Many may not remember my pre-Academy Awards interview with Barbara Walters. This is probably because it never occurred. But for those of you who believe you do remember, you’ll recall the long sigh I breathed after she asked me where I get my inspiration. The camera zoomed into my watering eyes – the focus growing ever softer until I appeared as non-corporeal as a cloud of mist – and I told America’s finest fake journalist about those who shaped my amateur scientist’s understanding of the world. Then she asked what it felt like to be nominated for my role in Driving Miss Daisy, whereupon I beat a hasty retreat. My Jessica Tandy disguise, after all, was beginning to melt, and I didn’t want to suffer a Darkman-like embarrassment.
I thought I’d take a break from my normal routine of committing character assassination upon the world’s charlatans and malarkey peddlers and repeat my list of quotable notables from that imaginary television appearance. If you’re interested in the amateur sciences, I suggest to purchase or illegally download everything you can by the writers and thinkers I list here. Sure, there are many others who will deserve recognition and not receive it from me, but it wouldn’t be the first time. Just ask my first wife.
Just kidding, honey. I miss you.
Onward!
#1. H.L. Mencken
If you like Mark Twain, you’ll love H.L. Mencken, and if you don’t like Mark Twain, I question your patriotism. Though not a novelist like Twain, Mencken achieved the same level of comedy and insight that Twain approached in his own non-fiction writing. Mencken wrote primarily as a social critic for the Chicago Tribune in the 1920s. He famously wrote a completely ridiculous history of the bathtub (involving corrupt health officials, politicians, and a line of bucket-carrying slaves) that was later picked up as fact by other newspapers. His fabrications eventually ended up in the encyclopedias. In a monument of critical thinking, Mencken wrote an essay titled “The Bathtub Hoax” which explained not only how he had made up the bathtub’s history, but also how easily fooled the general public can be – especially when there’s a good story involved. Also of note are Mencken’s essays on the Scopes “monkey” trial. Being a contemporary of the ordeal, Mencken writes with a unique perspective. We tend to forget that then, as now, the faithful dismissed evolution not only because they disagreed with its implications, but because they didn’t understand them. Case in point: The people of Tennessee at the time had no concept of Darwin’s conviction that humans and apes shared a common ancestor which existed many thousands of years ago. They believed, in stead, that natural selection taught that their grandparents were actually monkeys, which, while a plausible hypothesis, wasn’t exactly true.
Suggested reading: The Bathtub Hoax, and Other Blasts & Bravos from the Chicago Tribune (1958)
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#2. Martin Gardner
Like many belonging to the skeptic pantheon, Martin Gardner got his start as a magician. He later became a mathematician and wrote many books on the subject of recreational math. As the term “recreational math” seems oxymoronic to me, I prefer to read his writing in the field of pseudo-science, the paranormal, and alternative medicine. He has written about almost every fringe philosopher, quack doctor, or crazy cult leader you can imagine. He also writes with a wry sense of humor, which is a nice counter-point to the boiling indignation you’re bound to feel toward some of his more nefarious and sinister subjects. Gardner was one of the first to criticize L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics before it evolved into the science fiction fever dream that is modern Scientology. Just think, if John Travolta had read one of Gardner’s books before the Thetans took him, the world (and Barry Pepper’s career) may have been spared Battlefield Earth.
Suggested reading: Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (1957)
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#3. James Randi
Also a magician, James “The Amazing” Randi has appeared many times on television practicing his own brand of debunking. In fact, he recently appeared on Anderson Cooper’s show exposing fake psychic Sylvia Browne. Most famously, he destroyed the career of spoon-bender Uri Geller by secretly replacing Geller’s pre-bent spoons with normal ones before a taping of Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. Geller, unsurprisingly, just wasn’t feeling the energy that night. Randi has also trained other magicians to pose as psychics for supposedly scientific university studies of ESP. In the best example, Project Alpha, two of Randi’s protégés made it through a testing process and were declared actual psychics by Washington University. They later fessed up to the scam. Randi has also exposed the tricks of faith healers such as Oral Roberts, Peter Popoff, and Pat Robertson. And, through the James Randi Educational Foundation, he offers a million dollar prize to anyone who can prove they have psychic powers. The prize has never been claimed.
Suggested reading: The Faith Healers (1987)
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#5. Carl Sagan
You should know Carl Sagan. Through his PBS series Cosmos and his many books on astronomy and science, Sagan became a pop culture icon as well as an ambassador of reason. He proved that the superstition can be replaced by knowledge and flimsy spirituality is nothing compared the true feeling of awe one receives just by looking at pictures from the Hubble telescope. This guy is no joke. Although his voice is kind of funny sounding.
Suggested reading: The Demon-Haunted World (1996)
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Honorable Mentions
That’s enough to get you started, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a few more people who should be included on any amateur scientist’s shelf. These include Michael Shermer, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris. Among many others.
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On the Inter-Tubes, check out the Skeptic’s Dictionary, Skepchick Magazine, and James Randi’s newsletter Swift.
For those adept at the dark arts of podcasting, check out The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe and Point of Inquiry.
I expect you all to have done the reading by next week. There won’t be a quiz, but your parents are paying a lot of money for your education, and I hope you won’t squander it.
About The Amateur Scientist: Brian Thompson is a professor of amateur science at a major imaginary university. He has been able to read and write for over seventeen years.
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Brian Thompson is a professor of amateur science at a major imaginary university and a regular blogger at CHUD. He has been able to read and write for over seventeen years. 
