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

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Back Issue: Volume 13, Number 4
Volume 13, Number 4

Cover Story

Quirkology
How We Discover the Big Truths
in Small Things
by Richard Wiseman

Debates

Beyond Demonic Memes
Why Richard Dawkins
is Wrong About Religion
by David Sloan Wilson
Richard Dawkins Replies
to David Sloan Wilson
The Great Afterlife Debate:
Michael Shermer versus
Deepak Chopra
Hope Springs Eternal
Science, the Afterlife,
and the Meaning of Life
by Michael Shermer
Taking the
Afterlife Seriously
by Deepak Chopra

News

Are the Textbook Wars Over?
by L.Kirk Hagen
Skepticism Loses Two Stars
Farewell to Paul MacCready
& Jerry Andrus
by Michael Shermer

Junior Skeptic

Alien Astronauts, Part II written by Daniel Loxton; illustrations by Daniel Loxton and Jim Smith
Ancient Jet Planes?; Miraculous Delhi Pillar; How were the Easter Island Statues Carved, Moved and Raised?; Nazca Lines — Drawings of the Gods?; Mighty Pyramids; Stonehenge and Merlin’s Magic; Did Aliens Mate with Humans?; Ancient Astronauts and Racist Assumptions; Is Von Däniken Serious?; The Bottom Line

Forum

Letters
Skeptical of the Autism-Vaccination Skeptics; Psychiatry Redux; First-Hand Opinion on Second Hand Smoke; Something From Nothing
Animal Research Wars
by P. Michael Conn
& JamesV. Parker

Articles

Aping Language
A skeptical analysis of the evidence for nonhuman primate language
by Clive Wynne
The Myth of
the Mozart Effect
by Will Dowd
A New Mythology
Ancient Astronauts,
Lost Civilizations &
the New Age Paradigm
by Tim Callahan
Consciousness is Nothing
But a Word
by Henry D. Schlinger
Franklin’s Electric
Kite Experiment
Did Benjamin Franklin really fly a kite to prove that lightning and static electricity were one and the same,or was it all just a hoax?
by William D. Stansfield

Features

‘Twas Brillig…
Phenomenon Examined
by James Randi
The SkepDoc
Ultrasound, Fish Oil & Ear Candles
by Harriet Hall, M.D.

Reviews

Not Very Comforting
Don’t Believe Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in Thinking by Thomas Kida
reviewed by David Ludden
The Shape of the Earth
— Flat or Hollow?

Flat Earth:The History of an Infamous Idea by Christine Garwood

Hollow Earth:The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth’s Surface by David Standish.

reviewed by Donald Simanek
Here Be Monsters
Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World’s Most Elusive Creatures by Benjamin Radford & Joe Nickell
reviewed by Daniel Loxton
How The Medical
Mind Works
How Doctors Think
by Jerome Groopman reviewed by Harriet Hall, M.D.
Two Views, One Reality

Darwin and Intelligent Design
by Francisco Ayala

Living with Darwin: Evolution,
Design and the Future of Faith by Philip Kitcher

reviewed by Jason Rosenhouse
No Child Left Behind
The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering by Michael J. Sandel
reviewed by Norman Levitt