Skeptic: Promoting Science and Critical Thinking

Mother, ‘spiritual father’ convicted in faith-healing case but questions remain. Ten years after a 15-year-old Loudon County girl died from a rare form of bone cancer, two questions that have dogged the case from the start remain unanswered. When, under Tennessee law, can a parent rely on God — not medicine — to heal a… more

Hapless MPs send daft letter to wrong people in attempt to defend faith healers – guardian.co.uk. A cross-party group of MPs have attempted to bully the Advertising Standards Authority over their ruling against faith healers; attacking the suggestion that people who make health claims should be required to provide evidence for them. As reported by… more

Row over Church’s Jesus cancer-healing claims A New Zealand church has erected a billboard saying “Jesus heals cancer”, after claiming six of its members had been cured. The large black and red billboard was put up by the Equippers Church in the suburb of Tamatea, in Napier… Pastor Lyle Penisula of Equippers Church, which has… more

National Secular Society – Advert claiming cure through prayer is banned.
The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has banned an advert by Healing on the Streets – Bath (HOTS) that claimed healing through prayer.

The ASA ruled that: A video on the website made claims that HOTS volunteers had successfully prayed for healing for people with cancer, … more

Church points to prayer for man’s second chance at life

After a man collapsed, stopped breathing, and showed no sign of a pulse, people surrounding him at the time thought he had died. When he woke up several minutes later, the crowd was stunned and now point to faith as the answer.
On January 22nd, Fred … more

This debate between Deepak Chopra and Michael Shermer came about after the widely read and referenced debate the two had last year on the virtues and value of skepticism. Deepak and Michael thought it would be stimulating to have a debate on the topic. Michael read Deepak’s book and goes first in the debate, offering his assessment of the “proofs” presented in Deepak’s book, then Deepak responds.

In this week’s eSkeptic, Gary J. Whittenberger investigates whether the prayer of Georgia State Governor Sonny Perdue correlates to an increase in precipitation and how likely it was to have actually caused the increase.

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…

In this week’s eSkeptic, Michael Shermer reports on the findings of a recent scientific study that tested the efficacy of intercessory prayer.

In this week’s eSkeptic, the Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health presents a follow-up study to a clinical trial on the efficacy of prayer therapy.