Skeptic: Examining Extraordinary Claims and Promoting Science
Skeptic Magazine, Volume 4 Number 4
Table of Contents
Articles
- In Memory of Carl Sagan 1934–1996
- ’Twas Brillig…
- How to Convince the Media You are Psychic & That They Need You: Sometimes a Scheme is Just So Delicious You Can Taste it!
-
1996: Dumbth is
the Year that Was - Early Ghostbusters
- The Millennium is Coming!
-
Cosmic Disaster in 2000
or Another Failed Prophecy? -
What Ever Happened
to n-rays? - Robert Wood’s 1904 n-ray Letter in Nature — a Classic in Skeptical History
-
Creationism: Bad Science
or Immoral Pseudoscience?
Forum
- A Light in the Darkness; A Christian Skeptic; Atheists Decline into Oblivion; A Cultural Black Hole; Islamic Evolutionism; Impact Artifact; New Age is Not All Good News; The Best Win Out; Bravo Tipler!; Which Side Are You On?; Thank You Mr. Siano; Siano’s Fiction; Siano Not True Defender of PC; Siano Cracks on Bell Curve; Siano and Skeptic on Far Left ; My True Views on PC and IQ—Siano Responds; Religion Does Odd Things; No Morals in Morality; Ethical Inadequacies; Provisional Means Provisional
Reviews
- Darwinian Literary Science?
-
Evolution and Literary Theory, by Joseph Carroll
- The Not-So-Amazing Kreskin
-
A review of How to Be a Fake Kreskin, by The Amazing Kreskin
-
Killing Clio Softly
with Their Siren Song -
The Killing of History: How a Discipline is Being Murdered by Literary Critics and Social Theorists, by Keith Windschuttle
News
- Darwin’s Debt; Pope Acquits Darwin; Militias American Style; Multiple Personalities; A Rebel With a Cause; Geller Tours America With New Book & Same Old Tricks; Relive the Civil War Through Regression Therapy; School Superintendent Glues Big Bang Pages in Science Text Together; If Glue Doesn’t Work Try Magic Markers or Razor Blades; Psychic Network Does Not Foresee Lawsuit; Pierre Salinger Becomes a Conspiracy Theorist; Taiwan Guru Busted For $70 Million in Fake Miracles; Mars Face Believers Stage Protest at JPL; Germany Squelches Scientology; Scientologist Purchases Assets of Cult Awareness Network; What is a Cult?; Another Recovered Memory Lawsuit Settled for $1 Million; Aromatherapy Smells Fishy; Errata Farrakhan; Afrocentrism Challenged in Milwaukee Schools; 1996 Ig Nobel Prizewinners; Extraterrestrial Highway
-
Detecting the
“Human Energy Field” -
$742,000 Says Therapeutic
Touch is Bogus
Special Section:
Can History Be Science?
- History at the Crossroads
-
Can History Be a Science?
Can it Afford Not to Be?
- Rebel With a Cause
- An interview with Frank Sulloway
- Can We Know What Really Happened in the Past?
-
Vivid Historical Examples Encourage Students to Think Critically
- More Higher Superstitions: Knowledge, Knowingness & Reality
-
One of the Authors of Higher Superstition Answers His Critics
-
Where is Knowingness
to be Found? -
A Reply to Norman Levitt
Books in Brief
- Auschwitz, by Deborah Dwork and Robert Jan Van Pelt; History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past, by Edward T. Linethal and Tom Engelhardt (Eds.); The Disappearance of God: A Divine Mystery, by Richard Elliott Friedman; Seven Theories of Religion, by Daniel L. Pals; Witches and Neighbors: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft, by Robin Briggs; Climbing Mount Improbable, by Richard Dawkins; Evolutionary Naturalism, by Michael Ruse; The Myth of the Framework: In Defense of Science and Rationality, by Karl R. Popper. M.A. Notturno (Editor); In Search of Nature, by Edward O. Wilson; Eros and Evolution: A Natural Philosophy of Sex, by Richard E. Michod; The Edge of the Unknown: 101 Things You Don’t Know About Science and No One Else Does Either, by James Trefil; This is True: Deputy Kills Man With Hammer and 500 Other Bizarre-but-True Stories and Headlines from the World’s Press, by Randy Cassingham; The Heretic’s Handbook of Quotations: Cutting Comments on Burning Issues, by Charles Bufe (Editor); Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky, by Charles Ginenthal; Stephen J. Gould and Immanuel Velikovsky, by Dale Ann Pearlman (Editor)
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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.