I made it to Chet Raymo's inevitable chapter on UFOs and abductions. It was like taking in remarkable, verdant scenery and suddenly coming across an industrial eyesore. The same tired dismissal. He manages to ignore the fact that "UFO" is an innocuous, unloaded term. It stands for "Unidentified Flying Object." Who's talking extraterrestrial spaceships? But because we have no crashed vehicles or bodies to study (that Raymo knows of, at least), the entire UFO inquiry is thrown out. Fifty years of observation by qualified observers -- including plenty of noted scientists -- industriously dismissed because Raymo considers the "U"-word a harbinger of irrationality.
And he treats us to my personal favorite condescending anecdote, universally employed by debunkers: "When I was young and foolish, I also thought UFOs were real! So I can almost sympathize with all you drooling idiots out there." Not in those words, of course, but he might as well have saved himself some typing. (I got exactly the same response from the book editor for the Kansas City Star when I replied to his review of an academically palatable book on radio-based SETI. Stupid bastard.)
Raymo even includes a helpful checklist so you can test your "credulity index." One of the true/false statements is "UFOs are probably extraterrestrial." I wanted to phone Raymo up and ask "Which UFOs? All of them? Some of them? Don't ask me to embrace or dismiss an entire field of study because of your obvious difficulty with definitions. Let me speak with your editor."
In another section, he pairs alleged popular misconceptions (i.e., "Loch Ness Monster") with "obscure" scientific terms (such as "WIMPs"). One of the pairings is something like "ESP/PCR" (polymerase chain reaction). The implication is that the reader will immediately identify the "deluded" term ("extrasensory perception -- what nonsense!") and sit scratching his head at the "serious" one.
As one of the nontypical readers familiar with all the terms, I was most amused at the inclusion of PCR. Ironically enough, Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize for its discovery, has gone on record describing his own possible alien abduction, complete with "missing time" and bizarre "screen memories." Take that, Raymo.
Don't misunderstand. I like this book. Raymo is a gifted thinker in many respects. But he should have spared thinking readers the ignorant (and unneeded) side-trip into ufology, just as Michael Shermer should have in his otherwise commendable "Why People Believe Weird Things."
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