WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T TOUCH IT!
William A. Wisdom

As a tenured faculty member in the Philosophy Department at Temple University, I taught Formal Logic courses from the introduction through the most advanced graduate level, as well as courses in the Philosophy of Science, the Philosophy of Religion, several courses in the History of Philosophy, and a variety of other occasional courses.

One of my favorite courses was a lightweight introduction to the Philosophy of Science entitled "Science and Pseudoscience", in which we tried to get at an understanding of responsible belief by looking at what you might call scientific marginalia. We studied the arguments for and against belief in perhaps a half dozen of such things as astrology, acupuncture, parapsychological phenomena of all sorts, graphology, the Bermuda Triangle, alien abduction, the Jersey Devil and Bigfoot, creationism, miracles, and so on.

Sometimes students would research and report on a favorite topic. The best report, about the Jersey Devil, was by a believer who grew up in the Pine Barrens. She had frequently heard the Jersey Devil late at night; but she had also thorough studied the history and varieties of the story.

At other times I'd invite guest "experts" to address the class and answer questions. Around 1990 I had three of them come in during the semester. One was a well-known astrologer from Center City. One was a biologist from St. Joseph's University who, as an avid student of parapsychology, had developed some quantum-mechanical hypotheses to explain ESP.

The third was the only amateur. He headed (or was) an organization in Berwyn that kept track of the various alien communities on earth. (I see in the phone book a "UFO Research Center" in Philadelphia. That sounds like it. Perhaps he has moved.) He had never actually met an alien. But the heart of his life's project was to get the seventeen distinct alien communities on earth in touch with each other, so that they could pool their knowledge and resources. How he knew that there were seventeen, and how they had remained ignorant of each other's existence, remained a mystery.

The point of this story is that of the three of them--the astrologer, the parapsychologist, and the UFOer--only the third gave my students any useful advice. The astrologer had nothing more helpful to say than to suggest that we visit him for an expensive reading. The parapsychologist had nothing even that practical to suggest. But the alien-tracker gave us this piece of invaluable advice. "If you ever come upon a UFO in a field or on a golf course or in your yard or wherever...whatever you do--don't touch it! You'll be tempted to, of course. But several people have yielded to that temptation...and they've all died!" "What did they die of, sir?" a student asked. "Why, they all died of the same thing, young lady: cirrhosis of the liver. Remember: whatever you do, don't touch a UFO!"

Absolutely straight face and serious demeanor. I couldn't believe it. Well, I could believe that they died of cirrhosis of the liver all right. But I could hardly believe that he'd report it quite so matter-of-factly.

Copyright © 2006, William A. Wisdom