The Horse That Won't Go Away

Book excerpt: Can a horse really do arithmetic? For a time a great many people thought so, enthralled by the exploits of Clever Hans, a horse that could seemingly answer any question about mathematics, language, and music with stomps of his hoof. Even as celebrated scientists endeavored to discover Hans’s secret, people were perfectly comfortable believing something no rational mind should have accepted. How is that possible? In The Horse That Won’t Go Away, Tom Heinzen, Scott Lilienfeld, and Susan Nolan explore the confounding story of Clever Hans and how we continue to be deceived by beliefs for which there is no supporting logic or evidence. From Clever Hans, to the unsupported claims that facilitated communication could allow persons with autism to communicate, to the exaggerated fear of many parents that their child may be kidnapped (the odds of such an event are astronomical), the authors show just how important it is to rely on the scientific method as we navigate our way through everyday life.