Futility Closet - 241-A Case of Scientific Self-Deception

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 10,000 quirky curiosities from swapped dolphins to an absent theologian. This is episode 241. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1903, French physicist Prosper René Blanleau decided he had discovered a new form of radiation. But the mysterious rays had some exceedingly odd properties, and scientists in other countries

Starting point is 00:00:38 had trouble seeing them at all. In today's show, we'll tell the story of N-rays, a cautionary tale of self-deception. We'll also recount another appalling marathon, and puzzle over a worthless package. Toward the end of the 19th century, scientists began to feel that their understanding of the physical world was nearly complete. At least one university in Britain decided not to fill its physics chair because so little remained to be discovered. But that confidence was destroyed in 1895 when Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays, and each year of the decade that followed brought news of some new form of radiation, including alpha, beta, and gamma rays. It became clear that there was a new world waiting to be explored in the structure of matter. brought news of some new form of radiation, including alpha, beta, and gamma rays. It became clear that there was a new world waiting to be explored in the structure of matter.

Starting point is 00:01:33 France had gone through a disastrous war with Prussia 30 years earlier, and French intellectuals were looking for a way to uphold the superiority of their culture. Germany and Britain had been having generally greater successes in physics and chemistry and seemed sometimes to dismiss the French. So within their country, achievements by French scientists tended to be met with great acclaim and sometimes a lack of caution. At the time, the properties of x-rays were hotly disputed, and one of the men investigating this was a distinguished professor at the University of Nancy named Prosper-René Blondelot. Blondelot was one of the leading physicists in France. His doctoral thesis in

Starting point is 00:02:05 1881 had been called brilliant, he was a corresponding member of the French Academy of Science, and in 1891 he'd made the first measurement of the speed of radio waves. But he was about to make a fateful mistake. In the winter of 1903, he set out to determine whether X-rays were waves or particles. To do that, he fired X-rays into a charged electric field and saw that as they emerged, they brightened an electric spark that he kept burning there. But he also found that the radiation acting on the spark was bent when it passed through a prism of quartz. It was already known that quartz doesn't deflect X-rays, so he must be observing

Starting point is 00:02:38 something else. After much thinking and testing, he decided that he had discovered a new form of radiation. He announced his findings on March 23, 1903. He called the new rays N-rays, after the University of Nalcy. They had some remarkable properties. They would pass through wood, aluminum, and black paper, but they were blocked by water and rock salt, and a prism-shaped piece of aluminum would bend and spread them, just as a prism of glass would spread visible light. At first, Blondelot's discovery was met with some excitement. The British journal Nature said the properties of the new ray endowed it with unusual interest and the promise of great utility. And the British Medical Journal wrote that the possibilities opened up by these researches far surpass anything that the wildest dreams of the imagination have so far suggested.

Starting point is 00:03:23 And other scientists quickly joined in studying them. In the first half of 1904, the Journal of the French Academy of Sciences published nearly a hundred papers on N-rays, and more and more French researchers jumped on the bandwagon. Biologists, physiologists, psychologists, chemists, botanists, and geologists. And the rays were found to have increasingly strange powers. Pebbles that were warmed in the sun emitted N-rays. So did salt water, which meant that the world's oceans were effectively giant N-ray batteries, accepting N-rays from the sun and radiating them out again.

Starting point is 00:03:54 N-rays were emitted by spinal cords, growing plants, a human corpse, a vibrating tuning fork. If one end of a wire was passed over the skull of a sleeping person, the other would emit N-rays in varying intensities. Blondelot found that when he exposed his eyes to N-rays, he could make out the hands of a clock in a darkened room. The rays also improved the senses of hearing and smell. Most bizarrely, metal that was under strain emitted N-rays, but they stopped when the metal was anesthetized with ether, chloroform, or alcohol. was anesthetized with ether, chloroform, or alcohol. Altogether, when the physicist George Stradling set out to enumerate the claims made for N-rays over a three-year period, his list filled 59 pages. But just as French scientists rejoiced at their new discoveries, their counterparts

Starting point is 00:04:36 in other countries began to complain that they couldn't reproduce the results. The first report of failure appeared within a month of Blondelot's announcement. He had said that the effects of the rays could be seen on a dimly phosphorescent screen, but some English doctors suggested that this might be due to body heat or the lamps that Blondelot was using. The eminent polymath Henri Poincaré failed to replicate Blondelot's results, but admitted that his eyes were not very good. If Blondelot had announced N-rays, say, 20 years earlier, in the 1880s, there'd have been much more skepticism. But the recent discovery of X-rays and alpha, beta, and gamma rays seems to have prepared scientists psychologically to accept a new discovery. All the same, there were enough failures to spread doubts. In 1904, the Revue Scientifique asked the opinions of a dozen leading French scientists.

Starting point is 00:05:21 Physicist Louis Cayetet said that if it weren't for Blondelot's standing and achievements, he'd think NRAs were a delusion. He hadn't been able to see anything at a public demonstration in which many others had claimed to see them, and he hadn't been able to reproduce the effects in his own laboratory. For the sake of French science, he hoped that Blondelot hadn't been deceived. Other scientists expressed similar doubts. John Butler Baker of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge wrote, I am at a loss to find any other explanation of Monsieur Blondelot's results than that he has come across a radiation to which some men are blind and others not so. Blondelot explained that it was a matter of looking properly. Your eyes had to be accustomed to the dark, and it was important to make the observations from precisely the right angle. He said that some people were

Starting point is 00:06:02 better than others at perceiving subtle changes, but his critics wondered why French eyes were so much more acute than those in England, Germany, and Italy. Into all this strode Robert W. Wood, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and an internationally recognized expert in optics and spectroscopy. I've written before about Wood on the Futility Closet website. He was a well-regarded scientist, but he had, shall we say, a playful side. He devised one of the first fake photographs of an unidentified flying object. On wet days, he would startle the people of Baltimore by spitting into puddles while tossing in a small lump of sodium, which would hiss and burst into a sheet of yellow flame. He enjoyed debunking spiritualistic mediums. When one medium said he was in touch with the deceased

Starting point is 00:06:44 British physicist Lord Rayleigh, Wood asked the ghost some abstruse questions about electromagnetism, and there was no response. Wood wrote and illustrated a book of comic verse called How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers. Here's an example telling how to tell a parrot from a carrot. The parrot and the carrot you may easily confound. They're very much alike in looks and similar in sound. We recognize the parrot by his clear articulation, for carrots are unable to engage in conversation. And he once cleared the cobwebs out of a 40-foot optical tube by sending his cat through it.

Starting point is 00:07:17 That's a clever use of a cat. Notwithstanding these hijinks, Wood was a respected physicist, and he had little patience with nonsense in science. As soon as he'd heard about the N-rays, he had tried to repeat Blondelot's experiments in his own laboratory, and, he said, wasted a whole morning. At a meeting in Cambridge of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, a knot of exasperated physicists prevailed on him to visit Blondelot and observe the experiments with his own eyes. So he invited himself to Nancy, where, as he put it, observe the experiments with his own eyes. So he invited himself to Nancy, where, as he put it, the apparently peculiar conditions necessary for the observation of this most elusive form of radiation appear to exist. Blondelot and his assistants received him courteously. Wood was fluent in French and German, but he decided to withhold his French so he could listen secretly

Starting point is 00:07:59 to the exchanges among the French scientists. He and Blondelot conversed in German, which was the international language of physics. They began with a simple test. Blondelot claimed that fluorescent paint would light up more brightly in a darkened room if it were exposed to N-rays. Wood agreed that he saw a difference, but suggested that it could have been a trick of the light. He proposed that at random moments he himself would insert a lead screen between the source of the N-rays and the fluorescent paint. With the laboratory dark, Blondelot would be unable to see when wood interposed the screen. The results caused Wood grave concern. Blondelot claimed that the paint glowed less brightly when wood had not

Starting point is 00:08:34 placed the screen. He claimed that it glowed more brightly when wood had placed the screen, and he claimed to see differences when wood had made no change. In another experiment, they considered a clock that was illuminated by a very dim light. Blondelot stood far enough away that the clock was lost in the darkness, but when he held an iron file against his head, he claimed that he could even see the hands on the clock face. Wood suggested that he himself would hold the file against Blondelot's head, but he quietly substituted a ruler made of wood, and Blondelot had already established that wood didn't conduct N-rays. No matter whether the object was iron of wood, and Blondelot had already established that wood didn't conduct N-rays. No matter whether the object was iron or wood, Blondelot said he was able to see the hands of the clock. Wood's final discovery has become a classic in the history of science. The lab

Starting point is 00:09:14 contained a spectroscope with an aluminum prism that Blondelot said would divide the N-rays so that the frequencies could be read on a scale. Blondelot made a number of readings in Wood's presence, and then Wood asked him to make them again just to be certain. And then, without Blondelot's knowledge, Wood removed the prism. A spectroscope can't function without a prism, but Blondelot read out the same readings as in the first session. Wood replaced the prism before they turned the lights up, and Blondelot told his assistant that his eyes were tired. The assistant had become suspicious and asked Blondelot to let him repeat the readings. They turned down the lights again and Wood moved toward the prism with audible footsteps,

Starting point is 00:09:53 but didn't touch it. The assistant said to Blondelot in French, I see nothing. There is no spectrum. I think the American has made some dérangement. He turned up the lights, examined the prism, and glared at Wood. Wood went back to Paris and wrote up a brief report that was published eight days later in Nature. He omitted Blondelot's name and even the country he'd visited, but he wrote, After spending three hours or more in witnessing various experiments, I am not only unable to report a single observation which appeared to indicate the existence of the rays, but left with a very firm conviction that the few experimenters who have obtained positive results have been in some way deluded. The article was quickly republished in Germany and in France, where it caused mortification. Joseph Lebel, a pioneer of stereochemistry, wrote of the shame for France when, quote, one of its distinguished savants

Starting point is 00:10:34 measures the positions of lines of the spectrum while the prism reposes in the pocket of his American colleague. Reviews Scientifiques asked French scientists to express their opinions and published about 40 letters. Only half a dozen backed Blondelot. After this embarrassment, other scientists abandoned their investigations of N-rays, but Blondelot continued to believe in them and even published an expansive book on the subject in 1905. He said that Wood had tricked him, had abused his hospitality, and that his own imperfect German had led to misunderstandings between them.

Starting point is 00:11:04 But he refused to do controlled experiments, saying that the experimenter needed to regulate the N-rays actively during each trial in order to avoid fatigue. When an experiment went badly, he said he was tired or that the work was technically difficult. His critics said they were willing to collaborate with him, but he never agreed to cooperate or to work out any incontrovertible technique to study N-rays. When some suggested that Blondelot try a blind experiment, he wrote, Permit me to decline entirely to collaborate in this oversimple experiment.

Starting point is 00:11:31 The phenomena are much too delicate for this. Let all form their personal opinions about N-rays, either from their own experiments or from those of others in whom he has confidence. He said that noise, tobacco smoke, or even direct examination would make the rays impossible to see. One had to look at the luminous detector passively, the way an impressionist painter looked at a landscape, to have any hope of detecting them. N-rays disappeared from the scientific literature, but Blondelot's faith in them seems never to have wavered. Fourteen years after Wood's visit, he wrote to the Academy, I declare that I have never had the smallest doubt concerning the phenomena which I have named N-rays and heavy radiation.

Starting point is 00:12:04 that I have never had the smallest doubt concerning the phenomena which I have named N-rays and heavy radiation. And now, with all my strength, I assert their existence, confirmed by innumerable observations that I have not ceased to make. He retired in 1909, but at his death in 1930, he left sealed papers that revealed that he'd never ceased to experiment on N-rays. Today, Blondlow's story is told as a cautionary tale among scientists to warn against experimenter bias. His methods were so subjective that they weren't reliable. If he was hoping for a certain outcome, he could convince himself he was getting it. But the historian of science Mary Jo Nye says that the blame here is not Blondelot's alone. Really, it was the confluence of a series of unfortunate factors.

Starting point is 00:12:38 First, many new forms of radiation had recently been discovered, and that disposed people to accept that more might yet be found. radiation had recently been discovered, and that disposed people to accept that more might yet be found. Second, the scientific community in France had been concerned about its diminishing status compared to Germany and Britain. Third, within France, Blondelot and his colleagues had wanted to establish the reputations of their region and their university. In fact, four out of five of Blondelot's supporters had taught or studied at Nancy, and they supported each other in arguing that Blondelot's results were valid and important. No one at Nancy published a critical paper. Finally, the scientific community in France was hierarchical,

Starting point is 00:13:10 so young physicists might have felt pressure to agree with their superiors. Blondelot's assistants, in particular, were less well-trained than he was and may have been especially reluctant to question him. Also, science in general around 1900 was going through a conceptual crisis. Our understanding of the structure of matter was changing rapidly, and the old traditional methods were giving way to new ones. These pressures may have allowed social and psychological factors to play a bigger role here than they normally would, and that danger was especially great in France. None of this means that modern science is unreliable. In fact, the whole enterprise of science is designed to catch

Starting point is 00:13:42 and correct errors as quickly as possible. Blondelot's mistake is held up as an example not because it's common, but precisely because it's uncommon. Scientists learned from it and now warn each other against the dangers of wishful thinking. In a conference address he gave in 1987, Carl Sagan said, In science, it often happens that scientists say, you know, that's a really good argument. My position is mistaken. And then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day.

Starting point is 00:14:21 The feature in episode 236 was about the rather unusual marathon in the 1908 Olympics. A couple of listeners let us know that the 1904 marathon was rather a doozy itself. Charles Hargrove wrote, Your story of Durando Pietri was fascinating, but I was confused why you weren't mentioning the strychnine angle. Then I checked and realized I was thinking of the 1904 marathon instead. It also sounds like a completely insane race. And Charles sent a link to a great article from Smithsonian titled, The 1904 Olympic Marathon May Have Been the Strangest Ever. Similarly, Glenn Rice wrote,

Starting point is 00:14:58 I enjoyed listening to your podcast about the 1908 Olympic marathon. Here's a related story, though much less inspiring and much more risible. Being from Missouri, I know a bit about the 1908 Olympic Marathon. Here's a related story, though much less inspiring and much more risible. Being from Missouri, I know a bit about the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. The 1904 Olympics were also in St. Louis, but were really considered a sideshow of the fair. In addition to racism and colonialism, the organizers of the World's Fair held anthropology days in which indigenous people from around the world were enlisted to compete in athletic competitions, the Olympics were marred by poor organization, award disputes, and what is surely the most bizarre marathon in Olympic history.

Starting point is 00:15:35 Rather than tell the whole strange tale, I urge you to start with the Wikipedia article. Also note this gem from a different article about these games. During the water polo events, several of the cattle from a World's Fair these games. During the water polo events, several of the cattle from a World's Fair livestock exhibit were allowed to enter the lake on the opposite side from the swimming and water polo events. Within one year, four of those athletes had died of typhus. Keep up the great work. Oh my gosh. I didn't know anything about any of that. The 1904 Olympics were the first held outside of Europe. The Russo-Japanese War and the difficulty of traveling to St. Louis, which would be quite an undertaking in the days

Starting point is 00:16:11 before air travel, contributed to only 62 of the 651 athletes who competed coming from beyond North America. As Glenn noted, the Games were also largely overshadowed by the World's Fair, which also had its own sporting events. These Olympics officially lasted for four and a half months, with an attempt made to hold a sporting event each day for the duration of the World's Fair, which meant that there were a number of events that weren't really recognized by the International Olympic Committee, such as the water polo that Glenn mentioned. Most of the recognized Olympic sports, though, were held over a six-day period. There were really some nice moments of the Games, such as American gymnast George Iser earning six medals, including three gold, despite having lost most of his left leg as a

Starting point is 00:16:55 child. Iser would be the only person to compete at the Olympics with an artificial leg for more than 100 years, until 2008. But one of the main things that the 1904 Olympics are remembered for was the marathon, which the Smithsonian article called a freakish spectacle and said the outcome was so scandalous that the event was nearly abolished for good. Of the 32 runners who started the race, fewer than half, only 14, managed to finish, giving this marathon the worst ratio of entranceants to finishers ever, though it was only a little worse than the 27 out of 55 competitors who managed to finish the 1908 marathon. As Greg had noted in episode 236, marathons were a pretty new sport at this time,

Starting point is 00:17:38 so only a few of the competitors had actual experience in running a marathon. Among the participants in 1904 were two South Africans who were in St. Louis as part of the Boer War exhibit in the World's Fair, who competed barefoot, and one of whom came in ninth despite being chased a mile off course by dogs. And Anderen Carvajal, a Cuban mailman who lost all his money in a dice game in New Orleans on his way to the games and ended up having to walk and hitchhike to St. Louis. Cardvajal arrived at the games at the last minute wearing his regular clothes, which included street shoes and long dark trousers, which one of

Starting point is 00:18:17 the other contestants had to borrow some scissors so they could cut them off at the knee for him so that he could better run. The 24.85 mile course included seven hills, some with brutally long ascents. The course's country roads were rather rough in places, and the runners frequently had to dodge traffic, wagons, trains, and pedestrians. The race started at 3 p.m. and temperatures reached 92 degrees Fahrenheit, But there were only two spots set up for the runners to receive water along the course, one at 6 miles and another at 12 miles. The chief organizer of the Games deliberately wanted to minimize the runners' fluid intake to test the effects of dehydration, which was a common area of research at the time,

Starting point is 00:19:01 and apparently it was considered okay to make competitors unwitting research participants. Even letting that race go forward at 92 degrees is malpractice. Yeah, malpractice and with no water. Automobiles carrying coaches and physicians drove alongside the runners and kicked up so much dust that one of the runners collapsed and had to be hospitalized because his stomach was hemorrhaging from all the road dust he'd swallowed. Another competitor had to quit the race because he was vomiting. Carvajal was gamely running along in his cumbersome shoes and a billowing shirt and was actually doing well, even though he was sometimes pausing to talk with spectators. He hadn't eaten for about two days before the race, though, so he stopped at an orchard to

Starting point is 00:19:43 eat some apples, which unfortunately turned out to be rotten. After he started having stomach cramps, he lay down to nap for a while. And it's a measure of how really badly the race was going for everyone that Carvajal still managed to finish fourth. Several of the competitors were plagued by muscle cramps, including Fred Lors, an American bricklayer who had trained entirely at night. Lors dropped out of the competitors were plagued by muscle cramps, including Fred Lors, an American bricklayer who had trained entirely at night. Lors dropped out of the race after about nine miles and hitched a ride back to the stadium in a car, waving at spectators and his fellow runners as he rode by them. When the car broke down at about the 19-mile mark, he decided to rejoin the race and ran the rest of the way to the stadium.

Starting point is 00:20:23 Not surprisingly, he was the first to get there and was hailed as the winner. Alice Roosevelt, the president's daughter, placed a wreath on his head and was just about to put the gold medal around his neck when he was charged with cheating. When asked, Lourdes freely admitted what he'd done and claimed it was all a joke. The Olympic organizers were not too amused and he was banned from amateur athletic competition for life. He did have a reputation as a prankster, though, and he was banned from amateur athletic competition for life. He did have a reputation as a prankster, though, and was able to get the ban overturned a few months later and went on to win the 1905 Boston Marathon. Wow. Charles's strict nine angle comes in with Thomas Hicks. Hicks, who was born in England but was representing America, was one of the early

Starting point is 00:21:02 favorites to win. He started off the race very strongly, but by the 17th mile he was basically walking, as was pretty much everyone else who managed to make it that far. Rather than giving him the water he was asking for, his support crew merely sponged out his mouth with water, and at about the 18th or 19th mile they started feeding him brandy, raw egg whites, and strychnine. Strychnine, commonly used as a rat poison, can also be a stimulant when used in very small doses. But the effects of the heat, dehydration, and this rather unorthodox concoction had some pretty terrible effects on Hicks. A race official wrote that for the last two miles of the race, Hicks was running mechanically like a well-oiled piece of machinery. His eyes were dull,

Starting point is 00:21:45 lusterless. The ashen color of his face and skin had deepened. His arms appeared as weights well tied down. He could scarcely lift his legs while his knees were almost stiff. Hicks began hallucinating and thought that the finish line was still 20 miles away. His support team had to keep forcing him on as he begged for something to eat and also to be allowed to lie down. As he finally approached the stadium, he tried to run but couldn't manage more than a kind of graceless shuffle. In the end, his trainers actually carried him over the finish line, holding him above the ground while he moved his feet back and forth. And surprisingly, given that four years later, Durando Pietri was

Starting point is 00:22:25 disqualified for the lesser amount of help that he received, Hicks was declared the winner of the race. You're kidding. No, I am not. Oh my gosh. That's certainly dramatic. And 14-year-old Nika Groisman sent a different follow-up. Hello, pod people and podcat. When I heard your episode about Durando Pietri and how he was disqualified for having received assistance before reaching the finish line, I was immediately reminded of a similar case. In 1952, Polish track and field athlete Elżbieta Krzysińska participated in the Helsinki Olympic Games for the women's long jump.

Starting point is 00:23:03 After her jump, she was in the silver medal position. However, there is a rule in long-distance jumping that states that the distance of your jump is measured based on the part of your body that is the furthest behind when you land. Normally, this part of the body is the heel. In this case, though, it turned out that Elspieta's long braided hair had left a mark in the sand approximately half a meter behind where the rest of her body had landed. Her mark was amended and she earned 12th place instead of second. Krzysińska cut her hair for the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics four years later. She won first

Starting point is 00:23:35 place. The details I mentioned above could not be found in the English Wikipedia article, but I did find them in the Polish one. Thank you for all your hard work. I love the podcast. Thank you, Nika, for that and for the very helpful link you sent to an English language article, which is a huge help for me for international stories, and also for the pronunciation tip for your name. We hadn't heard this story before, but Krzysi Sinska had a rather interesting athletic career. She was born in 1934, and her family was forced to move in 1944 after their house was burned down during the Warsaw Uprising. It was in her new school that Krzyska's talent for the long jump was discovered. She made her Olympic debut in 1952 at age 18, but as Nika said, her long plate of hair cost her a medal. That's terrible.

Starting point is 00:24:21 Obviously, the spirit of that rule is to, you know, prevent people from qualifying when they shouldn't, but there's no way having long hair will help you in the jump. Yeah, and I mean, I guess somebody had to determine, does hair count as part of your body or not? And I, you can sort of see why the answer is yes, but that's, you know, she's spent hundreds and hundreds of hours planning for that and dreaming about it. Yeah, and it must have been really disappointing for her, but she was apparently undeterred. And in 1956, she actually set a new world record for the long jump. And then, as Nika mentioned,

Starting point is 00:24:52 she went on to win the gold medal in that year's Olympics, which was Poland's only gold medal of those games. Wow. So good for her. Krzysztof Szynska also suffered severe bruising of her heel bone two months before the 1960 Rome Olympics and ended up undergoing surgery two weeks before the Games. But despite this, she qualified for the final, but then accidentally left her spikes at the track. When she went back to get them, they had

Starting point is 00:25:16 vanished and she had to borrow a pair from a male teammate, which ended up being two sizes too big for her. She went on to take the silver medal anyway. God, that's impressive. Krista Sinska's last major medal was the silver at the 1962 European Championships. She retired in 1965 and went on to become a dentist. In 1994, she released her memoirs entitled The Sweeping Plate. Thanks so much to everyone who writes in to us. We really do appreciate the email that we get. So if you have any that you'd like to send to us pod people or pod cat, please send it to podcast at futilitycloset.com.

Starting point is 00:25:58 It's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. Greg is going to give me a strange sounding situation, and I have to try to work out what's going on, asking only yes or no questions. This is from listener Murli Ravi. A woman buys a pair of shoes online and a few days later receives an almost worthless package of tissues, but she's not upset and doesn't file a complaint. Instead, she continues to buy other items from the same website, and the same thing happens again and again. What's going on? Okay.

Starting point is 00:26:29 Does this have anything to do with language and words meaning different things in different languages? No. Okay. She buys what she expects to be a pair of shoes. Okay, she buys a pair of shoes. Yes. You said she buys a pair of shoes. Yes. You said she buys a pair of shoes. Yes.

Starting point is 00:26:47 Does she expect to receive a pair of shoes? No. Okay. Does she expect to receive a pack of worthless tissues? Yes. Does she want tissues? No. Okay.

Starting point is 00:27:02 Is she expecting to barter the tissues for shoes somehow no okay is her location important no okay i had this idea she was like in jail or something i don't know you can only receive tissues um does it matter what does there anything about the tissues that I should pursue? No. Okay. Does she pay money for the shoes? Yes. Does she pay money for what she thinks is going to be shoes? I'm sorry, did you say she expects to receive shoes? No, she does not.

Starting point is 00:27:40 She does not expect to receive shoes, but you said she doesn't expect to receive tissues either. Right. Well, no, she expects to receive tissues. She expects to to receive tissues she wore her shoes but expects to get something she expects to get tissues or something equally worthless okay does this have something to do with chance like a lottery or a drawing or like some chance like there's a chance she'll get shoes but there's a chance she'll get tissues no um does this matter when this happened no and you said nothing about location was important no is there something interesting about the website she's ordering from is she ordering from a website yes a specific website uh no but we could say just to make it simpler we could say

Starting point is 00:28:29 yes it's a big e-commerce website like uh alibaba in china say okay all right she's not expecting to get shoes but she's not expecting to get tissues she expecting you to get something worthless. Yeah. She might get an empty box. She might get an empty box. And be just as unsurprised. Is she happy? No. But she's not surprised. And she's not upset. Does she think the shoes were confiscated somewhere and she's getting just the box that the shoes had been in? No. Okay. She's ordering shoes, but she could have ordered something else and have gotten the same box of tissues. Yes. I feel like I'm not getting this at all.

Starting point is 00:29:18 She's ordering shoes. And you said there's nothing about chance. There's nothing about randomness or she might get this or she might get that. No. Is she trying to launder money or get rid of money somehow? No, but this is illicit, what she's doing. She's part of a practice that's frowned on. Is there something else besides tissues in the box, like trace amounts of drugs or the tissues have drugs on them or something?

Starting point is 00:29:50 When she orders the shoes, it's like Amazon, I guess. The shoe manufacturer ships the tissues to her. Instead of shoes. Right. And they're just as pleased as she is that all this is happening. In fact, they're the ones who hired her to do this she's being paid yes to pretend to order shoes right is it so she can leave fake reviews of the items yes and right to that well after a little bit of health yeah

Starting point is 00:30:21 this is a fraudulent practice called brushing that vendors use to get to the top of search rankings on e-commerce sites. The vendor hires a phony customer to place an order at an online retailer like Amazon or Alibaba. When the order has been verified as genuine, the customer leaves a good review, which boosts the vendor's search ranking. But because the order was fake, the vendor ships something worthless like tissues or even an empty box. And they pay the brusher for her work. vendor ships something worthless like tissues or even an empty box and they pay the brusher for her work the losers are everyone else who uses the e-commerce site because now every review and every search ranking on the site is suspect yeah that's very annoying very very annoying to hear that that that that happens it confirms and just to add this apparently is happening more and more

Starting point is 00:31:02 to americans being sent from chinese e-commerce sites who happen to get their hands on an American address because it's just that much easier to pretend this was all legitimate because it's harder to check with the Americans. Right. It's becoming an increasing problem. Right. Yeah. We ran a listener mail item about something similar, vaguely similar to this. Yeah. So thank you, Merle, for sending that.

Starting point is 00:31:23 Thank you. And if anybody else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to try, you can send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. This podcast

Starting point is 00:31:35 is supported entirely by our incredible listeners. If you would like to help support our celebration of the quirky and the curious, please check out

Starting point is 00:31:43 our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futilitycloset or see the support us section of the website at futilitycloset.com. If you become one of our phenomenal patrons, you'll also get access to extra discussions for some of the stories, more lateral thinking puzzles, peeks behind the scenes, and updates on Sasha, our dedicated Futility Closet mascot. At our website, you can also graze through Greg's collection of over 10,000 exceptional esoterica. Browse the Futility Closet store, learn more about the Futility Closet books, or see the show notes for the podcast with links and references for the topics we've covered.

Starting point is 00:32:20 If you have any questions or comments, you can email any of us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was all written and performed by my wonderful brother-in-law, Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 241-A Case of Scientific Self-Deception

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.