Recently added articles from Skeptic (Altadena, CA):

What is a skeptic?

Jun 22, 2008 ... What does it mean to be a skeptic? Some people believe that skepticism is rejection of new ideas, or worse, they confuse "skeptic" with "cynic" and think that skeptics are a bunch of grumpy curmudgeons unwilling to accept any claim that challenges the status quo. This is wrong. Skepticism ...

Prayer and pregnancy; shooting UFO photos.('Twas Brillig ...)(Clinical report)

Jun 22, 2008 ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Prayer and Pregnancy WE HAVE WELCOME NEWS FROM Dr. Bruce L. Flamm, M.D., who for the last eight years has been battling the ridiculous report that prayers intoned for infertility patients in Korea could result in a 100% increase in pregnancy ...

Popular medical fallacies: ancient wisdom * it works for me * natural is good.(The SkepDoc)

Jun 22, 2008; Hall, Harriet ... ADVOCATES OF SO-CALLED alternative medicine (i.e., unproven treatments) don't always use the best critical thinking skills. False assumptions and logical fallacies abound. Three that I encounter regularly are (1) "ancient wisdom," (2) "it works for me," and (3) "it's natural." ...

The Phoenix lights explained (again): NBC's dateline misleads public on UFO footage.

Jun 22, 2008; Ortega, Tony ... UFOS MAKE GREAT RATINGS, SO IT isn't surprising that NBC'S Dateline aired a special on Sunday, May 18, entitled 10 Close Encounters Caught on Tape. To its credit, the NBC program at least made an attempt to provide prosaic explanations for each of the events it presented. In most cases, ...

Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008): visionary science-fiction author.(Obituary)

Jun 22, 2008; Benford, Gregory ... LUCKY PROPHETS BECOME vindicated sages in their own lifetimes. Arthur C. Clarke, who died on March 19, 2008, was the luckiest of men, becoming the most famous of science fiction authors by writing of wonder when many were writing of despair. Clarke was not unique in his ...

Socratic skepticism.

Jun 22, 2008; Sakezles, Priscilla ... IT IS FREQUENTLY CLAIMED THAT Socrates said, "All I know is that I know nothing." SKEPTIC magazine itself makes this claim in its self-defining article at the front matter of the magazine, "What is a Skeptic?" It uses this quote to justify a long historical tradition for skepticism, but it ...

Near death experiences and the medical literature.

Jun 22, 2008; Crislip, Mark ... Miracle Max: See, there's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Now, mostly dead: he's slightly alive. All dead, well, with all dead, there's usually only one thing that you can do. Inigo: What's that? Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for ...

How skeptics confronted 9/11 conspiracy advocates.

Jun 22, 2008; Ray, John ... SKEPTICS TODAY BEMOAN THE overwhelming proportion of people who claim to believe in all manner of conspiracy theories for anything from the JFK assassination to the origins of HIV-AIDS. For that reason, it may be worthwhile to take a moment to stop and celebrate one area in which skeptical ...

Universal Jackpots v. Intelligent Design.(FORUM: Cosmic Jackpot Journalism Supernatural Beliefs Animal Rights)(Letter to the editor)

Jun 22, 2008; Gillette, Dale ... The title "Jackpot or Crackpot" in Sid Deutsch's review of Paul Davies' Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe is Just Right for Life (SKEPTIC, Vol. 14, No. 1) and its statement that Davies "veers dangerously close to invoking "intelligent design [ID] in biology" give the strong impression that ...

Reality bites journalist!(FORUM: Cosmic Jackpot Journalism Supernatural Beliefs Animal Rights)(Letter to the editor)

Jun 22, 2008; Clark, Ken ... Maybe I'm missing the point of Steve Salerno's "Journalist Bites Reality", in which he castigates the media for preferring "man-bites-dog" stories. Applying Salerno's logic, on September 11, 2001, we should have been hearing about the thousands of buildings across the country that weren't ...

In whose belief do we trust?(FORUM: Cosmic Jackpot Journalism Supernatural Beliefs Animal Rights)(Letter to the editor)

Jun 22, 2008; Kelleher, William J. ... In responding to the article critiquing anthropologists, "In Belief We Trust" (Vol. 14, No. 1), can one person know whether another person has "an actual belief in the supernatural"? Ironically claiming to be actual believers in "science," the authors resoundingly declare their answer is ...

Animal rights and medical research.(FORUM: Cosmic Jackpot Journalism Supernatural Beliefs Animal Rights)(Letter to the editor)

Jun 22, 2008; Greek, Ray ... As a coauthor of the article "Animal and Medicine: Do Animal Experiments Predict Human Response" (Vol. 13 No. 3) I would like to address the concerns raised by Conn and Parker (Vol. 13 No. 4). Our article described the evidence, mainly from evolutionary biology, genetics, and clinical ...

More words on consciousness.

Jun 22, 2008; Listro, Stephen A. ... A Response to Henry D. Schlinger's "Consciousness Is Nothing But a Word" In his article "Consciousness Is Nothing But a Word" (Vol. 13, No. 4) Henry D. Schlinger rejects two prominent attempts to solve the problem of consciousness: biological reductionism, which seeks the ...

Global warming forum.(Letter to the editor)

Jun 22, 2008; Wackrow, Richard E. ... While informative, William Calvin's compendium of would-be cures for global warming, "Turning Around by 2020," (SKEPTIC Vol 14, No. 1)ignores the most obvious and most effective means of them all: stopping population growth. If global warming is anthropogenic, the most straightforward ...

Correction.(Correction notice)

Jun 22, 2008 ... The wrong picture was printed in Daniel Loxton's article "Skull Island, Canada" in SKEPTIC Vol. 14, No.1, pp. 13-14 which compared ...

Predicting evolution: how likely is it that human-level intelligence will evolve again?

Jun 22, 2008; Zeigler, David ... "The universe was not pregnant with life nor the biosphere with man. Our number came up in the Monte Carlo game." --Jacques Monod Chance and Necessity, 1971. IF YOU ARE EVEN VAGUELY FAMILIAR WITH science fiction, especially in film, you know that almost all the alien ...

The chain of accidents and the rule of law: the role of contingency and necessity in the evolution of higher intelligence.

Jun 22, 2008; Shermer, Michael ... HUMANS ARE PATTERN-SEEKING, STORY-telling animals. We look for and find patterns in our world and in our lives, then weave narratives around those patterns to bring them to life and give them meaning. Such is the stuff of which myth, religion, history, and science are made. Sometimes the ...

The myth of the stages of dying, death and grief.(Critical essay)

Jun 22, 2008; Friedman, Russell ... IN 1969 THE PSYCHIATRIST ELIZABETH KUBLER-ROSS wrote one of the most influential books in the history of psychology, On Death and Dying. It exposed the heartless treatment of terminally-ill patients prevalent at the time. On the positive side, it altered the care and treatment of dying ...

Criminal profiling: granfalloons and gobbledygook.(Report)

Jun 22, 2008; Snook, Brent ... READING THE CLAIMS OF CRIMINAL PROFILERS and watching popular television programs like Criminal Minds can leave one with the impression that Criminal Profiling (CP)--the task of inferring demographic and personality details of an offender from his or her crime scene actions--is a ...

The curious case of Freeman Dyson and the paranormal.(Critical essay)

Jun 22, 2008; Dentith, Matthew ... IN A 2007 ARTICLE POSTED ON EDGE (www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf07_index.html), a prestigious web page where scientists debate controversial issues, the famous theoretical physicist and raconteur Freeman Dyson stated once again that he is proud to be a heretic in regard to "fashionable ...