Skeptic: Extraordinary Claims, Revolutionary Ideas, and the Promotion of Science

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Volume 3, Number 2

Bell Curve Issue Preview

For Whom the
Bell Curve Tolls
An interview with the author of The Bell Curve, Charles Murray. On IQ, Race, Class, Gould, Gardner, and the Clintons
by Frank Miele

Articles

‘Twas Brillig…
The Great Astrology Brouhaha: The Internet Becomes a Weapon of Change
by James Randi
Should the Bible
be Taken Literally?
by Betty McCollister
Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?
A Reappraisal of a Classic Skeptics’ Axiom by Theodore Schick, Jr.
A Gentlemanly Arrangement
Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin, and the Resolution of a Scientific Priority Dispute: The story of how the co-discoverers of natural selection resolved a scientific priority dispute offers deep insight into the nature of discovery and history by Michael Shermer
The Question All
Skeptics are Asking
Why Did God Make Rice Cakes?
by Bernard Leikind

Special Section:
The AIDS Heresies

Does HIV Really Cause AIDS?
A Case Study in Skepticism Taken Too Far
by Steven B. Harris
AIDS Part I
The Skeptics and Their Claims
AIDS Part II
How Skepticism Went Astray
AIDS Part III
Lessons on How Science Works
The Imperial Animals
25 Years Later
An Interview with Lionel Tiger
and Robin Fox
by Frank Miele
An Urchin in a Haystack
An interview with
Stephen Jay Gould
Gould’s Dangerous Idea
Contingency, Necessity, and
the Nature of History
by Michael Shermer
How Dangerous is Darwin?
by Michael Ruse

News

“Cool Moss Clinton”; Randi 1 — Geller 0; Scholastic Magazine Haunted by Nostradamus; Janos Was No Janus: So Long to a Skeptical Friend; California Has its Faults; No Satanic Abuse; Repressed Memory Suit Dismissed; South African Witchcraze; No Social Security For UFOs; Mystery Fumes Not Mass Hysteria; Psychic Cats; Ig Nobel Peace Prize; California Cloudbusting; The Madness of King George (& the American Public); A Trip to Waco; Why Ask Why; Corporate Religion.

Forum

Suicide Astrology; Am I Crazy? Seeking Answers — 20 Questions; Abducted by Santa; A Psychic Test for Skeptics; A Skeptical Test of Graphoanalysis; Lucky Chicken Crap; The Great Atheism — Agnosticism Debate; Skeptical Religion; Challenging Drees — Religion is Not a Deterrent; Understanding the Total Human Experience — Drees Responds; Randi is Wrong; Reality is Right — Randi Responds; The Skeptics Dogmatic Society — Raso Needs Revising; Tending Garden and Health — Raso Responds; Curing Homeopathy; Satire — A Powerful Weapon; Sloppy Thinking Media
Forum Challenge
Who Really Discovered Punctuated Equilibrium? A Skeptical Critique of Stephen Jay Gould, by Bruce Sobol; The Mismeasure of Gould — On the Perils of Striking Out, by Michael Shermer
Pseudohistory forum
Revising the Founding Fathers; Afrocentric Skepticism or Credulity?; Holocaust Poll Still Distorted; The Greeks Stole Philosophy?; Plane Crashes and Gas Chambers; The John Birch Society & Holocaust Revisionists — Common Methods & Mistakes; Greetings from the Aryan Nations; Speaking Volumes About Revisionism; Don’t Forget the Gypsies

Reviews

The Fall of The Soviet Union & the Changing Game of Biblical Prophecy
Hal Lindsey’s “Planet Earth — 2000 A.D.: Will Mankind Survive?”
reviewed by Tim Callahan
Culture Wars
Skeptics, Parapsychologists & New Agers — Has the “good guys v. bad guys” rhetoric hindered the quest for truth? A review of Science in the New Age, by David Hess
reviewed by Brian Siano

Books in Brief

Skeptoon: An Illustrated Look at Some New Age Beliefs; and Magic Minds, Miraculous Moments, by Harry Edwards; How To Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age, by Theodore Schick, and Lewis Vaughn; Telling the Truth About History, by Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob; Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by its Most Brilliant Teacher, recordings of Richard Feynman in the Classroom; The Pleasures and Perils of Genius: Mostly Mozart, ed. by Peter Ostwald and Leonard Zegans; Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and the Man Behind Star Trek, by Joel Engel; Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, by Carl Sagan