Squeezed Rats on the Dark Side of the Moon: Belief

“In human and animal psychology, clearly, belief is central. Who can forget those lab rats at Johns Hopkins that were squeezed so hard and long they gave up all hope of survival. When lab assistants placed the limp but unbroken creatures in a half-filled bucket of water, many sank like stones and died. Unsqueezed, and thus hopeful rats, on the other hand, swam for over three days before giving up.” Skip Eisiminger

Skip the B.S.

by Skip Eisiminger

“Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider a capacity for it terrifying.”—Kurt Vonnegut

“The thought [of God] makes the world sweeter—even if God be no more than the mystery of Life.”—Wallace Stevens

CLEMSON South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—7/2/2012—A few months after my father-in-law died clutching his lottery form, my wife’s grieving mother came to spend the spring with us in South Carolina. One day shortly after her arrival, a robin flew into the living-room window, tumbled into the azaleas, and then flew back up to a perch in the dogwood shading the front of the house. But as soon as the bird saw its “rival,” it went jousting at windmills all over again.

Sitting there watching this avian dramedy, Mutti proposed that the robin might be the reincarnation of her husband who had followed her here from Germany. After the rest of us entertained this unexpected notion, Mutti said that her “Ottie” used to slice an apple and scatter the wedges under the hedge where the birds could eat in safety. Taking this as a hint to rise from my keister, I went to the kitchen, selected a Pink Lady from the refrigerator, cut it into quarters, and placed them under the dense line of red-tips that Otto had once helped me plant. Days passed without a sign of pecking so, while Mutti was napping one afternoon, I “pecked” the apples with a fork. When I showed her the evidence, she was delighted. Sometimes, our invisible friends need a little help.

For myself, I’m more apt to place my faith in machines than in birds. In the lounge of the Humanities office building at USC, I stopped to buy a Coke just minutes before my doctoral orals. Fishing out the requisite coins, I hesitated, because once the machine had poured the soda and ice into the drain before the cardboard cup came clattering down the pike. But this time, something convinced me to take a flier. “You’ve come this far,” I muttered; “there’s no turning back.” So I put my money down and watched as my “horse” came thundering down the stretch. Months of confident preparation spiked with adrenaline, and six ounces of caffeine, created a wave of reason and superstition that carried me right through the two-hour ordeal.

In Margaret Mead’s famous essay, “On the Value of Superstition,” she argues that genuflections, rabbits’ feet, rosaries, knocking on wood, and a host of other such things, all may help to “‘keep’ an enemy at bay and ‘straighten’ the paths of those we love. In a word, superstitions help us feel safe in a world we have little control over.”

A study of RAF pilots in WW Two revealed that 90 percent carried a talisman through the war that claimed fifty million lives. There was no word on whether those pilots who died had anything more than loose change in their pockets, but I imagine the majority had some “lucky” bean that couldn’t hurt their risky endeavors, and might help. Far be it from me to mock the beans. The only charm my father-in-law carried as an on-board mechanic in the Luftwaffe was the initialed gold band his wife placed on his finger in 1938. It worked so well, I wear it today.

Before Lt. Robert Lathrop could locate the silver dollar his mother had given him before he shipped out, he was captured by the Japanese and sent to join the Bataan Death March. Once my father’s classmate reached Camp O’Donnell and settled into the ordeal of waiting for the war to end, he started searching for any port in fair weather or storm. Weighing just over a hundred pounds, sick and despairing, he was close to death. One day, however, while serving on a burial detail, he had a life-restoring vision. Hearing a plane approaching, Lathrop dropped to his knees and peered up as a Corsair roared past. Just before the pilot reached a point over the American POW, he made a quarter roll, allowing anyone who was looking to see the stunned but caring face of the Navy pilot. That expression sustained the lieutenant kneeling in the mud through two more years of starvation rations.

Instead of what has been “seen with their own eyes,” many put their faith in friendly invisibles.

For perhaps 3,000 years or more, the Egyptians thanked the gods for their annual gift. Despite the fact that it rarely rained in Upper and Lower Egypt, the Nile flooded its banks, filling wells and fertilizing fields from Luxor to Alexandria. What no one understood at the time was that, while the climate was arid in the Valley of the Kings, it rained heavily in the highlands of Ethiopia, many of whose streams flowed north to Egypt. The floods continued until the High Dam at Aswan was completed in 1970. Though four decades have passed, many Egyptian farmers have yet to forgive the government for raising their taxes to block nature’s patrimony. The government has responded by selling the farmers fertilizer made with power generated at Aswan. Today, grandiose government schemes are a hard sell in a country once known as “the gift of the Nile,” but belief in Islam remains strong, for when one faith falters, another commonly takes its place.

In human and animal psychology, clearly, belief is central. Who can forget those lab rats at Johns Hopkins that were squeezed so hard and long they gave up all hope of survival. When lab assistants placed the limp but unbroken creatures in a half-filled bucket of water, many sank like stones and died. Unsqueezed, and thus hopeful rats, on the other hand, swam for over three days before giving up.

Science has shattered the faith of some while providing an alternative for others.

For 1,500 years, the Church said the world was flat because the Bible had answered that question: angels standing at “the four corners of the Earth” obviously cannot be guarding a globe. But Spanish and Portuguese mariners had often seen the shadow of the Earth crossing the moon during an eclipse, and that evidence indicated Earth was a sphere; not a round, flat disk. Eventually, Magellan’s crew proved their late captain’s faith had been well-placed.

Nevertheless, it’s hard to be foolish about friendly ghosts and cartoon superheroes when one sees the miracles they perform. Indeed, buoyant fictions lift spirits and drop putts every day. One German study revealed that golfers playing with “lucky balls” sank 35 percent more putts than peers playing without supernatural assistance. The difference was belief.