Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2005, Page 90
X disputational relevant correct
This proposition is quite muddled. The theory doesn‘t need a testable criterion for
involuntary belief because it doesn‘t utilize a concept called ―involuntary belief‖ or anything
similar to it ditto for ―involuntary commitment to the new world view.‖ As in the previous
few propositions, Anthony is misusing the term falsifiability. This term applies only to
hypotheses and it is meaningless when applied to concepts. What he appears to mean is
that he thinks there are no operational criteria that an objective outside researcher can use
to determine whether exit costs have increased, decreased, or remained the same. But ―exit
cost‖ is an easy variable to operationalize. Exit cost is defined simply as the magnitude of
what it will cost to get a person to leave. If one year you ask, and the person says she will
leave for $10,000, and when you come back the next year, she says it will take $100,000 to
get her to leave, we can infer that exit costs have increased. When the subjective costs are
emotional and cannot be translated into vulgar dollar amounts, to measure such a change
might be more challenging. But, in principle, doing this is no more difficult than constructing
a test to determine whether a person‘s racial prejudice or his self-esteem have increased
from one year to the next—something that social psychologists routinely do.
Proposition 74. (Page 270f) According to Zablocki the exit costs idea depends upon his
finding that converts to totalistic new religious movements find it more difficult to leave
than they would if they had converted to other movements. This is the whole basis for his
―exit costs‖ reinterpretation of the brainwashing paradigm.... Moreover, according to
Zablocki, the brainwashed convert is aware that he wants to leave the ―socio-psychological
prison, but is unable to do so in very much in the same way as someone who is addicted to
drugs or other undesirable habits.‖ But what is measurable about this feeling of being
trapped such that we could scientifically determine that converts to totalistic new religious
world views are more apt to have difficulty leaving their religion than are those committed
to other types of world views? ...It would seem that a minimum test of his theory would be
if Zablocki could show that totalism as an independent variable could differentially predict
the dependent variable of lower defection rates than in non-totalistic groups, particularly if
such lower turnover rates were combined with evidence that members consciously wanted
to leave but had great difficulty doing so while they were still members of the group.... In
Zablocki‘s only systematic discussion of this issue, he acknowledges that there is no
evidence that totalistic NRMs have a lower turnover rate than other new religions, and he
even contends that such differential rates of defection are irrelevant to testing his exit costs
hypothesis.
X disputational X relevant correct
Membership-turnover data is not appropriate for measuring exit costs. Many organizations
have high overall membership turnover along with a highly committed core membership
that is stable. Exit costs are an individual-level phenomenon and must be measured at the
individual level. When exit costs are objective (money, for example) one can measure them
simply by determining the level of bribe necessary to get the person to leave. When exit
costs are more subjective, they present precisely the same measurement challenges as
those faced by individual who would measure any social-psychological phenomenon.
Anthony has not demonstrated why a questionnaire that can measure authoritarianism or
self-esteem cannot also measure subjective exit costs. Once exit costs are measured, only a
simple statistical procedure is required to determine whether those costs tend to increase
for a person who has gone through the twelve persuasion stages discussed above. If E
stands for exit cost, the problem is whether E after brainwashing is significantly greater
than E before brainwashing. This design corresponds to the simplest quasi-experimental
design. If the researcher wishes to control for spuriousness by examining covariates, the
design becomes a little more complex, but it is still straightforward.

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2005, Page 91
Zablocki’s Admission Brainwashing Not Testable/Falsifiable
Proposition 75. (Page 272) Surprisingly, even Zablocki, towards the end of his second
brainwashing article, acknowledges that he has failed to make good on his original intent to
demonstrate that his exit costs interpretation of the brainwashing idea is a testable scientific
concept. In his 1998 article, pg. 227, he admits that so-called scientific ―conjectures‖ such
as the brainwashing concept, are not testable after all and are merely ―plausible...‖
X disputational X relevant correct
This proposition stems from Anthony‘s confounding of my conjectural speculations on why
and how brainwashing works, on the one hand, with my simple social psychological theory
that demonstrates, on the other hand, that brainwashing works. I‘ve made my argument
clear in numerous places about this distinction. Only the theory that brainwashing exists
and has certain measurable effects is currently a falsifiable theory. I would love to be able
to put forth a more powerful theory that explains exactly how and why brainwashing works,
but, at present, I am unable to do so. This I have freely admitted so I don‘t understand why
Anthony chortles over this fact as if he had caught me out in some sneaky maneuver.
Explanations of how and why remain at the conjectural level. At various times in my writing,
I have experimented with psychoanalytic explanations, rational-choice-theory explanations,
neuropsychological theories, addictive models, and so on. I think that all of these
approaches are intriguing, but none, as yet, rises to the level of a true falsifiable theory.
Anthony‘s critical method of ransacking all of my published works that range over more
than 30 years, without contextual regard as to whether I am speculating conjecturally or
laying out a falsifiable theory, only breeds confusion. I don‘t think the fault is mine because,
at least in my writing in the past ten years, I have always clearly labeled explanations as
being either conjectural or theoretical according to whether I believe they rise to the level of
testability.
Proposition 76. (Page 272) Zablocki apparently has come to believe that there is a
well-recognized difference in the epistemological requirements for scientific conjectures as
opposed to scientific theories, whereby the former must only tell a ―plausible story‖ whereas
actual scientific theories must be falsifiable or testable.
X disputational relevant correct
See my comments on proposition 75. Science is full of instances in which it is known that a
phenomenon exists and has certain measurable effects, but it is not yet known how or why
the phenomenon works. The theory of electricity was in this situation in the nineteenth
century. Standard scientific operating procedure in such instances involves measuring the
phenomenon while offering conjectures that tell a plausible story as to why it might have
the effects it does. Sometimes, as science progresses, one or more of these conjectures
might graduate and become a testable theory.
Proposition 77. (Page 273f) In Popper‘s use of these terms, there is no real difference
between the concepts of conjectures and theories, nor between falsifiability and testability.
disputational relevant X correct
There is no difference between falsifiability and testability. On this point Anthony and I are
agreed. I don‘t ever claim that there is a difference. As to conjectures and theories, I have
explained the distinction in the way I use these terms, and this distinction conforms to
normal scientific usage.
Proposition 78 (Page 274) ...with respect to the term and concept of plausibility, I have
been unable to find this term used as one which is relevant to differentiating scientific from
pseudo-scientific concepts in any of Popper‘s works.