By Jeff Jacobsen more
1992
Source:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/7d0f158a0eef8d0f
THE HUBBARD IS BARE
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.
Introduction
Review of Hubbard's Theories
The Murky State of Clear
Problems with the Engram
Theory
Science and Dianetics
Hubbard's Sources
The Ideal Dianetics Society
Conclusion
For Further Reading
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:
-
It is easy to obtain confirmations, or
verifications, for nearly every theory — if we look for
confirmations.
- 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.
- Every 'good' scientific theory is a prohibition:
it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids,
the better it is.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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'.)
- 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. |