Skeptic: Examining Extraordinary Claims and Promoting Science
Skeptic Magazine, Volume 17 Number 3
Table of Contents
Cover Story
- Is Ours a Christian Civilization?
- Cover photo: George Washington’s legendary prayer at Valley Forge—updated. Art by Pat Linse. Thanks to Eduard Pastor, Gingi Yee, and David Patton for help with photo reference.
Special Section:
Are We Alone?
- The Glare of Other Suns
-
An Inside Look at How Astronomers are Searching
for Extrasolar Planets - The Flake Equation
-
Estimating the Number
of People Who Have
Experienced the Paranormal
- The Physics of UFOs
-
How Realistic is it for Spacecraft to Travel Interstellar Distances to Earth?
Columns
- The SkepDoc
-
Multiple Personality Delusions
- Bad Language
-
Possessed Possessions
- ’Twas Brillig…
- Celebrating the Reason Rally
Junior Skeptic
- Mokele Mbembe
-
- Genuine Sea Serpents
- Sauropods Revealed
- Andrew Carnegie
- Fossils, Fortunes, and Fame
- Birth of a Media Legend
- Earlier African Dinosaur Legends?
- Dinos Everywhere!
- The Story Comes Together
- “All Who Ate of it Died”
Special Section
On “Nothing”
- Out of Nothing?
-
The Genesis Creation Myth is Not Unique
- What Rocks Dream About
-
The Non-Existence of Nothing
- Nothing is Negligable
-
Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing
Articles
- Trolley Trouble
-
Why We Should be Skeptical of Moral Cognition Testing Based on Hypothetical Situations
- Fetus Food
- Another Urban Legend Busted
- Speechless
-
Facilitated Communication: A Long-Debunked Pseudoscience Makes a Surprising Return
- Science, Skepticism and Democracy
- The Neuroscience of Changing Minds
- Einstein’s Razor
-
Making Scientific Models as Simple as Possible But Not Simpler is Difficult To Do
Reviews
- How the World Swerved Toward Science
-
A review of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern,
by Stephen Greenblatt. - Mind Matters
- A review of Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged From Matter, by Terrence Deacon.
- Making Room for Religion
-
A review of Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science,
by Michael Ruse.
- What’s it Like to be a Brain?
-
A review of Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist, by Christof Koch.
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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.