Skeptic: Examining Extraordinary Claims and Promoting Science

eSkeptic Archives for 2013

May 15th: Growing Up in the Amityville Horror

Trevor Fehrman reviews Eric Walter’s documentary film My Amityville Horror (IFC Films 2012), in which, for the first time ever, Daniel Lutz delivers his perspective on perhaps the most famous ghost story in America: the 1975 Amityville haunting.

May 8th: The Struggle of Bangladeshi Bloggers

In a nation whose laws protect free speech we easily forget that many places in the world hold atheism and the expression of religious skepticism to be a crime—a thought crime—punishable by jail. The following article, by Dr. Avijit Roy, reminds us that we need to be vigilant in our quest for freedom of speech everywhere in the world.

May 1st: Of Martians and Media

Sharon Hill reviews The Martians Have Landed: A History of Media-driven Panics and Hoaxes, by Robert E. Bartholomew and Benjamin Radford (McFarland, 2012, ISBN: 978-0786464982).

April 24th: It’s Getting Better All the Time

Dr. Edward Hudgins reviews two books: Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think, by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler and Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism, by Robert Zubrin.

April 17th: Witch Doctors and Con Artists

In the small Ugandan village near the capital city of Kampala, a man named Ronald Kapungu had been accused of practicing witchcraft or hiring witch doctors to curse a nearby family. In this week’s eSkeptic, freelance reporter and travel writer, Justin Chapman, describes his experience at the witchcraft ceremony that he witnessed while covering the story with local journalist Luke Kagiri.

April 10th: Scientology Exposed

In this week’s eSkeptic, Jim Lippard reviews three books: Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), The Church of Fear: Inside The Weird World of Scientology by John Sweeney (Silvertail Books, 2013), and Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill with Lisa Pulitzer (William Morrow, 2013).

April 3rd: Anthropology No More

L. Kirk Hagen reviews Human No More: Digital Subjectivities, Unhuman Subjects, and the End of Anthropology, edited by Neil Whitehead and Michael Wesch (University Press of Colorado, 2012, ISBN 978-1607321897).

March 27th: Non-Designer Design

Chad Jones reviews Design in Nature: How the Constructal Law Governs Evolution in Biology, Physics, Technology, and Social Organization, by Dr. Adrian Bejan and J. Peder Zane (Doubleday, 2012, ISBN 9780385534611). The reviewer questions whether the authors’ notion of “the contructal law” adds anything to Darwin’s theory of evolution via natural selection.

March 20th: What Science Really Says About the Soul

The majority of Americans believe that the soul lives on after the body dies. How can we know whether consciousness can survive bodily death? In this week’s eSkeptic, Stephen Cave takes a look at the belief that souls exist, and reminds us that modern brain imaging technology provides scientific evidence to strengthen the case against such fuzzy notions.

March 13th: The Progressive War on Science

Kenneth W. Krause reviews Science Left Behind: Feel-Good Fallacies and the Rise of the Anti-Scientific Left, by Alex B. Berezow and Hank Campbell (NY: Public Affairs, 2012 ISBN-13: 978-1-61039-164-1).

March 6th: Savage Science: Interview of Napoleon Chagnon (excerpt)

We present an excerpt from Frank Miele’s interview with Napoleon A. Chagnon, usually described as “the most controversial anthropologist,” hero to some, villain to others. His studies of the Yanomamö of the Amazon basin formed a cornerstone in the application of sociobiological theory to humankind. Chagnon himself helped found the discipline of evolutionary psychology and the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES). However, his findings were disputed by other anthropologists who argued for the primacy of culture over genes and evolution. An expanded version of this interview will appear in Skeptic magazine, volume 18, number 2 (later this summer).

February 27th: The Carl Sagan of Chemistry

Harriet Hall, MD, (aka “The SkepDoc”) reviews Joe Schwarcz book entitled, The Right Chemistry: 108 Enlightening, Nutritious, Health-Conscious and Occasionally Bizarre Inquiries into the Science of Everyday Life (Doubleday Canada, 2012, ISBN 9780385671590).

February 20th: Contemplating Extraterrestrial Civilizations

George Michael reviews the book Civilizations Beyond Earth: Extraterrestrial Life and Society edited by Douglas A. Vakoch and Albert A. Harrison (Berghahn Books, 2011, ISBN 978-0857452115).

February 13th: Magnetic Myths

Should we worry about pole shifts and changes in the Earth’s magnetic field causing a global apocalypse? In this week’s eSkeptic, Donald R. Prothero discusses some of the common misconceptions about magnetism and Earth’s magnetic field.

February 6th: Why Is There a Skeptical Movement?

We’re pleased to present Daniel Loxton’s challenging and provocative new project, “Why Is There a Skeptical Movement?”. Almost two years in the writing, these two meticulously-researched chapter-length explorations dig deeply into the roots, founding principles, and purpose of scientific skepticism. Arguing that it is essential for skeptics to “appreciate that we’re caretakers for the work of those who have come before,” Loxton carries forward the discussion about the scope and limits of scientific skepticism.

January 30th: The Remarkable Mr. Rinn

Daniel Loxton shares a story about Joseph F. Rinn—a leading media skeptic from the early 20th century— whose classic volume Sixty Years of Psychical Research, though rarely consulted today, remains the deepest and most important sources of skeptical literature on paranormal investigation from about 1890–1950.

January 23rd: More Physics of UFOs

In Skeptic magazine 17.3, Michael Gainer wrote “The Physics of UFOs” in which he sought to determine if it is possible to construct an interstellar spacecraft that fits the description of reported UFOs. In response to that long-time skeptic, Peter Huston penned a skeptical analysis entitled, “Another Physics of UFOs.” We published both articles in last week’s eSkeptic. In this eSkeptic, Gainer responds to Huston.

January 16th: The Physics of UFOs

We present an article by Michael K. Gainer (from Skeptic magazine 17.3) about the feasibility of interstellar travel, followed by a rebuttal from Peter Huston.

January 9th: Not Fooled by Randomness

Michael Shermer reviews Antifragile: How to Live in a World We Don’t Understand, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2012, U.S. edition published by Random House, subtitled “Things That Gain from Disorder”). Order the hardcover book or the Kindle Edition. This review was originally published in Nature, Nov. 21, 2012.

January 2nd: A Gentle Journey Through the Truth in Rocks

Donald Prothero reviews The Rocks Don’t Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah’s Flood, by David R. Montgomery.