Skeptic: Promoting Science and Critical Thinking

2009 January–June

June 24th: Help Skeptic at No Cost to You!

Do you shop at Amazon.com? What if there were a way for the Skeptics Society to make a commission off every Amazon purchase you make — all without costing you a penny? There is, and it’s easy…

June 17th: The Emergence of God

Darren Iammarino reviews Adventures in the Spirit: God, World, Divine Action, by Philip Clayton. Darren Iammarino is a Ph.D. candidate in his final semester of coursework at Claremont Graduate University. He is currently working on his own constructive theology known as Cosmosyntheism.

June 10th: From Haeckel to Hitler: The Anatomy of a Controversy

In the documentary film Expelled, Ben Stein attempted to link Darwin to Hitler and thereby condemn the scientific theory of evolution by association with the political theory of National Socialism. The film failed, but was there a historical connection between the social Darwinists of the 19th century with the National Socialists of the 20th century? Yes, through the personage of the German biologist Ernst Haeckel; but a new biography claims to rehabilitate Haeckel by disconnecting him from German social Darwinism. Historian of science Daniel Gasman disputes this new Haeckel biography and in the process demonstrates how the Nazis used social Darwinism to justify their racial policies.

June 3rd: Vaccines & Autism: A Deadly Manufactroversy

In 2007 Skeptic magazine ran an article debunking the myth of the connection between vaccines and autism, and we were hoping that by now this sad tale of pseudoscience would have died a slow death as researchers continue to find no link whatsoever between the two. Sadly that is not the case. In fact, thanks to Playboy model Jenny McCarthy, mother of an autistic child, the myth has gained cultural traction as never before, as she and her partner, the comedian Jim Carrey, make the media rounds and appeal to the heart strings of the public, burying the science in a tsunami of emotion. So we return again to the topic with our SkepDoc, Harriet Hall, M.D., demolishing the myth once and for all.

May 27th: Optimism is Good for Your Brain

In our latest issue of Skeptic magazine (Vol. 14, No. 4), we published a skeptical analysis of the self-esteem and positive-thinking movement by investigative journalist Steve Salerno (which also appeared this eSkeptic), demonstrating that it is not enough to just say positive things, you actually have to do positive things. In response, Mark Robert Waldman and Andrew Newberg have written the following critique of Salerno’s critique, arguing that there is evidence for how thoughts influence actions. Steve Salerno’s responds.

May 20th: The Placebo Effect

So much has been written and said about the placebo effect that we thought we should put our SkepDoc on the trail of finding out what is fact and what is myth about placebos and their effects. You will be surprised by some of Dr. Hall’s findings.

May 13th: Why Gay Marriage Does Not Decrease Straight Marriage

In the midst of the gay marriage controversy sweeping across the nation (as individual states are changing their constitutional minds about what constitutes marriage), we present an interesting article by Barrett Brown that demolishes the silly notion proffered by some conservatives that gay marriage decreases straight marriage rates.

May 6th: New Features Added to eSkeptic

Beginning this week, you can share your thoughts using the new comment field at the end of every eSkeptic. PLUS, you can share eSkeptic with friends and family using the SHARE button that appears at the top and bottom of each issue.

April 29th: The Evolution of God

Robert Wright, the author of Nonzero and The Moral Animal has been added as a new lecturer in June as part of the Skeptics Distinguished Lecture Series at Caltech. He will discuss ideas from his latest book The Evolution of God.

April 22nd: Sensed Presences in Extreme Contexts

James Allan Cheyne reviews The Third Man Factor: The Secret of Survival in Extreme Environments, by John Geiger.

April 15th: Myths & Mistakes of the Positive Thinking Movement

Investigative journalist Steve Salerno reveals what the science says about the positive thinking and self-esteem movement, and it isn’t very positive and will not raise the self-esteem of all those self-help gurus who have been telling us for decades that we just need to think more positively about life to make things better.

April 8th: Confessions of an Alien Hunter

Why do we think aliens are out there? Is Earth really being visited? Will aliens really be short, gray, and hairless? What happens if we pick up a signal from another world? These are just a few of the questions this week’s guest tackles regularly, in his role as the senior astronomer for the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute. Dr. Seth Shostak talks with Swoopy about the ongoing search for life in the universe, as chronicled in his new book Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

April 1st: How We Staged the Morristown UFO Hoax

We reveal the behind the scenes workings of that UFO hoax that captured headlines earlier this year. People in and around the Morristown, New Jersey area saw unidentified flying objects, with many of them naturally assuming that these UFOs represented extraterrestrial space craft. As you shall see, there was a rather more terrestrial explanation. In fact, they were helium balloons with flares attached to them, lofted into the sky by Chris Russo and Joe Rudy, in their social experiment on how to create your own media event surrounding UFO sightings.

March 25th: What Do I Do Next?

Skepticality and Skeptic.com are pleased to release “What Do I Do Next?: Leading Skeptics Discuss 105 Practical Ways to Promote Science and Advance Skepticism.” — the follow-up project to last year’s essay entitled “Where Do We Go From Here?”, which called for renewed focus on classical skeptical activism.

March 18th: A Skeptic in Creation Land

Michael Shermer visited the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, run by Answers in Genesis, and interviewed Dr. Georgia Purdom, the museum’s “research scientist” who explained what type of research one can do at a young-earth creationist organization, and why she thinks Francis Collins is wrong in his evolutionary understanding of the human genome.

March 11th: 27 Ways to Honor Charles Darwin

As we celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, the Skeptics Society put together a list of 27 items from our catalogue to help you honor the Sage of Down with books, DVDs, CDs, and back issues of Skeptic magazine devoted to Darwin and evolution.

March 4th: “Reasons to Believe” … or Not

Gary J. Whittenberger shares his analysis of the debate between Michael Shermer and Hugh Ross/Fazale Rana, on whether or not creationism can be a testable science.

February 25th: The Greatest Story Ever Garbled

Tim Callahan critiques the movie Zeitgeist — The Greatest Story Ever Told.

February 18th: A Skeptic Goes Inside Noah’s Ark

Michael Shermer goes into the belly of the beast for creationists — Noah’s Ark — during his lecture tour of England during the Darwin celebrations the first two weeks of February, taking in Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm, a zoo dedicated to teaching the school children of England that the biblical story of creation is supported by science, or at least the science according to the zoo’s curator.

February 11th: Evolution Rocks!

On this, the 200th anniversary week of Charles Darwin’s birthday (12 February, 1809), in an article for Forbes magazine, Shermer sets the record straight on whether Charles Darwin stole the idea of natural selection. PLUS, the first Junior Skeptic book is released to Portuguese School Kids!

February 4th: Fire in the Sky

Jeff Medkeff and Martin Rundkvist review A Sumerian Observation of the Köfels Impact Event by Alan Bond and Mark Hempsell.

January 28th: Doubting Altruism

Kenneth Krause reviews the latest research on altruism, most notably that of primate research in controlled experiments in which both monkeys and apes are given choices to cooperate or compete against game partners in exchange scenarios, with implications for human research in this area.

January 21st: Telephone to the Dead

Michael Shermer reminds us how easy it is for our brains to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise.

January 14th: Homeopathy — Still Crazy After All These Years

Harriet Hall, MD explains why “homeopathy is about as silly as it gets. Silly wouldn’t matter if it worked, but it doesn’t. People think it works because they get placebo effects and the homeopath keeps them entertained while they get better on their own.”

January 7th: How to Bend a Spoon with Just Your Mind

In a new video, Michael Shermer bends spoons and forks and give you just enough information so that you can figure how how to do it yourself (without actually providing a full reveal of the trick).