From uttering a prayer before boarding a plane, to exploring past lives through hypnosis, why has superstition become so pervasive in an age of science? Robert Park, the University of Maryland physics professor and the best-selling author of Voodoo Science, asks why people persist in superstitious convictions long after science has shown them to be ill-founded…
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Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science
eSkeptic for 08-10-08
In this week’s eSkeptic, Skeptic magazine’s very own Skepdoc, Harriet Hall M.D., punctures the acupuncture myth and tells you why “almost everything you’ve heard about acupuncture is wrong.”
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The Believing Brain
(now in paperback)
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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.”
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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…
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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.
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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.