Recently added articles from Skeptic:
WHAT IS A SKEPTIC?
Jan 01, 2008; Anonymous ... 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 is a ...
THE SKEPTICS SOCIETY
Jan 01, 2008; Anonymous ... The Skeptics Society is a member-supported 501(c)(3) nonprofit scientific and educational organization of scholars, scientists, historians, magicians, professors and teachers, and anyone curious about controversial ideas, that does the following: * Sponsors a monthly lecture series at ...
The SkepDoc
Jan 01, 2008; Hall, Harriet ... Ultrasound, Fish Oil, and Ear Candles Ultrasound Screening: Is Ignorance Bliss? I never thought I'd be promoting ignorance! I've always thought the more information, the better; but there are exceptions. I'm going to explain something that is very counterintuitive and grates ...
Aping Language
Jan 01, 2008; Wynne, Clive ... A skeptical analysis of the evidence for nonhuman primate language OCTOBER 30TH SAW THE DEATH OF AN individual who had made a greater contribution to science than she ever knew. Washoe, a forty-two year old female chimpanzee, was the first member of another species to converse with a ...
'Twas Brillig... Phenomenon Examined
Jan 01, 2008; Randi, James ... ON WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, NBC aired the first of a series called Phenomenon, the latest so-called reality television in the American Idol tradition of performers on stage who are assessed by expert judges. In this case the judges were two magicians: thss Angel, star of the A & E's Mindfreak ...
Are the Textbook Wars Over?
Jan 01, 2008; Hagen, L Kirk ... AUSTIN, TX - In 2004, Lisa Morano and I reported on die quarrels about evolution and creationism as they have played out in Texas public education policy debates ("The Texas Texubook Wars," Skeptic Vol. 11, No. 1, 18-20). At the time, creationists and intelligent design (ID) advocates were again ...
Autism, Psychiatry, 2nd Hand Smoke, Nothingness, Animal Research
Jan 01, 2008; Anonymous ... Skeptical of the Auttan-Vaccination Skeptics As an Asperger's Syndrome patient, the proposed connection between autism (of which Asperger's is "on the spectrum"), and mercury toxicity, including the proposed thimerosal toxicity, has been of considerable personal interest for some time. I ...
Richard Dawkins Replies to David Sloan Wilson
Jan 01, 2008; Dawkins, Richard ... IN HIS SKEPHC ARTICLE ENTITLED "WHY Richard Dawkins is Wrong About Religion" (initially published online in eSkeptic and www.skeptic.com), David Sloan Wilson writes: "When Dawkins' The God Delusion was published I naturally assumed that he was basing his critique of religion on the scientific ...
Beyond Demonic Memes
Jan 01, 2008; Wilson, David Sloan ... Why Richard Dawkins is Wrong About Religion RICHARD DAWKINS AND I SHARE MUCH IN common. We are both biologists by training who have written widely about evolutionary theory. We share an interest in culture as an evolutionary process in its own right. We are both atheists in our personal ...
The Myth of the Mozart Effect
Jan 01, 2008; Dowd, Will ... WHENEVER STALLED ON AN INTRACTABLE problem, Einstein reportedly reached for his violin. He played to disentangle his brain and clarify the question at hand. Mozart especially did the trick. Einstein loved Mozart's highly organized, intensely patterned sonatas. He felt, as many before him, that ...
Consciousness Is Nothing But a Word
Jan 01, 2008; Schlinger, Henry D ... IN 1991, DANIEL DENNETT PUBUSHED HIS tome, Consciousness Explained.1 Yet, ten years later he penned an article titled "Are We Explaining Consciousness Yet?"2 If he had to ask die question, the answer seems obvious. Englishspeaking philosophers and psychologists have been trying to understand ...
The Great Afterlife Debate Michael Shermer v. Deepak Chopra
Jan 01, 2008; Shermer, Michael; Chopra, Deepak ... Hope Springs Eternal: Science, the Afterlife, and the Meaning of Life I ONCE SAW A BUMPER STICKER THAT READ: MILITANT AGNOSTIC: I DON'T KNOW AND YOU DON'T EITHER. This is my position on the afterlife. If we knew for certain that there is an afterlife, we would not fear death as we do, we ...
Quirkology
Jan 01, 2008; Wiseman, Richard ... How We Discover the Big Truths in Small Things THE SAVOY HOTEL IN LONDON IS FAMOUS for fine dining, attentive service, grandiose interiors, and, of course, a three-foot high wooden black cat called Kaspar. In 1898, a South African businessman named Woolf Joel booked a table for fourteen ...
Not Very Comforting
Jan 01, 2008; Ludden, David ... Not Very Comforting A review of Don't Believe Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in Thinking by Thomas Kida. Prometheus, Amherst, NY. 2006. 286 pp. Paperback, $19.00. ISBN: 159102408-0 I GENERALLY INCLUDE A demonstration of visual illusions in my psychology classes in ...
Skepticism Loses Two Stars Farewell to Paul MacCready and Jerry Andrus
Jan 01, 2008; Shermer, Michael ... The last week of August we lost two good friends: Jerry Andrus and Paul MacCready. Instead of repeating formal facts from published obituaries, we provide links to two such obits, along with my personal remembrances for each of my good friends, a photo montage of their appearances at our annual ...
A New Mythology
Jan 01, 2008; Callahan, Tim ... Ancient Astronauts, Lost Civilizations, and the New Age Paradigm A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO I GAVE A PRESENTATION on my book Secret Origins of the Bible at a convention in the Sacramento, CA area. During the subsequent dinner we were treated to a lecture by a scientist on the extraterrestrial ...
How The Medical Mind Works
Jan 01, 2008; Hall, Harriet ... How The Medical Mind Works A Review of How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman, Houghton Mifflin, 2007. 320 pp., $26. ISBN-10: 061-861-0030 JEROME GROOPMAN'S BOOK HOW Doctors Think is a superb commentary on the intersection between medical science, compassionate personal interactions, and ...
Here Be Monsters
Jan 01, 2008; Loxton, Daniel ... Here Be Monsters A review of Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World's Most Elusive Creatures, by Benjamin Radford and Joe Nickell. University Press of Kentucky, 2006.190 pp., $24.95. ISBNlO: 0813123941 ISBN-13: 9780813123943 OPENING BEN RADFORD AND Joe Nickell's newest book, ...
Two Views, One Reality
Jan 01, 2008; Rosenhouse, Jason ... Two Views, One Reality Darwin and Intelligent Design by Francisco Ayala. Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2006.116 pp., $7. ISBNlO: 0800638026 Living With Darwin: Evolution, Design and the Future of Faith by Philip Kitchen Oxford University Press, New York, 2007. 192 pp., $20 ....
ANCIENT ALIENS: part two of two
Jan 01, 2008; Loxton, Daniel ... HELLO! I'm Daniel, the Editor oF Junior Skeptic. Welcome to Part Two oF our look into the claim that aliens built the great monuments of the ancient world. Last time we saw how this idea became popular in the 1960s and 705, through the books oF a guy named Erich von Däniken. This ...