Skeptic: Examining Extraordinary Claims and Promoting Science
Skeptic Magazine, Volume 3 Number 3
Table of Contents
Articles
- Scientology v. the Internet
- Free Speech & Copyright Infringement on the Information Super-Highway
- ’Twas Brillig…
- The “Curse” of King Tut and of the Princess-in-a-Box
-
Satanic Panic Update:
The Dangers of Moral Panics - What Skeptics (and Everyone Else) Need to Know
- Believing the Unbelievable
- Linking “Recovered Memories” to Hypnosis, Dreams, Sleep Paralysis, and Panic Attacks
-
The Question All
Skeptics are Asking -
What is the Proper Way
to Eat a Light Bulb?
News
- Poll Finds Americans Believe The End is Nigh; What Skeptics Believe; 2nd Annual Skeptics Awards Ceremony and Conference a Success; Dr. Randi I Presume?; Who Owns Ramtha?; Ramtha Advises the FAA; Repressed Memory; Conviction Reversed; Scientology Joins the Boy Scouts; The Devil Made Nixon Do It; Physicist Wins Million Dollar Religion Prize; Harvard Professor Investigated for Alien Beliefs; Philadelphia Skeptics Association; History of Skepticism Course
- Pseudohistory News
- Japanese Magazine Folds After Running Revisionist Article; Harvard Subscribes to Revisionist Journal; Neo-Nazi Headquarters Goes Up in Flames; Holocaust Revisionist Locked in Nazi Gas Chamber, Second Revisionist Denies the Event; Police raid Home of JHR Founder
- Lite News that has been Riding the Information Superhighway
- How Many Philosophers Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb? and Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
Books in Brief
- Common Sense, Science and Skepticism: A Historical Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge, by Alan Musgrave; At the Fringes of Science, by Michael Friedlander; Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings, by Joe Nickell; The Science Masters Series from Basic Books: The Origin of the Universe, by John D. Barrow; The Last Three Minutes, by Paul Davies; The Origin of Humankind, by Richard Leakey; River Out of Eden, by Richard Dawkins
Reviews
- The Dirt & the Details
-
Satanic Panic: The Creation of
a Contemporary Legend,
by Jeffrey S. Victor
- Houdini Escapes Again
-
The Life and Many Deaths of
Harry Houdini, by Ruth Brandon
-
The Many Victims
of False Memories -
Victims of Memory: Incest, Accusation and Shattered Lives,
by Mark Pendergast
Special Section:
Race and Intelligence
- Curves & Cycles
-
An Introduction to the Special Section on The Bell Curve
- A Place in the Sun
-
The Error in The Bell Curve is to assume that genetic variation, which can account for differences among individuals within a group, is also the reason for differences between groups.
-
The Skewed Logic
of the Bell-Shaped Curve - The authors leap from data to unfounded conclusions. The Bell Curve is really a book about how we should be spending our tax dollars.
- An Interview with Robert Sternberg: on The Bell Curve
- Even though it was written for the media, Herrnstein and Murray’s book has greatly increased public confusion and misconception about the relationship between heritability and environment.
- Insult to Injury — The Use & Abuse of The Bell Curve
-
The Bell Curve has contributed to a renaissance of enthusiasm for some of the most dubious accomplishments of the human imagination — Social Darwinists, eugenicists, sterilizationists, racists, polygenecists, anti-amalgamationists, and elitists of every stripe.
- In Defense of The Bell Curve: The Reality of Race and the Importance of Human Differences
-
We can begin this trip out of political correctness by noting that on genetic grounds alone there can be no doubt of the existence of a substantial number of human races. Races are, if you wish, fuzzy sets.
Forum
- Letters
-
Bravo Siano; Pathological Credulity; What’s So Bad About Religion?; Religion is Irrational Nonsense; Religion Not Off Limits; Hal Lindsey Creates Atheist; Can’t-Know or Don’t-Know?; Is Schrödinger’s Cat Psychic?; Self-Deception; New Age Crapola; Skeptics No Killjoys; Not So Unsolved Mysteries; Nicole Is Not Crazy; Mystery Fumes, Phantom Gas; Skeptical of Nerve Gas; Interstate Highways in
Hawaii?; I’ll Take the Money Dr. Murray; Taking the Murray Challenge; Unfair Attack is Vintage Gould; Stasis is Data-Missing the Point About Punctuated Equilibrium; The Emperor of Rationality Has No Clothes; Randi Responds - Hume Forum
- Existence Exists; The Miracle of Hume’s Contradiction; The Hume Conspiracy; Schick Responds
- AIDS Forum
- Harris Clarifies AIDS; The Wrong Skepticism; AIDS and Reich; Just the Facts, Please; AIDS Scam; Harris Sells HIV Lie; How An HIV-AIDS Skeptic Really Thinks: Robert S. Root-Bernstein Responds, Selected Root-Bernstein Bibliography & Publications On Cofactors in AIDS; A Response to Robert S. Root-Bernstein From the Publisher; Dr. Steven B. Harris Responds
- Pseudohistory Forum
- Anti-German Bias; The Forgotten History; A Consilience Cable; White Nationalism v. White Supremacy; Skeptic Superficial and Slanted; Afrocentrism Still Needs Debunking; Population Revisionism; Save Some Skepticism for Revisionists’ Detractors
- Randi/Geller Update
- Geller’s Lawyer; Responds to Randi; Randi Responds; Science v. The Law: From the Publisher
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The Believing Brain
(now in paperback)
Get the autographed paperback
In this, his magnum opus, Dr. Michael Shermer presents his comprehensive theory on how beliefs are born, formed, nourished, reinforced, challenged, changed, and extinguished. Sam Harris calls The Believing Brain “a wonderfully lucid, accessible, and wide-ranging account of the boundary between justified and unjustified belief.” Leonard Mlodinow calls it “a tour de force integrating neuroscience and the social sciences.”
FREE PDF Download
Top 10 Myths About Evolution (and how we know it really happened)
This concise pamphlet provides answers to common objections to evolution, such as: If humans came from apes, why aren’t apes evolving into humans?; Only an intelligent designer could have made something as complex as an eye; The second law of thermo-dynamics proves that evolution is impossible; Evolution can’t account for morality; and more…
FREE PDF Download
Top 10 Things You Should Know About Alternative Medicine
Harriet Hall, MD (aka the SkepDoc), shares her wit and wisdom about alternative medicine including: chiropractic, the placebo effect, homeopathy, acupuncture, and the questionable benefits of organic food, detoxification, and ‘natural’ remedies.
FREE PDF Download
Learn to be a Psychic in 10
Easy Lessons
Psychic readings and fortunetelling are an ancient art — a combination of acting and psychological manipulation. While some psychics are known to cheat and acquire information ahead of time, these ten tips focus on what is known as “cold reading” — reading someone “cold” without any prior knowledge about them.