty chestnut one more time, but as an interesting example of the thesis of Wendy Kaminer's new book, "Sleeping With Extra-Terrestrials: the Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety."

Kaminer, a wonderfully funny social critic, takes on a host of threats to rational thought, including our fascination with angels, aliens, near-death experiences, junk science, the recovery movement and aspects of the computer culture. Her short book demolishes New Age inanities, various conspiracy theories and, in general, a pantheon of lunacy that would do credit to 14th-century Europe. But she's funny and sort of nice about it all, as well as honest enough to admit that she goes to a practitioner of homeopathic medicine.

The book is advertised as pointing out "the amusing and ominous effects of our deference to spiritual authorities and resistance to critical thinking" — including the association of religious belief with virtue. That means, in these parlous times, that it will inevitably be attacked as anti-religious.

Not long ago, I spoke to a group of librarians and, in the course of running down censorship threats from various quarters, cited several examples of censorship by religious fundamentalists. Afterward, an angry woman approached me and, her voice shaking with passion, announced, "I am a Christian!"

"So am I!" I replied, beaming upon my co-religionist, who was much taken aback.

She was apparently prepared to be personally insulted because I had described some fundamentalists as well-meaning but total knotheads — as though Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, the alarming number of preachers and priests who turn out to be child molesters, and the many other religious leaders who have proved to be lazy, drunk, adulterous, hypocritical or plain silly do not exist.

Not all religious leaders, of course, just some — perhaps almost as many as in, say, an equivalent pool of CPAs. What's wrong with recognizing that?

An interesting companion read is Joan Acocella's rather horrifying book, "Creating Hysteria: Women and Multiple Personality Disorder." In the 1980s, in this "advanced industrial nation," we went through a form of craziness as bizarre as ghost dancing, the last Lakota Sioux defiance in the face of extermination. The Lakota had a pretty good excuse; we didn't.

The "recovered memory" movement, manipulated by dubious psychologists — another form of authority to which we are overly reverential — led not only to an outbreak of multiple personality disorder but to even more noxious and hideous hysteria about "satanic ritual abuse." This astonishing example of mass hysteria, in which 5-year-old children were led by self-deluding adults to tell outre tales of sexual torture and murder, should give us all pause about our own credulity.

Kaminer reports that a survey by Redbook in 1994 found that 70 percent of Americans believed in the existence of abusive satanic cults.

Thirty-two percent rationalized the absence of proof by explaining that "the FBI and the police ignore evidence because they don't want to admit the cults exist."

Naturally, the 1994 government report finding no evidence to support the existence of such cults was dismissed as a cover-up, like official investigations of UFO sightings. To the eternal shame of this country, there are still people in prison for satanic ritual abuse, even though the whole phenomenon has been thoroughly debunked.

In journalism, we like to remember the cool-headed heroes who painstakingly proved that it was all hysterical swill (special credit goes to two Texans, Lawrence Wright and Debbie Nathan). But the fact is that many in the media helped spread the contagion of hysteria, not least by our infamously "objective" reporting of those telling obviously insane lies.

Kaminer notes another unhappy legacy of the recovered memory movement: "denials of deeply felt beliefs — about spaceship crashes or child abuse — are apt to be considered confirmation of their truth. Mistrust of official reports debunking myths about satanic ritual abuse or visitations by extraterrestrials, does not represent healthy, reasoned skepticism of government. Rather, it indicates an utter lack of skepticism about fantastic allegations of abuse, or tales of aliens among us."

Kaminer considers all this deeply discouraging evidence of the rise of irrationalism in America. I am more in the "this glass is half-full" school myself.

I do think it would help if we had a public voice attacking the excesses of religion equivalent to the great 19th-century atheist Robert Ingersoll (who was once the Republican vice presidential candidate; try to think of a prominent atheist politician today). Madalyn Murray O'Hair was both so angry and batty that my reaction was, "Thanks, I'll take the Baptists."

But I see no reason why religious leaders should not be held to standards of logic, even if mystery and faith are admitted as part of the argument. Katha Pollitt and Kaminer between them begin to fill the Ingersoll role.

My optimism on this front was encouraged by the recent tragedy of the EgyptAir plane crash. Our guys went out and looked for evidence on the ocean floor from the black box and the flight-deck recorder. One theory was leaked to the press. The Egyptians, understandably upset that one of their own was being blamed, promptly went into an orgy of batdoo conspiracy theories, willing to believe any unlikely scenario for which there is no evidence at all. Meanwhile, many in the American media were willing to say, "Ooops, we might have been wrong about that."

At the least, we were theorizing well in advance of the evidence, as the National Transportation Safety Board pointed out. And that, as the great rationalist Sherlock Holmes often pointed out, is a no-no.

Besides, "The X-Files" is no longer the biggest hit on television — it's now "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" which at least makes you think about how you know what you think you know.

Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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