Skeptic: Extraordinary Claims, Revolutionary Ideas, and the Promotion of Science

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2007 January–June

January 4th: an Afterlife Debate with Deepak Chopra: Michael Shermer and Deepak Chopra debate about science, spirituality, the afterlife, and the meaning of life; Skepticality presents the Sam Harris Caltech lecture.
January 10th: Creationism in Our National Parks: Geologist and paleontologist Dr. Donald Prothero discusses the latest creationist challenge to science in the form of banning park rangers at the Grand Canyon from telling people how old it is!
January 17th: Fact Checking 101: Michael Shermer issues a correction to the Grand Canyon Story, Creationism in Our National Parks, that we ran in last week’s eSkeptic.
January 24th: Mr. Deity & Letter to a Christian Nation: Mr. Deity explores the lighter side of religion through His humorous short films and Kenneth W. Krause reviews Sam Harris’ book Letter to a Christian Nation.
January 31st: two reviews of Richard Dawkins’ latest: Norman Levitt and Michael Shermer offer two different reviews of Richard Dakwins’ book, The God Delusion.
February 7th: new season of Caltech lectures: The Skeptics Society is pleased to announce its Spring 2007 season of the Skeptics Distinguished Lecture Series at Caltech.
February 12th: Darwin Day: Today, the Skeptics Society celebrates one of the greatest thinkers in history, Charles Darwin, on what would be his 198th birthday.
February 16th: Before the Dawn: Kenneth Krause reviews Nicholas Wade’s book, Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors.
February 21st: a Mammoth in the Garden: In a review essay, Paul R. Gross discusses: The Creationist Debate: The Encounter Between the Bible & the Historical Mind, by Arthur McCalla; Creatures of Accident: The Rise of the Animal Kingdom, by Wallace Arthur; and The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, by Francis S. Collins.
February 28th: Dawkins v. Collins: Gary J. Whittenberger’s gives us a skeptical analysis of the “spirited debate between atheist biologist Richard Dawkins and Christian geneticist Francis Collins” which appeared in Time magazine on November 13, 2006.
March 7th: The Secret: Ingrid Hansen Smythe gives us her skeptical analysis of the movie The Secret.
March 14th: The Legacy of Carl Sagan: Carl Sagan was a man ahead of this time. On the 10th anniversary of his death we celebrate Carl Sagan’s remarkable legacy in Skeptic magazine volume 13, number 1.
March 21st: Dr Zimbardo; Mind of the Market: Michael Shermer tries out some new ideas at a free lecture on evolutionary economics; and Dr. Philip Zimbardo lectures at Caltech on the topic of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.
March 28th: Measuring the Deity: Warren Allmon reviews two books: The Measure of God. Our Century-Long Struggle to Reconcile Science & Religion. The Story of the Gifford Lectures, by Larry Witham; and Before Darwin. Reconciling God and Nature, by Keith Stewart Thomson.
April 4th: God — the Failed Hypothesis: David Ludden reviews Victor J. Stenger’s book entitled God: The Failed Hypothesis — How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist.
April 11th: Bad Apples or Bad Barrels?: Jennifer McKevitt reviews by Philip Zimbardo’s book entitled The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.
April 18th: The Problem of Evil in a Darwinian World: Dr. Norman Levitt reviews by George Levine’s book entitled Darwin Loves You: Natural Selection and the Re-enchantment of the World.
April 25th: Ancient Astronauts, Lost Civilizations: Skeptic magazine’s Religion Editor Tim Callahan shows how classic myths of ancient astronauts and other legends have grown into practically religious beliefs for many New Age spiritualists who have grown disenchanted with mainstream religion and have turned to these legends to find mythic meaning.
May 2nd: Science Will Never Explain Everything: Robert Ehrlich addresses one of the standard myths about science: that the gaps in scientific knowledge mean that there is something wrong with science and that the scientific method is inherently deeply flawed. Ehrlich notes that the exact opposite is the case: where gaps exist is where science flourishes.
May 9th: Hitchens and God: Rayyan Al-Shawaf reviews god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, by Christopher Hitchens.
May 16th: Flock of Dodos: Donald R. Prothero reviews Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design, and the Easter Bunny, by Barrett Brown and Jon P. Alston.
May 23rd: the New Creation Museum in Kentucky: A review of the new young-earth creationism museum in Kentucky, visited by our colleague and correspondent Stephen Asma.
May 30th: And God Created Lenin: Paul Gabel discusses the Soviet failed attempt to eradicate religion by fiat out of the Russian people. The historical experiment carries an important lesson for those who study belief systems in general and religion in particular: you cannot legislate beliefs and faith.
June 6th: Who Designed That?: Tom McIver discusses “the faith that dare not say its name” (a.k.a. Creationism) and suggests that although Evolution can be accepted with or without belief in God or the Bible, teaching creationism, including ID creationism, requires the unnecessary entanglement of religion with science.
June 13th: Loch Ness and other Lake Monsters: Daniel Loxton provides a skeptical commentary on Gordon T. Holmes Loch Ness Monster video and reviews Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World’s Most Elusive Creatures, by Benjamin Radford and Joe Nickell.
June 20th: the Vaccine-Autism Myth: Matthew P. Normand and Jesse Dallery, Ph.D. address one of the hottest topics in the news this week: vaccination and autism, considering the best scientific evidence to date on the possible connection. As you shall see, the scientists considering the link, Matthew P. Normand and Jesse Dallery, provide an excellent summary of what we know and do not know.
June 27th: Why This Universe?: Robert Lawrence Kuhn, creator and host of the PBS television series Closer To Truth provides a brilliant summation and classification of the numerous answers to the question “Why This Universe?”; PLUS, Michael Shermer experiments with the “God Helmet” and recounts his out of body experience.