The Magazine
- current issue
- about the magazine
- subscribe or renew (print)
- subscribe (digital)
- buy single issues (print)
- buy single issues (digital)
-
browse back issues
-
meet the contributors
Back Issues, volumes 1–29
volume 29 number 3
Animal Minds
The Asteroid That Made a Mouse Into a Man • A Look Into the Mind’s Eye • Bird Brainpower: Investigating the Remarkable Minds of Crows • When Dolphins Network • Skeptic Interviews Frans de Waal • The Lost Bird: the Great Auk • Can Eating Meat Be Ethical? • Do Animals Have the Same Rights as Humans? • When Our Best Friend Becomes Our Worst Enemy: The Story of American Bully XL Attacks and the Campaign That Banned the Breed in Britain • Would You Kill a Goat to Save a Tortoise? Morality, Science, and Animal Rights • Insects on the Menu: Separating Fact from Fiction • The Waning of Scientific Innovation • Known Knowns: A Review of Informatica and Knowing What We Know
View table of contents and availability
volume 29 number 2
Culture Wars
What is Cancel Culture, Anyway? • Revisiting Colorblindness: A review of Coleman Hughes’ The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America • Cancelling the Pop Culture of Yesteryear • The New Archaeology Wars: How Cancel Culture and Identity Politics Have Corrupted Science • Tension Between Science & Ideology: Exploring Paths to Social Justice • Behavioral Science Needs to Return to the Basics • Blue & Green, Black & White: Identity Politics in History, from Byzantium to Sri Lanka • Identity Politics and Its Discontents: Interviews with Christopher Rufo and Yascha Mounk • What Type of Social Justice Do We Want? • A Scientific Perspective on the Patriarchy: The Gender Pay Gap and Unequal Opportunity • Witch-Hunting: A Culture War Fought with Skepticism and Compassion • Expelled! The True Story Behind Ben Stein’s Anti-Evolution/ Pro-Intelligent Design Film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
View table of contents and availability
volume 29 number 1
Artificial Intelligence
Why Should We Pursue Human Intelligence With AI? • Is AI a Threat? • Are Governments Prepared to Keep AI Safe? UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in Conversation With Elon Musk • AI and Uncertainty • Can We Trust AI to Make Decisions? • Lessons About the Human Mind from Artificial Intelligence • Human v. Artificial Intelligence: Will AI Come Back to Outsmart, Sting, or Assist Us? • AI Will Not Replace Artists— It Will Devalue Them • Chatbots and the Pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence • When It Comes to AI, Think Protopia, Not Dystopia or Utopia • Undercover at the Woo Festival • Bedbug Bedlam: Real Infestation or Social Panic in Paris? • Framed? How Sensationalism Keeps New York City’s Most Controversial Defendants Innocent in the Eyes of the Public
View table of contents and availability
volume 28 number 4
Health Matters
Pain & Profit: Who’s Responsible for the Opioid Crisis? • Your Microbiome & Your Health: The Good, the Bad, and the Bugly • The Future of Medicine & Wellness • A Practicing Physician Explores How We Evolved to Be Healthy • A Cure for Autism in the World of Alternative Medicine & Anti-Vaxxers • Did Legalization of Marijuana Increase Violent Crime? • The Good and Bad News About Psychotherapy • Social Media & Mass Psychogenic Illness in Kenya • Sex, Mental Health, and the Culture Wars • Who Should You Trust? Why Appeals to Scientific Consensus Are Often Uncompelling • Bayesian Reasoning and the Truth Trap
View table of contents and availability
volume 28 number 3
Education Matters
An in-depth look at the challenged educational system in America: Ideology in Education • Are Standardized Admission Tests Biased? • Schools of Education: What Are Teachers Taught? • Education Reform Fads • A Vision for the Future of Education • How Activists Are Targeting Teaching • Social Mobility and Fairness • Unintended Consequences of Censorship • Leonardo da Vinci and the Theory of Relativity • A Skeptical View of J. Edgar Hoover & the FBI • Roe v. Wade: One Year Later
View table of contents and availability
volume 28 number 2
Energy Matters
An in-depth look at the past & future of energy: fossil fuels, fracking, nuclear, renewables, EVs • The Case for Nuclear • Behind the Scenes at the U.S. Department of Energy • The Untold Story of “Gender-Affirming” Clinics • Amanda Knox on How a Wrongful Conviction Helped Her Become a Better Thinker • Do We Have Free Will? • Ranking Presidents: Does It Make Any Sense? • Chinese Surveillance Balloons and Space Aliens • Could Dragons from Game of Thrones Exist?
View table of contents and availability
volume 28 number 1
Economic Matters
The Economics of Life Made Simple • Critical Analysis of America’s Homeless Crisis • Interview with Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve • Graham Hancock’s Netflix Hypothesis Put to a Test • Alternative Archaeology: Did an Ancient Apocalypse Erase the Lost Civilization of Atlantis? • The Rise of Lies & the Demise of Shame • Does Psychotherapy Work? • From Sex to Gender: The Modern Dismissal of Biology • How to Practice Science Better • Stage Acts That Perform “Telepathy”
View table of contents and availability
volume 27 number 4
Nationalism Matters
Paradoxes of Religion and Science in the USA • Why Nations Are Becoming More Secular • Protopian Politics and the Future of Nationalism • The Christian Origins of Nationalism • Christian Nationalism on the American Right • Allegations of Election Fraud Critically Examined • 12 Arguments for Nationalism • Why Nationalism Is a Threat to American Values • Neuroscience of Political Polarization • Refusing to Acknowledge Facts • The Ever-Evolving Sexual Revolution • Post-Truth • Science of Crowd Estimation • Flat Earthers and Conspiracy Culture • Exposing Bad Behavioral Science
View table of contents and availability
volume 27 number 3
Race Matters
Why Race Matters • Systemic Racism—Explained • News Media & Declining Race Relations: Social Narratives More Than Real-Life Events May Be Driving Decline in Race Relations • Race & Policing: A Data-Driven Look at Policing and its Discontents • Critical Race Theory: Noble Ends, Terrible Means • Why Reparations and Equity Are Bad Ideas • Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes: On Race and Jane Elliott’s Famous Experiment on Prejudice • Race & Medicine • Cracking History: Chiropractic’s Secret Origin • Abducted! Scientific Explanations of the Alien Abduction Experience • Persistent Belief: The Relative Implausibility of Certainty • Poking Holes in Needle-Spiking: Nightclub “Attacks” Scare Sweeps Europe • What Darwin Got Wrong About the Female of (All) Species • Broadcasting Flapdoodle: A review of Radio Psychics: Mind Reading and Fortune Telling in American Broadcasting, 1920–1940.
View table of contents and availability
volume 27 number 2
Abortion Matters
The Science of Abortion; Abortion: The Case for Choice; Anti-Abortion: The Case for Life; Skeptic Research Center: A Data-Driven Look Into Men’s Abortion Attitudes; Big Pharma’s Cynical Search for a Female Sex Drug; David Copperfield’s History of Magic; Deep Fakes: How to Know a Photograph, Video, or Audio Recording is Real; Havana Syndrome Hysteria: 60 Minutes’ Sensational Reporting on White House “Attacks”; Gimbal Video: Genuine UFO or Camera Artifact?; Holy Grail, Spear of Destiny, and Ark of the Covenant; How Science & Reason Can Give Us Objective Moral Truths Without God; Debate: Is Belief in ESP Irrational?
View table of contents and availability
volume 27 number 1
Transgender Matters
Transgender matters: an overview of the debate, research, and policies; supporting kids who identify as transgender or who are experiencing gender dysphoria (marked distress at an incongruence between gender identity and biological sex); Trans Athletes and Conflicting Rights; Why Christians Should Accept the Theory of Evolution; 5G Rollout Reawakens Wireless Fear; Two Tributes to Edward O. Wilson; Eyewitness Testimony: Engaging with People and Accounts of Extraordinary Claims Without Evoking Anger; Mytho-history: The “Evolution” of Adam & Eve; Wild Psychotherapy: Questionable Advice; A review essay on The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
View table of contents and availability
volume 26 number 4
Havana Syndrome Hysteria
Havana Syndrome Hysteria and the Great Wild Goose Chase • Stupid Videos and Marketing Ploys • Environmental Conspiracies: Why do conspiracy theorists believe natural events are intentionally manipulated? • “You Can’t Say That!” Corporate Policing of Language • Excerpt from The Conjurer’s Conundrum: My Life in Magic & Skepticism • Vexed by the Un-Vaxxed • Misunderstanding Vaccines • Why Would God Create the Universe? • Distorting Darwinism • Electrohypersensitivity as a New Psychological Disorder • Reviews of Hawking Hawking: The Selling of a Scientific Celebrity; Mysteries and Secrets Revealed; The Conjurer’s Conundrum; The Century of Deception • Special Investigation: Penguin Paradox — Serious Skeptical Lessons from an Apparently Silly Story
View table of contents and availability
volume 26 number 3
UFOs and UAPs
In Memoriam: Pat Linse (1947–2021); U.S. Government Says UFOs are “Real”: An Analysis of the 60 Minutes Investigation; Are UFOs and UAPs Ordinary, Extraordinary Terrestrial, or Extraordinary Extraterrestrial Phenomena?; Anti-Vaccination in the Age of COVID-19; 5G Conspiracy Theories & Other Popular Delusions; The Paradox of Free Will; Plausible Sociocultural Explanation for the Persistence and Universality of Gender Inequality Over Thousands of Years; How Science Works (and Why Pseudoscience Fails); Pandemic Politics: How 2020 Impacted Americans’ Social and Political Attitudes; Thought Experiments: What Good Are They, Anyway?; Expert Bullshit Detection…
View table of contents and availability
volume 26 number 2
Drug Trips & Reality
DMT and the Nature of Reality: Are the Entities and Experiences of a DMT Drug Trip Real or Imagined?; Johannes Kepler, Giordano Bruno, and Scientific Martyrdom; Lizard People, 5G and the Nashville Bomber; Why Weird Beliefs Are a Normal, Central, Almost Universal Aspect of Human Affairs; Astrology as a Spiritual Belief System; How Science Can Explain Ghosts and Haunted Houses; Trial, Error, and Success: How People Learn and Think; Twenty-five Fallacies in the Case for Christianity; Junior Skeptic: Cognitive Dissonance
View table of contents and availability
volume 26 number 1
Cosmic Beginning
How Did It All Begin? Cosmic Inflation, the Multiverse, and the Nature of Scientific Proof; The SkepDoc: Osteopathy Then and Now, by Harriet Hall, M.D.; Psychological Risks with COVID-19 Vaccines; The Future of Civilization after COVID-19; The Future of Higher Education Reengineering Learning for a Post-Pandemic World; Havana Syndrome Skepticism—Why We Should Be Skeptical: It Was Probably Psychogenic; Why Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Belongs in English Literature Curriculum Despite—Indeed Because—of its Use of the N-Word; Why Time, Causality, Consciousness, the Self, and Free Will Are Not Illusion; Alien Skulls and Their Makers: The Creation of the “Sealand Skull” and the Hoax It Unintentionally Inspired; Why We Are Not Hybrids of Earthling and Extraterrestrial Ancestry; Skeptic Extraordinaire; As Seen by Skeptic Magazine Artists; Junior Skeptic 78: Conspiracy Theories
View table of contents and availability
volume 25 number 4
QAnon & Conspiracies
QAnon and Conspiracy Theories; Why We Can’t Unsee Patterns — Real or Imagined — Once We See Them; QAnon in Conspiratorial Context; QAnon is Just a Warmed Over Witch Panic (and It’s Also Very Dangerous); Harriet Hall, M.D. on How Gwyneth Paltrow Spins Straw into Gold; The Art of the Skeptic: Finding Your Niche if You Love Both Science and Art; Fat Man and Little Boy: On the 75th Anniversary of Nuclear Weapons, a Moral Case for Their Use in Ending WWII and the Deterrence of Great Power Wars Since, and a Call to Eventually Eliminate Them; The Rise and Fall of Charles Willson Peale’s Philadelphia Museum; The Testimony of Witnesses: Raising the Dead; Do Diversity Training Programs Work? Creating a Culture of Inclusion through Scientific Reasoning; Unpacking Political Life in America: The Skeptics Society’s Social and Political Attitudes Study; How Do You Get People to Care About Truth in Politics?; Are Laws of Nature Discovered or Invented?; Junior Skeptic: The Honest Truth About Vaccines
View table of contents and availability
volume 25 number 3
What Science Says About Race
Did Race Evolve, or is It a Social Construct? What Does Science Say? Plus: The Pope and Mussolini; Harriet Hall, M.D. on wearing face masks; Junior Skeptic on Pandemics Throughout History; Hollow Earth; Wicked Games: Lance Armstrong and Doping; Finding Meaning and Purpose Without Religion; A Naturalist Model for Reducing Speciesism, Racism, and Bigotry; What Moby-Dick Can Teach Us About the Current Pandemic Crisis; Is Science Amoral?; Faked Death Stories and Resurrection Myths; How Religions Use the Threat of Punishment to Terrify, Manipulate, and Control Believers; Reviews of Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress, and The Tyranny of Virtue: Identity, The Academy, and the Hunt for Political Heresies; and more…
View table of contents and availability
volume 25 number 2
Giving the Devil His Due: When Should Speech Be Censored?
Giving the Devil His Due, by Michael Shermer • Claims About a Government “UFO Program” — How Much is True? • Religious Intolerance, Witchcraft, Superstition, and Underdevelopment in Africa • Ark of Absurdities: Creationism Comes to Brazil • The Mystery of Göbekli Tepe: A New Chapter in History • What’s to be Gained Through Rationality? • Where and Why Science and Religion Conflict • The Conditions Under Which Common, Everyday Bullshit is Most Likely to Emerge • Ptolemy Revisited: The Return of Earth-Centered Cosmology • Reviews of: Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control; Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them; Estrogen Matters: Why Taking Hormones in Menopause Can Improve Women’s Well-Being and Lengthen Their Lives—Without Raising the Risk of Breast Cancer
View table of contents and availability
volume 25 number 1
Conspiracies!
Who believes in conspiracies and why? Read real conspiracy theories and conspiracies with no theories. Also in this issue: Why People Believe Conspiracy Theories, by Michael Shermer; Apples and Oranges: The Misunderstood Art of Making Comparisons; Drone Sightings in the Midwest — But Rule Out the Mass Hysteria Explanation; What Board Games Teach Us About Capitalism and How to Modify It; Meditation as Ideology and Meditations on Meditation: A Scientific and Clinical Perspective; Biological Beauty; Integrative Cancer Care Below the Bar of Science; Can We Ever Explain It All? Eight Key Points from World History; Countless Counterfeits: A New Logically Fallacy?
View table of contents and availability
volume 24 number 4
Understanding Flat Earthers
Daniel Loxton examines the belief in a flat Earth and why people believe such a strange thing. Also in this issue: Understanding Flat Earthers; Shroud of Turin Update; The Girl Who Smelled Blue: The Colorful Case of Willetta Huggins; How to Navigate Contentious Conversations; How Much Longer Will Cancer Screening Myths Survive?; Nationalistic Pseudohistory in the Balkans; “Prove that I am Wrong!” What QAnon, Descartes, and Brains in Vats Have in Common; The SkepDoc on Water Fluoridation; Junior Skeptic: Victorian England’s Jurassic Park, several book review, and more…
View table of contents and availability
volume 24 number 3
Steven Pinker on Post-truth & Reason
Steven Pinker on “Why We Are Not Living in a Post-Truth Era: An (Unnecessary) Defense of Reason and a (Necessary) Defense of Universities’ Role in Advancing it”; The SkepDoc: Coconut Oil: Health Food or Health Hazard? by Harriet Hall, M.D.; The “Lost” Tribes of Israel; The Pentagon’s UFOs How a Multimedia Entertainment Company Created a UFO News Story; The Problem with the Walking Dead And How They Flummoxed Science for Centuries; The Enigma of Stephen Jay Gould; Why the Human Brain Did Not Evolve to Accurately Represent the True Nature of Reality; Homeopathy’s New Clothes: Release Active Drugs; Pressured Apologies, False Confessions, and Witch Hunts; Two Kinds of Progressive Atheism; Surfing for Truth in All the Right Places: An Empirical Test of the Backfire Effect and How the Internet Can Reduce Anti-vaccination Attitudes, and more...
View table of contents and availability
volume 24 number 2
The Existence of Evil and God
Pterosaur Thunderbird: The Origin of a Fake Native American Legend with an Anti-Evolution Agenda; Conversations with My Dead Mother Why We See Signs and Omens in Everyday Events; Is Cousin Marriage Dangerous?; Therapeutic Touch Redux Twenty Years After the Emily Event: Energy Therapies Live on Through Bad Science; What Can Science Learn from Religion? Steven Pinker on Religious Beliefs and Rituals; Becoming Fantastic: Why People Embellish Already Accomplished Lives with Incredible Tales of UFOs and Other Phenomena; 1984 in 2019: The New Privacy Threat from China’s Social Credit Surveillance System, and more…
View table of contents and availability
volume 24 number 1
Behe’s Last Stand
Making Gasoline from Water: John Andrews and the Invention of a Legend • Online Gaming: A Virtual Experiment in the Dark Side of Human Nature • Duped by Data Mining • How Science Will Explain and Fix Fake News • The Cult of Falun Gong: A Dance Troupe and Victimhood Raises Big Money • The Opioid Epidemic Misunderstood • Why the Human-Centered View Has Not Served us Well • Behe’s Last Stand: The Lion of Intelligent Design Roars Again • Straw Man on a Slippery Slope: The Case Against the Case Against Postmodernism • A Disproof of God’s Existence, and much more…
View table of contents and availability
volume 23 number 4
Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
Special Section on Tactics for Discussing Contentious Issues; Personhood and Abortion Rights How Science Might Inform this Contentious Issue, by Gary Whittenberger; How to Teach Evolution to Religious Students, by Surat Parvatam; The Arguments for Creationism and the Arguments for Evolution: A Study in Contrasts, by Ralph M. Barnes; Meeting Our “Enemies” Where They Are: The Advantage of Understanding Your Adversary’s Arguments, by Andrew Cooper-Sansone; Junior Skeptic: Secrets of the Ouija Board, and much more…
View table of contents and availability
volume 23 number 3
Science and Moral Values
Special Section on Jordan Peterson. Have Archetype—Will Travel: The Jordan Peterson Phenomenon; Thought Crimes: Jordan Peterson and the meaning of the Meaning of Life; Special Section on Science & Morality. Getting Real About Right and Wrong; No, Being Religious Will Not Save You from Suicide; Lessons from Behavioral Science in a Warzone: How Reason, Skepticism, and Compassion Can Win Hearts and Minds; Moral Philosophy and its Discontents: Can science determine moral values? An Exchange with Massimo Pigliucci, Michael Shermer, and Kevin McCaffree; Facilitated Communication Redux: Persistence of a Discredited Technique; The Mystery of Elite Religious Scientists: A Cognitively Impenetrable Illusion; Five Questions About Human Errors for Proponents of Intelligent Design; The SkepDoc: Beware Stem Cell Clinics that Offer Untested Treatments; Junior Skeptic: Astral Projection
View table of contents and availability
volume 23 number 2
The Rise of the Nones
Imagining No Heaven — The Rise of the Nones and the Decline of Religion; Never Doubting God — Surveys on Belief in God’s Existence; Persistence of Belief in a Purposeful Universe; Honor, Dignity, Victim — A review of The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars; The SkepDoc — Premature Ejaculation in the News: How Headlines Influence Our Thinking; Is the Earth Flat? Flat Earthers Are Back — How do You Best Make the Argument for a Round Earth?; Conspiracy Theorists and the Harm They Do; Bruce Perkins and Another Terrible Tragedy of the Recovered Memory Movement; Deterrence and Its Discontents: Now That Nuclear War Seems to Be Getting More Likely Again, It’s Time to Turn a Skeptical Eye on Deterrence; Reality Need Not Diminish Our Concept of Our Place in the Cosmos; Junior Skeptic — Perpetual Motion; and more…
View table of contents and availability
volume 23 number 1
Evil, Theism, and Atheism
Special Section on Evil, Theism, and Atheism; “You’re an Atheist?! How Do You Find Meaning and Morality in Life if There Is No God?”; God, Heaven, and Evil: A Renewed Defense of Atheism; The Evaluation of Evil, the Measurement of Morality, and the Statistical Significance of Sin; The Concept and Mechanics of Natural Evil; Why Right and Wrong Seem Real: a Critique of Moral Realism; Tearing Down Mr. Hume’s Wall: A Response to Moral Realism Skeptics; Special Section on Sigmund Freud and his Legacy; Junior Skeptic: The Incredible Claims of Pet Psychics; and more…
View table of contents and availability
volume 22 number 4
Campus Craziness
No Barriers to Inquiry; I Am Not a Racist, And So Are You: An Unauthorized Peek at the Great Shaming Taking Place at an Institution of Higher Learning Near You, and Other Fireside Tales; Radically Wrong in Berkeley; When Secularism Becomes a Religion: The Alt-Left, the Alt-Right, and Moral Righteousness; When Science Becomes the Enemy; Canine Cognition: Did dogs become smarter through domestication? An interview with Dr. Brian Hare; Bird Brains: Are crows as intelligent as some scientists claim?; What Biology Can Teach Us About Crime and Justice; Gary Taubes and the Case Against Sugar; From Camelot to Conspiracy: Memory, Myth, and the Death of JFK; Now Playing at a Cartesian Theater Near You: Dualism Returns; The SkepDoc: Diet Sodas: Are the Dangers In the Chemicals or the Headlines?…
View table of contents and availability
volume 22 number 3
Lost Civilizations
Debating Science and Lost Civilizations: Michael Shermer on the Joe Rogan Experience; Conjuring Up a Lost Civilization: an Analysis of the Claims Made by Graham Hancock in Magicians of the Gods; Lost Civilizations and Imaginative Conjectures; The Real Origin of UFOs and Aliens: How the Media Shaped Our Ideas About Extraterrestrials; Publicly Funded Stem Cell Research: California’s $3-Billion Experiment in Public Science; Science, Facts, and “Provisional” Knowledge; Juicing for Health or Torture; Our Angry Era; Zombies: The Gruesome True Story of Zombies...
View table of contents and availability
volume 22 number 2
Artificial Intelligence Danger
Why We Should Be Concerned About Artificial Superintelligence; Is Artificial Intelligence an Existential Threat?; Artificial Intelligence: Simulation, Not Synthesis; The Rise of the Alt-Right and the Politics of Polarization in America; Delusions of the Imagination: Debunking an Early 19th Century Medical Quack Device — The “Tractor”; Area 51: What is Really Going on There?; Is Race a Useful Concept?; The Three Shades of Atheism;
View table of contents and availability
volume 22 number 1
Bill Nye Saves the World
Skeptic’s Science Dialogues: Bill Nye in Conversation with Michael Shermer on Climate Change, Travel to Mars, Artificial Intelligence, Nuclear Power, GMOs and more… Miracle Water: Why Zamzam Water is Not a Valid Medical Treatment; Lone Wolf Terrorism: The Convergence of Mental Illness, Marginality, and Cyber Radicalism; Torturing Data; Mass Hallucinations and Shoddy Journalism; What Would it Take to Change Your Mind?; ET v. Earth Pathogens; Trouble in the Multiverse; Science v. Subjectivity: Football Playoff Teams Selecting College Football Playoff Teams as a Case Study
View table of contents and availability
volume 21 number 4
Deception in Cancer Treatment
The Cancer-care Industry’s Marketing is Among the Most Deceptive on the Consumer Landscape; Special Section on classic skepticism: The Amityville Hoax at 40; Do the Rhodope and Adygea Skulls Belong to Aliens?; The Real Meaning Behind the Nazca Geoglyphs; Clown Panics: Sightings of Mysterious Clowns Rattle Nerves; Articles: The Case for a Galactic Defense System; Is “Spirituality” Meaningless?; Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?; Luck and Regression to the Mean: One of the Most Fundamental Sources of Error in Human Judgment; Political Obfuscation: Thinking Critically about Public Discourse; Anti-Aging Claims; Can Working Memory Be Trained to Work Better? by Carol Tavris; Junior Skeptic: Mammoth Mysteries! Part Two.
View table of contents and availability
volume 21 number 3
Internet Pornography
How Porn Is Messing with Your Manhood; Skeptical of Porn Skeptics; Hazards of Herbal Medicine: Lessons from Aristolochia; What is Sexual Orientation?; Did a Teenager Discover an Ancient Mayan City on Google Earth?; Paleo Diets and Utopian Dreams; Does AA Work? Alcoholics Anonymous, 12-Step Programs, and What We Really Know About Substance Abuse Treatment; The Clash of Eschatologies: The Role of End-Times Thinking in World History; Nightmares from the Id: The Neurophysiology of Anomalous Psychological Experiences; Terror Attacks that Never Were; Electromagnetic Fields and Parental Panics: A Case Study in How Science Can Bring Comfort; REVIEWS: Who Invented Science?; Science and the Creation of the Modern Mind; Heaven Is Not For Real; When Scientific American Put Psychics to the Test; JUNIOR SKEPTIC: MammothMysteries! Part One. The Hidden History of Mammoths and Mastodons
View table of contents and availability
volume 21 number 2
Uploading Your Brain
Uploading the Mind to a Computer Mind Uploading: An Argument for the Scientific and Technical Plausibility of Preserving Thoughts Indefinitely; Uploading Your Mind Does Not Compute; Virtual Immortality: Why the Mind-Body Problem is Still a Problem; What Motivates Extremists? Once Upon a Time: Re-Thinking the Fight Against Extremists; Dealing With Islamism: Trust, Costly Signaling and Forming Moral Teams; Apocalypse Soon?: How Emerging Technologies, Population Growth, and Global Warming Will Fuel Apocalyptic Terrorism in the Future; Paleoanthropology Wars: The Discovery of Homo naledi has Generated Considerable Controversy in this Scientific Discipline; Charlie Sheen’s HIV Goat Milk Doctor; Massachusetts: Mass Hysteria Cover Up; Agony and Ecstasy: Were Saint Paul’s Christian Beliefs a Symptom of Epileptic Personality Disorder?; In Defense of Anti-Science: Why the Anti-anti-science Movement Has Gone too Far; The Decline of Intelligent Design: The 10th Anniversary of the Dover Decision and the Demise of Intelligent Design The SkepDoc: Flu Shots Facts and Fallacies; The Gadfly: How Accurate is the “Cycle of Abuse”?; “Sacred Cows: A Lighthearted Look at Belief and Tradition Around the World”; Junior Skeptic: Man-Eating Plants: The Cannibal Tree of Madagascar.
View table of contents and availability
volume 21 number 1
Confidence Scams
EXCERPT: The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for it Every Time; ARTICLES: America’s Stonehenge: Did Highly Developed Europeans Build a Sophisticated Astronomical and Religious Monument on the American East Coast More than 3000 Years Ago?; Is It ET?: Is Star KIC 8462852 a Sign of an Extraterrestrial Civilization?; Hurricane Strikes as Divine Retribution—An Empirical Test; Ruins of Empires: Thomas Jefferson, Constantin-Francois Volney, and the Separation of Church and State; Winning the Vaccination War in California; Prophet Without Honor: Francis Galton and the Birth of Behavioral Genetics; When Cops Kill: An Insider’s Perspective; Guns and Games: The Relationship Between Violent Video Games and Gun Crimes in America; More on Morals: On Science and Morality (1) Deontologists are Covert Consequentialists, (2) Expanding Science to Include Morals, (3) Clarifying Confusions; Alligators in the Sewers! COLUMNS: Who’s Crazy Now?: DSM-5 and the Classification of Mental Disorders; The Delicate Dilemma of Defining Rape; REVIEW: Red Team: How To Succeed by Thinking Like the Enemy by Micah Zenko reviewed by David Priess; JUNIOR SKEPTIC: Haunted Houses; Earliest Ghost Stories; Ghostly Evolution
View table of contents and availability
volume 20 number 4
Robert Trivers
The Wild Life of an Evolutionary Biologist, excerpted from the Memoir of One of the Greatest Scientists of the Past Century; Neurosurgeon and Republican Presidential Candidate Ben Carson is Skeptical of Evolution and the Big Bang Theory. Is this a Reflection on Education or Religion?; Skeptical Adventures of a Magician; The Passing of a Critical Thinking Giant Richard Paul, 1937–2015; Can Science Determine Moral Values?; The Science of Destiny: What is the Meaning of Life, Anyway?; The Moving Tombstone of Aalsum; Debunking the Myth that Low-dose Radiation May Cause Cancer. In Fact, it May Even be Beneficial; Debating the God Construct; Christianity’s Negative Impact on Modern American Education; Incidentalomas: Too Much Information Can Hurt You; Photographer’s Amnesia, or the Side Effects of Selfies; Debunking Indoor Tanning Myths; Reviews: A review of Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary film The Look of Silence; A review of Preparing for Contact: When Humans and Extraterrestrials Finally Meet; A review of The Evolution of Everything: How Ideas Emerge; Junior Skeptic: Space Brothers from Venus?
View table of contents and availability
volume 20 number 3
Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace—Species Seeker Extraordinaire; The Consilient Mr. Wallace: How He and Darwin Independently Used the Same Method to Arrive at Natural Selection; Demolishing Wallace’s “White Picket Fence” Around Human Cognition: Wallace, Darwin, and the Spiritualism Scandal of 1876 When a Young Scientist Prosecuted a “Psychic” Fraudster, the Co-Founders of Evolutionary Biology Took Opposing Sides; Wallace and the Flat Earthers: Charles Lyell Counseled Charles Darwin to Avoid Public Controversies, while Encouraging Alfred Wallace to Lock Horns with a Malicious Crackpot; Reconciling the “Two Wallaces: Why Alfred Russel Wallace Got Involved In So Many Heretical Ideas; Debunking the Full Moon Effect on School Kids; The Non-Fine-Tuned Universe: The Astronomical Failure of the Cosmological Argument for Theism; The “God” Construct: A Testable Hypothesis for Unifying Science and Theology; “Why is Critical Thinking so Hard to Teach?” Internet Trolls and Civility; Anecdotal Medical Evidence; Reviews; Junior Skeptic: Bat-People On the Moon! Anatomy of a Moon Hoax
View table of contents and availability
volume 20 number 2
Drug Policy
Smokey the Bear Medicine; How to Make Young Kids Smarter; Who Speaks for Earth? The Current Controversy Over METI: Messaging to Extra Terrestrial Intelligence; Can Emotions Effect Matter? Testing Masaru Emoto’s Hypothesis that Emotions Change Nature; Heaven Only Knows: Near-Death Experiences and the Problem of Account Incongruence; Where Drug Myths Die: An Interview with Carl Hart; Putin’s Rasputin: Meet Aleksandr Dugin, Mystical High Priest of Russian Fascism; Placebo, Are You There?; What Parents Need Not to Know: Eight Myths of Child Development; What Does “Supernatural” Mean, Anyway?; The Diet-Heart Hypothesis: The Contested Roles of Fats and Carbohydrates in Heart Disease; A Psychologist’s Innumeracy: A Guide to Recognizing Pseudo-Mathematics in the Social Sciences; Flawed Geniuses in Film Film Biographies: Stephen Hawking: The Theory of Everything, and Alan Turing: The Imitation Game; Mirror Neurons: A Review of The Myth of Mirror Neurons: The Real Neuro-science of Communication and Cognition; Wonderful Science: A Review of A Scientist in Wonderland: A Memoir of Searching for Truth and Finding Trouble; God’s Lawyer A Review of Christianity on Trial: A Lawyer Examines the Christian Faith; Willpower and Won’t Power: A Review of The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control; In the Belly of the Beast: A Review of Among the Creationists: Dispatches from the Anti-Evolutionist Front Lines; Stranger than Fiction: A Review of of the HBO Documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief; Junior Skeptic: The Fantastical Hollow Earth Part II; Carbon Comic: The Problem With Facts— Why the Law of Gravity is False
View table of contents and availability
volume 20 number 1
Terrorism
A Skeptic’s Guide to the War on Terror; Myths of Terrorism; Religion, Violence, and Terrorism: An Empirical Evolutionary Study; Colloidal Silver, Smurfs, and Ebola; Artificial Intelligence: Benevolent or Malevolent?; The Thinking Atheist Confesses; Proof and God; Cow Tipping’s Surprising Origins; What a Horse Can Teach Us About Self Deception; The Demon Test: Possessed of Problems; The Biological and Psychological Basis of Horror; How Con Men Used Pseudoscience to Exploit the Drought of the 1890s; Can Superpositions of Quantum Consciousness Unlock Your Brain’s Hidden Nonlocal Potentiality?; Junior Skeptic: Journey Inside the Fantastical Hollow Earth; Carbon Comic: Pandemic Pandering A Special Report on Special Pleading
View table of contents and availability
volume 19 number 4
Diet Myths
SPECIAL ISSUE on Food and Diet Myths: Decoding Food Labels by Harriet Hall, M.D.; An Evolutionary and Functional Perspective on Chronic Disease, by Kenneth W. Krause. ARTICLES: Sneezing Customs: A Blessing in Disguise, by Karen Stollznow: Does AA Work? by Carol Tavris; “Chemtrail” Fail: Are Contrails Really Toxic Chemicals Sprayed by a Secret Conspiracy? by Donald R. Prothero; Skepticism: A Rare and Beautiful Thing, by Daniel Loxton; Whole Lot of Nothing: Tales of a Cosmological Argument, by Jérémie Harris; Thinking Critically About Psychology’s Classic Studies: Revisiting Studies by Milgram, Harlow, Mischel, Sherif and Others and What They Mean Today, by Carol Tavris; How to Lie with Statistics, by Gary Smith. SPECIAL SECTION: CHANGING MINDS: The Core Conflict Between Creationism and Evolution Do Unique Definitions of “Science” and “Proof” Allow Creationists to Disregard Evidence of Evolution? by Ralph M. Barnes; Why is Critical Thinking so Hard to Teach, by Kevin McCaffree and Anondah Saide. HUMOR: Genetic Park: Engineered Crops Run Amok on a Tycoon’s Island by Kyle Sanders. REVIEWS: Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas Piketty, reviewed by Burt Stillar; Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, by Sam Harris. Junior Skeptic: Flat Earth?! The Convoluted Story of a Flatly Mistaken Notion, by Daniel Loxton.
View table of contents and availability
volume 19 number 3
The Multiverse
Fine-Tuning and the Multiverse, by Victor J. Stenger; Quantum Immortality —Some Physicists Think You Might Already Be Immortal; SkepDoc Harriet Hall on Sound Healing; Can Dolphins Talk?; On Miracles, by Harriet Hall; Are Blood Type and Personality Linked?; Carol Tavris on The Negative Side of Positive Thinking; The Extraordinary History of Mass Hysteria in Schools; The Shroud of Turin Can Now Be Easily Dated; Junior Skeptic: Ghost Photos Part II, by Daniel Loxton. Empirical Studies on: Are RelIgious Nations Better Off? and How Much Free Market is Too Much? Special Section On Changing Minds: How a Cartoon Kept Quacks Away from Infants; Explaining Evolution by using health issues as examples; How Intuition Can Block Scientific Understanding. Reviews: A Review of Your Inner Fish a Three-Part PBS Documentary reviewed by Donald Prothero; A review of Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking, by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander, reviewed by Chris Edwards.
View table of contents and availability
volume 19 number 2
Boston Bombing Conspiracy Theories
The Multiverse and the Deity; In Defense of Soft Theism; Soul Searching: An Evolutionary Problem for Theists; Mass Hysteria at Old Salem Village; Conspiracy in Boston: Disentangling Boston Marathon Bombing Conspiracy Theories; The Miracle of Large Numbers Can Explain Seemingly Miraculous Events; Reasons for Hope in the Science of Artificial Intelligence; Deciphering The Voynich Manuscript; The SkepDoc on Faith Healing Tragedies; New column by Carol Tavris: The Gadfly: The Science of Memory and the Dylan Farrow/Woody Allen Case; Junior Skeptic: Photographing Phantoms, Part One; Reviews: The Man Who Filmed Nessie; Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil; Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience; God Bless America: Strange and Unusual Religious Beliefs and Practices in the United States; The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science; Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey—a 13 episode TV series hosted by astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson
View table of contents and availability
volume 19 number 1
Did Jesus Exist?
Did Jesus Exist? We Examine the Best Evidence by Tim Callahan: Let’s Get Real [about Evolution], Even if it Hurts by James Randi; Face the Music by Karen Stollznow; Does Religion Make People Healthier? by Harriet Hall, M.D.; An Insider’s Look at Faith Healing by Dustin White; Except: Imagine There’s No Heaven: The Seeds of Modern Atheism and the Tragic Life of Madalyn Murray O’Hair by Mitchell Stephens; James Van Praagh and the Afterlife by I. H. Smythe; Ghostbusters Busted at Sand Creek by Gregory F. Michno; Why Whistleblowing Doesn’t Work by Frederick V. Malmstrom and David Mullin: James R. Flynn on Rising IQs, interviewed by Lee Traynor; Comic: Holistic Airlines—The Natural Way to Fly by Kyle Sanders; Junior Skeptic: Carl Sagan by Daniel Loxton; Ten Billion by Stephen Emmott and Countdown by Alan Weisman reviewed by Michael Shermer; The Seven Laws of Magical Thinking by Matthew Hutson reviewed by Kevin J McCaffree; What’s So Great about God (Formerly Godforsaken) by Dinesh D’Souza reviewed by Franz Kiekeben; Hardcore Zen Strikes Again by Brad Warner reviewed by Mike Moran
View table of contents and availability
volume 18 number 4
Ancient Aliens
Did Ancient Aliens Bring Us Civilization? We Examine the Best Evidence; An Interview With Astrophysicist Sean Carroll; Special Section: Diagnosing the DSM: Do Psychiatric Diagnoses Reflect Valid Disorders?; Why Tests for Multiple Personalities Don’t Work. Plus: Why We Can’t Eliminate Medical Mistakes; New Satanic Panic; Hunting Bigfoot; Uncertainty in Medicine is Good! by Harriet Hall M.D.; Randi on Astrology; The Mythology and Geology Behind Noah’s Flood. Reviews: The Psychic Mind; Intelligent Design Follies; Processed Food; Bigfoot Skepticism Is Alive and Well; Blackfish Film; The Sports Gene; Debunking Plantinga. Junior Skeptic: Velikovsky…
View table of contents and availability
volume 18 number 3
50 Years of JFK Conspiracy Theories
How Hunting Developed Scientific Thinking; The Great Radium Craze; Randi On the Founding Father Of Scientology; Child Preachers From Jesus to Marjoe Scientology’s War on Medicine By Harriet Hall; beware of the “Sovereign Citizen” scam; how Science Denial threatens us all; psychic Sylvia Browne Debunked Again; REVIEWS: Media-driven Panics and Hoaxes; A Classic Example of Confirmation Bias; A Skeptic’s Guide to the Mind; Science Basics and Amazing Anecdotes; Growing Up in the Amityville Horror; Junior Skeptic: Mermaids…
View table of contents and availability
volume 18 number 2
Gender Differences
What Science Says and Why it’s Mostly Wrong; Gender and the Paranormal; What Science Says About the Soul; An Interview with Controversial Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon; Is the Earth’s Magnetic Field Reversal Dangerous?; Scientology Self Help Handbook; Can We Trust Science Media Reports?; Why The Universe Exists; Skeptics in Film; Witchcraft Ceremony. Junior Skeptic: Alien Invaders!… and more…
View table of contents and availability
volume 18 number 1
The Mass Murder Problem
The Mass Murder Problem and What to Do About it; The Sandy Hook Problem and the Real Decline of Violenc; A Geologist Looks at: Noah’s Flood and Comic Book Legend Neal Adams’ Expanding Earth Theory, SkepDoc Examines Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity; Rain Boy Poltergeist Case Solved; Coral Castle, Junior Skeptic on Ghostbuster Girls!; and more…
View table of contents and availability
volume 17 number 4
Alternative Cancer Cures
Steve Job’s Reality Distortion Field; Psychology of Speaking in Tongues; Media Fact Checking Guide; Bogus Barefoot Cure-all; Internet Exorcist Bob Larson; Did Americans Discover Europe First?; Howard Bloom Interview; Psychology of Postmodern Nonsense. Reviews: How Eyes Evolved; Secular Americans & Religion for Atheists; 50 Misconceptions; “God and the Folly of Faith”; Where is the Garden of Eden? Who’s in Charge? Free Will; New Science of Neuroethics. Junior Skeptic: Dark Secrets of the Oracle-Monger
View table of contents and availability
volume 17 number 3
Christian Nation?
Is Ours a Christian Civilization?; Are We Alone? How Astronomers are Searching for Extrasolar Planets; The Flake Equation; The Physics of UFOs; Interstellar Travel; multiple personality disorder; Mokele Mbembe, genesis creation mythology; why there is something rather than nothing; facilitated communication; Celebrating the Reason Rally; moral cognition testing; faith in the age of science…
View table of contents and availability
volume 17 number 2
Climate Change Q&A
How We Know Global Warming is Real and Human Caused; Special Section on Perception Self-Deception; Special Section on Evidence-Based Medicine; A Historical and Physiological Perspective on a World War II Aviation Mystery; Talking to the Dead: An Empirical Study on the Psychological Aspects of Interpreting Electronic Voice Phenomena; Sleep Paralysis; Energy Medicine and Fantasy Physics; Depression Treatment…
View table of contents and availability
volume 17 number 1
Scientology
Is Scientology a Cult?; New Revelations on the History, Future, and Reformation of Scientology; 9/11 Controlled Demolition Conspiracy Debunked; Can Science Deliver Eternal Life?; Was the Resurrection a Grief Hallucination?; Body Language Baloney?; The Secret Behind Outstanding Teaching; A Biologist on the Meaning of Life…
View table of contents and availability
volume 16 number 4
The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers
The Truth About Antioxidants, Precognition Research: Paranormality and Precognitive Dreams, Reason v. Faith, Fossil Hoaxes, The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers!, Who Believes That Aliens Landed at Roswell?, Record Tornados: Chance or Global Warming?, …
View table of contents and availability
volume 16 number 3
Islam
The Mythic Origins of the Qur’an; Imams, Fatwas, Jihads and Jews—Sense and Nonsense about Muslims and the Middle East; Muslim Creationism and the Curious Case of Harun Yahya; Skepdoc on Aspartame: Safe Sweetener or Perilous Poison?; Science and the Is/Ought Problems; Myths About Fat and What to Do About It…
View table of contents and availability
volume 16 number 2
The Origin of Life
How Did Life Begin; How Close Are We to Creating Life in the Lab?; Who Still Believes in 9/11 Conspiracies?; What is Naturopathy?; Was Hypatia of Alexandria a Scientist?; Stradivarius Pseudoscience; Lying About Placebos…
View table of contents and availability
volume 16 number 1
The Happiness Industry
Our Cultural Obsession with Happiness; The Happiness Industry; Workplace Happism; When to Avoid Optimism; The Myth of Quantum Consciousness; Motorcycle Maintenance Without the Zen; The Science of Changing People’s Minds…
View table of contents and availability
volume 15 number 4
Climate Skeptics
Climate Skeptics: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; Dowsing Rod Bomb Detectors; Sex & Astrology; What is Truth?; Stigma of Being an Atheist; Health Hype: Are We Really Living Longer? Do Cell Phones Cause Cancer? Do Environmental Chemicals Destroy Male Fertility? Boosting Your Immune System; Teaching Strategies: Magic in the Classroom; The Grinnell Experiment…
View table of contents and availability
volume 15 number 3
Mind Myths
Top Ten Psych Myths; Is the Mind Designed or a Kludge?; Debunking Diagnoses in the DSMV; How the Psychic Industry Works; Is Instant Language Learning Possible?; Battle for Evolution; Resurrection of Margaret Mead; Dangers of First Contact with Aliens; Norm Levitt’s Last Defense of Science…
View table of contents and availability
volume 15 number 2
2012 — The End of the World Again?
A NASA Scientist Answers the Top 20 Questions About 2012; Large Hadron Collider: Will Physicists Destroy the World? Pro & Con; Why Atheism & IQs Are Rising; Skepdoc on Chiropractic; Coriolis Effect Myth; Thetis Lake Monster…
View table of contents and availability
volume 15 number 1
Christian Conspiracy Theory
40 years of Scooby-Doo; Origins Conspiracy Theory; Homeopathy; Placebos; UFO Hoax; Atheism a Religion?; Testing Orgone Energy; Evolutionary Economics; Ape Language Controversy; Science of Love…
View table of contents and availability
volume 14 number 4
Fooled by Ponzi (and Madoff)
How Bernard Madoff Made Off with My Money; What to Eat: Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants; Misleading by Petition; A Skeptic Visits Noah’s Ark; The Art of Cold Reading…
View table of contents and availability
volume 14 number 3
The New Revisionism
What if Hitler Won the War?; Doubting Altruism; Lying for God; Flagella Myths; Germ Theory Denial and Other Curiosities; NDE Redux…
View table of contents and availability
volume 14 number 2
Evolution of Intelligence
Predicting Evolution; The Role of Contingency & Necessity in the Evolution of Higher Intelligence; Evolution in Our Genes; Expelled Exposed; The Matrix of the Brain…
View table of contents and availability
volume 14 number 1
Global Warming
A Climate of Belief; How We Know Global Warming is Real: The Science Behind Human-induced Climate Change; How to solve the global warming problem by 2020…
View table of contents and availability
volume 13 number 4
Quirkology
The Big Truths in Small Things; Skeptical Analysis of the Evidence for Nonhuman Primate Language; The Myth of the Mozart Effect; Consciousness is Nothing But a Word…
View table of contents and availability
volume 13 number 3
Medical Controversies
Science & Secondhand Smoke; Exposing the Vaccine-Autism Myth; The Trouble with Psychiatry; Animals & Medicine; Contested Testimony in Scientific Disputes…
View table of contents and availability
volume 13 number 2
Richard Dawkins & Religion
Two reviews of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion; The Science of Friendship; Dawkins v. Collins Debate; Why This Universe?; The Skeptic’s Chaplain…
View table of contents and availability
volume 13 number 1
The Legacy of Carl Sagan
An Interview with Ann Druyan; Science, Religion & Human Purpose; An excerpt from Conversations with Carl; Tributes to Carl Sagan…
View table of contents and availability
volume 12 number 4
9/11 Conspiracies
What Demolition Experts Say About 9/11; Is ID really like big bang theory?; Lonesome George: The Last Animal on Earth; Keeping an Eye on Alternative Medicine…
View table of contents and availability
volume 12 number 3
Religion
Orthodox Jews & Science; Religious Belief & Societal Health; Does Prayer Work?; Debate: Deepak Chopra v. Michael Shermer; Using Pseudoscience to Teach Science…
View table of contents and availability
volume 12 number 2
Artificial Intelligence
The Other Intelligent Design Theories; A.I. Gone Awry; Special Section: Intelligent Design; The Dover Decision; The Origin of Alien Faces…
View table of contents and availability
volume 12 number 1
Debunking with KABOOM! Meet the Mythbusters
Sex, Jealousy & Violence; Evolutionary Psychology Is Here to Stay; A Skeptic Goes to an Exorcism; The Woodstock of Evolution; Doubting Dr. Dino…
View table of contents and availability
volume 11 number 4
Ernst Mayr, 1904–2005
Close Encounters of the Facial Kind; The Da Vinci Code Cult; The Dream World of William Dembski’s Creationism; John of God; How The Human Got Its Mind…
View table of contents and availability
volume 11 number 3
Catastrophe. Collapse.
Catastrophe by R. A. Posner; Collapse by J. Diamond; Double-Blind Protocol and Science by S. Bratman; Consumer Electronic Myths by E. Winer…
View table of contents and availability
volume 11 number 2
Nature vs. Nurture
The Almost Blank Slate; The Revival of Human Nature ≠ The Denial of Human Nurture; Who Lost the Middle Ages?; The Tea Leaves of Sports Talk…
View table of contents and availability
volume 11 number 1
Medieval UFOs?
Early Origins of Traditional Chinese Medicine; The Mass Suicide of the Xhosa; Salt, Toothpaste & the CIA: Conspiracy Theory in Contemporary Indian Society…
View table of contents and availability
volume 10 number 4
Low Carb Craze
The Skinny on Fat; Was Einstein Learning Disabled?; New “Isn’t Round” Theory Demands Equal Time; Paranormal & God Belief Survey Results…
View table of contents and availability
volume 10 number 3
Evolution, Intelligent Design
Towards a Theology of Evolution?; The Big “Bright” Brouhaha; Creationism’s Expanding Universe; Macroevolution & Microcreationism…
View table of contents and availability
volume 10 number 2
Stephen Wolfram’s Science
The Future of Intelligence; Science & the Media; Can the Media Help Science?; Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Universe…
View table of contents and availability
volume 10 number 1
Roswell Requiem
Psychic for a Day; Ockham’s Razor Dulled; Is Time Travel Possible?; Alaska’s Mysterious HAARP; Do We Fear the Wrong Things? …
View table of contents and availability
volume 09 number 4
Stephen Jay Gould Tribute
Gould as Historian, Scientist, Friend; 9/11 Conspiracy Review; Two Shakespeares?; Junior Skeptic: Seamonsters; Coincidence…
View table of contents and availability
volume 09 number 3
A.I. and Theology of UFOs
ETs and God; Artificial Intelligence v. Human Nature; How Smart People Sabotage Their Thinking; Neo-Confederates at the Gate; A.I. and the Krell Machine…
View table of contents and availability
volume 09 number 2
Environmental Skeptic
How Bad Off Are We; David Pimentel debunks Lomborg; Evolutionary Psychology pros & cons; Spooky Numerical Matches; The Wisdom of Skeptics…
View table of contents and availability
volume 09 number 1
Anthropology Wars
Intro to Anthro Wars; Steven Pinker Interview; Science v. Spin Doctoring; Margaret Mead/Anthro Controversy; Velikovosky at Fifty…
View table of contents and availability
volume 08 number 4
Intelligent Design
special Evolution/Creation book review section; Intelligent Design Theory; Why Christianity Won; Physics & Time; Mills’ “Hydrino” Theory Breakthrough?; Mark Twain & Religion…
View table of contents and availability
volume 08 number 3
Chaos & Complexity
Quick Introduction to Chaos Theory; Chaos Skepticism; Contingencies; Complex Systems; Latest Cosmology; Darwin Bumper Fish; Reverse Speech; Cultural Relativism…
View table of contents and availability
volume 08 number 2
Science & Religion
Frans de Waal Interview; Agnosticism; Skeptic’s Faith?; Influence and Scientology; Life’s Meaning; Existence; Personal Gods; Prayer Heals?…
View table of contents and availability
volume 08 number 1
Race & Sports
Black Domination; Race Sports Myths; Race Differences; Meaning of Dominance; Ernst Mayr Interview; Free Energy; Nonzero/Human Gaia; Attention Deficit Disorder…
View table of contents and availability
volume 07 number 4
Pseudoscience
When Satan Came to Texas; the Madness of Crowds; Million Dollar Madness; ET May Be Out There; Anatomy of Nonsense; Cloning Forum; Special Carl Sagan section…
View table of contents and availability
volume 07 number 3
Millennium Madness
A Critical Analysis of James Redfield and The Celestine Prophesy; Search for Immortality; The Alpha and the Omega The Creation and the End in Biblical Eschatology ; Celestine Prophesy; The Fire That Will Cleanse: Millennial Meanings and the End of the World ; That’s All Folks! It’s the End of the World … Again; Apocalypse Never The Search for Immortality as Millennial Phenomena; Myth and Science; Political Extremism; Autopsy Aliens…
View table of contents and availability
volume 07 number 2
Cloning & Genetic Engineering
Cloning Science & Ethics; Science’s Moral Limits; How Evolution Increases Information in the Genome; Group Selection & Origins of Evil; Historical Perspective on Theology & Evolutionary Psychology; Urban Legends; Hawking Expanding Universe Trick; Deconstructing JFK: Assassination Debate Continues; De-Population Myths; Is Anybody Out There?; Freethinkers, Fundamentalists, Fake Quotes…
View table of contents and availability
volume 07 number 1
Influence
The Game of Influence: Understanding the Hidden Dynamics of Communication; Selection for Credulity A Biologist’s View of Belief; Legitimatizing Psychology’s Prodigal Son: Re-considering Hypnosis for the 21st Century; How the Public Relations Industry Compromises Democracy; The Knowledge Filter Reality Must Take Precedence in the Search for Truth…
View table of contents and availability
volume 06 number 4
JFK
JFK Facts and Fictions; JFK Case Still Open: Skepticism and the Assassination of JFK; JFK Assassination Science; James Randi on Dowsing; Steven T. Asma on Critical Thinking; The Case For and Against God: A Forum Exchange; The Lost World: of Jack Horner An Interview with the World’s Most Famous Dinosaur Digger; Anastasia: Miraculous Survival Myth; Aliens Among Us?; Psychic Math!; How to Fake UFO Photo…
View table of contents and availability
volume 06 number 3
Why Professors Believe Weird Things
Sex, Race, and the New Left; Alternative Religion Supporters; Meme Critique; Psychotherapy Snake Oil?; Randi on True Believers; Bigfoot…
View table of contents and availability
volume 06 number 2
Taking God Seriously
Critique of Deepak Chopra’s Philosophy: The physics and philosophical flaws in Chopra’s popular “New Age” teachings. Special Section on Taking God Seriously: Karl Popper on God; An Interview with Skepticism’s Ray Hyman; Shermer: Atheist v. Agnostic; Taking Creationism Seriously; A Case Against God; A Case for God. Also: Emily Rosa & the Therapeutic Touch Wars; Coach Potatoes: The Latest Self-Help Diet; Randi’s Quackery Update; Humor: Dumbth Awards. Junior Skeptic: Emily Rosa: TT and Me; Science Surfing: Cool Web Sites Reviewed; A Junior Skeptic tests a Gambler’s Luck; Science Magic Books
View table of contents and availability
volume 06 number 1
Science & Society
E.O. Wilson’s Consilience: Can We Unify All Knowledge?; Deconstructing James Van Praagh: How He Talks To the Dead by Michael Shermer; Junior Skeptic: Emily Rosa Tests Therapeutic Touch With a Disarmingly Simple Method; The Ancient Tradition of the Evil Eye!; James Randi on New Age Technology; Humor: Dumbth News; Legalizing Fraud in the Name of Religion; Holocaust Revisionism Update; Stephen Hawking v. Frank Tipler; A Skeptic’s Guide to the Drug Policy Debate; When Journalists Should Not Be Objective; The Graduate Record Exam as Fringe Science.
View table of contents and availability
volume 05 number 4
Pseudoscience
Acupuncture’s Secrets Revealed; A Not-So-Psychic Detective; The Myth of Egyptian Pi; What’s Your Sign?; In Search of the Chinese Fountain of Youth…
View table of contents and availability
volume 05 number 3
Anthropology
Fake Fairy Photos by James Randi; Aliens Replace Spooks in the Carnival Funhouse; Princess Diana Conspiracies; Why Do Militias Exist? PLUS a Response From Militia Expert Richard Abanes; Homeopathy and The Office of Alternative Medicine; Houdini v. The Blond Witch of Lime Street Millennium Special: What is the Millennium? by Stephen Jay Gould. Special Section on Anthropology: How Humans Explain Human Origins; An Interview with Paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson by Frank Miele; Margaret Mead’s Mistake by Derek Freeman; Conflicting Views of Myth and Science by Kenneth L. Feder; God and the Ghost Dance—The Eternal Return of the Messiah Myth by Michael Shermer Reviews, Skeptical News, Forum, and Randy Cassingham’s Dumbth News
View table of contents and availability
volume 05 number 2
The God Question
Martin Gardner Interview; Bible Code; Einstein’s God; What Happened to Atheism?; God Evidence?; Rural Religions; Case Against Immortality…
View table of contents and availability
volume 05 number 1
Environmental Science
Ecologists vs. Economists: A Quick & Dirty Guide to the Environmental Debate: Is Environmental Science polluted by Politics?; The Beautiful People Myth; Population Risk Assesment; The Not-So-Wise-Use Movement; Julian Simon Slams Eco-Crybabies; Top Scientists' Ecological Warning; PLUS: Fred Crews on Modern American Witch Hunters; More Dumbth News; Ancient Astro-NOTS; PC-Panic Debate Continues; The Ghost Dance Returns as UFO Hope; The Murky Origins of the Hale-Bopp UFO Fiasco; Polls Show Americans Steadfast in Religious Beliefs. Randi on Pigasus Awards; Human Magnets; Dowsing; Futurists. Reviews; Skeptical News; Forum. BONUS INCLUDED: The Premier Edition of James Randi's Outrageous New Publication: Swift
View table of contents and availability
volume 04 number 4
Carl Sagan Tribute
$742,000 Says Therapeutic Touch is Bogus; Dismantling History; A Tribute to Carl Sagan; Special Section: Can History Be a Science?; Birth Order as Destiny—An Interview with Frank Sulloway; 4 Ways History Can Be a Science; Have Deconstructionists Destroyed History?; Can We Know What Really Happened in the Past?; Detecting the “Human Energy Field”; Cheating for Jesus?—Creationist’s Questionable Tactics; 1996 Dumbth News; Randi—Become a Media Psychic!; Early Ghostbusters; N-Rays-Where’d They Go?; Nostradamus Debunked; 13 Questions Astrologers Can’t Answer; Encouraging Students to Think Critically; Norman Levitt Blasts His Critics…
View table of contents and availability
volume 04 number 3
Conspiracy
Louis Farrakhan and Paranoia in African-American Politics; The New World Order, 666 and The End of the World; The Greatest Political Correctness Conspiracy Hoax; Who Really Runs America? Jerry Brown on Politics & Money; Psychoanalysis as Religion, Cult and Political Movement; Cracking the Bell Curve Myth; The “End of Science” Debate: Is It?; First Time In English! A Skeptical Historical Masterpiece: Benjamin Franklin and Antoine Lavoisier Investigate Mesmerism for Louis XVI of France; The Amazing Randi on Police Psychics; Who Become A Science Heretic?; Humor: Abducted by Hollywood; Aliens Arrive on Independence Day; What Will Tomorrow Bring?
View table of contents and availability
volume 04 number 2
Evolutionary Ethics
Interview: Living Within Limits & Limits on Living Garrett Hardin on Ecology, Economy, and Ethics; Toward a Science of Morality; In Our Own Self Image: The Evolution of Morality, Deception, and Religion; Prospects for Existence: Morality and Genetic Engineering; Plants, Property & People: Should Indigenous Peoples Be Compensated For Their Medicinal Plant Knowledge?; The Secular Sphinx: The Riddle of Ethics Without Religion; Why Creationists Fear Evolution: An Introduction to Bryan’s Last Speech; The Most Powerful Argument Against Evolution Ever Made: The Undelivered Speech to the Jury in the Scopes’ Trial; Save Fuel, the Nation, the Environment, Money … Sure; Whose is the Higher Superstition? Reflections on the Need for Skeptical Open-Mindedness in the Days to Come; Cosmythology: Was the Universe Designed to Produce Us?; The Question All Skeptics are Asking: What Was Adam’s IQ?; Skeptics Walk on Fire For Bill Nye “The Science Guy”; The Mysterious (and Profitable) Origins of Man; Millennium Mystery or Misinformation?; Patterson Bigfoot Hoax
View table of contents and availability
volume 04 number 1
Evolutionary Psychology
Quadro Tracker Dowsing Stick Tested by James Randi; News: Skeptics Conference, Psychic Challenge; Jehovah’s Witnesses/End of World; Psi Research Funds Forum; Skeptic Magazine Forum: Church of Scientology responds to Lippard Forum: Velikovsky; Physics; Raso Responds Forum: Repressed Memory Reversal Forum: In-Group v. Universal Morality Discussion Institute for Creation Research Museum Visit; McIver Guide to Evolutionary Psychology/Nature of Human Nature; Miele Sociology as Science; Don’t Delete Darwin: Salter Evolutionary Psychology as Protoscience; Critical Analysis of Evolutionary Psychology; Schlinger Interview: Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox; Interview: Stephen Jay Gould; Gould’s Dangerous Idea: Contingency/Necessity/nature of History; Reviews: Darwin’s Dangerous Idea; Hidden History of the Human Race; The Origin of Satan; The Final Superstition; 8 Brief Reviews: Paranormal, Evolution, Religion Humor: What is the Ant, Sir?
View table of contents and availability
volume 03 number 4
Cosmology & God
‘Twas Brillig… An Adventure in Asia or, How a Cultural Gap Can Lead to Total Misunderstanding; The Clicker Culture—How that Handy Little Gadget has Changed the Evening News; The Day I Met The Wizard: Oz Comes to Kansas; Skeptic News; Skeptics Society Survey; “First of All, Do No Harm”: A Recovered Memory Therapist Recants—An Interview With Robin Newsome; Is There Really a Cosmological Crisis? If the Stars are Older than the Universe then We Have a Serious Problem; Velikovsky’s Believe it or Not!!; Velikovsky Still in Collision; An Antidote to Velikovskian Delusions; Velikovsky’s Place in the History of Science—A Lesson on the Strengths and Limitations of Science; Can Science Prove God? Frank Tipler’s “The Physics of Immortality” is the Latest in a Long Line of Attempts to Unite Science and Religion; A Cosmological Dialogue Between Caltech Cosmologist Kip Thorne and Tulane Cosmologist Frank Tipler on the Physics of Immortality; Hope Springs Eternal—Dr.Tipler Meets Dr.Pangloss; Physics’ Balls and Schrödinger’s Kittens—Just Because our Treasured Theories of the Sub-Atomic World Work Does Not Necessarily Mean They Are Revealing the Ultimate Truth About What Goes on Inside Atoms; Darwin’s Dangerous Disciple— An Interview with Richard Dawkins; Love Thy Neighbor—The Evolution of In-Group Morality; Books in Brief; The Question All Skeptics Are Asking—Can a Cat be Simultaneously Alive and Dead?; About the Authors; Index
View table of contents and availability
volume 03 number 3
Race & IQ
The Latest Race and IQ Claims: Are They Scientific?; The Bell Curve: Top Experts Speak Out on the Science and Politics of Race and IQ Tests; Anthropologist Vince Sarich Defends the Bell Curve and the Concept of Important Racial Differences; IQ Bonus: Multiple Intelligences — An Interview with Robert Sternberg, Author of The Triarchic Mind; PLUS: HIV-AIDS Heretics Respond; The Satanic Panic; Father Victim of False Memories Speaks Out; Houdini Escapes Again; Scientology in Cyberspace; How to Eat a Light Bulb; James “the Amazing” Randi Debunks the Curse of the Pharaoh.
View table of contents and availability
volume 03 number 2
AIDS
Does HIV Really Cause AIDS? A Case Study in Skepticism Taken Too Far; AIDS Part I: The Skeptics and Their Claims; Part II: How Skepticism Went Astray; Part III Lessons on How Science Works; A Provocative Interview With Charles Murray, Author of the Bell Curve; Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin, and the Resolution of a Scientific Priority Dispute; The Question All Skeptics Are Asking: Why Did God Make Rice Cakes?, PLUS: The Amazing Randi on Astrology; Should the Bible Be Taken Literally? and more…
View table of contents and availability
volume 03 number 1
Pseudomedicine
Life After False Memory Syndrome; The Mattoon Phantom Gasser Mass Hysteria; Why Should Skeptics Understand Religion?; Skeptical Perspectives: A Heretic-Scientist Among the Spiritualists; Homeopathy; Therapeutic Touch; Alternative Medicine; Spiritual Belief Systems Try to Compete as Alternatives to Scientific Health Care; Conspiracies of Skiheads; Leftist Science; The Humanism of Star Trek; Liquefying “Blood”; and more…
View table of contents and availability
volume 02 number 4
Pseudohistory
Free Speech & Neo-Nazis; Denying the Holocaust; Afrocentrism & Holocaust Revisionism; Creationism & Racism; Were Egyptians & Greeks Black?; Beyond Race…
View table of contents and availability
volume 02 number 3
Fad Psychology
False Memory Syndrome; Facilitated Communication; Diagnoses are not Diseases; Sex, Brains, and Hands; How Thinking Goes Wrong; Pseudoscience in Psychiatry…
View table of contents and availability
volume 02 number 2
Science, Religion & Cults
The Jesus Cults; What Makes a Cult?; The Unlikeliest Cult of All; The Resurrection Myth; Was Christianity a Cult?; Realism and Religion…
View table of contents and availability
volume 02 number 1
Genius: Myth & Reality
Amadeus Myth; “Science” of Noah’s Ark; “Science” of Noah’s Ark; Genius by Steve Allen, James Randi, Paul MacCready, James Gleick et al (on Feynman)…
View table of contents and availability
volume 01 number 4
Witches, Heretics & Scientists
Introduction: The Price of Intolerance: Today’s Heretic, Tomorrow’s Saint; Spirits, Witches, and Science: Why the Rise of Science Encouraged Belief in the Supernatural in 17th-Century England; The Ideological Immune System: Resistance to New Ideas in Science; Skeptical News: Houdini; Millennium Watch; Newton; Haunted Hearing; Rational Sobriety; Scope of Skepticism; UFO Support Group; Psychics Fail; Skeptic’s Predictions; Skeptics TV; Tunguska; AIDS Dispute; A.R.E. You Sure? The Edgar Cayce Foundation Responds to a Skeptical Critique; Can Religion Be Rational?; The Day the Earth Moved: The Psychology of Resistance to the Heretical—Science of Copernicus; Jonestown: A CIA Medical Experiment?; On the Wild Side; Clouds of Secrecy: The Army’s Germ Warfare Tests; Over Populated Areas; Missing Pieces; How To Investigate Ghosts; UFOs,Psychics, and Other Mysteries; E.T.; Top Ten Science Frauds; Ten Great Unanswered Questions of Science; Galileo; Newton; Weird Wonders: It’s Baaack: The Nature-Nurture Debate Again; Exons, Introns and Talking Genes: The Science Behind the Human Genome Project; Bionomics; The Inevitability of Capitalism; Sociobiology and the Preemption of Social Science; The Road to Equality: Evolution and Social Reality by Paul McDowell; Discovery and Creation—The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination; The Discoverers: A History of Man’s Search to Know Himself; The Discoverers: An Illustrated History of Man’s Search to Know Himself
View table of contents and availability
volume 01 number 3
Revolution in Evolution?
Special Punctated Equilibrium Section; The Mismeasure of History: Darwin, Gould, and the Nature of Change; Punctuated Equilibrium at Twenty: A Paleontological Perspective; Punctuated Equilibrium in Fact and Theory; Historic 1842 Sketch on Evolution by Charles Darwin. Skeptical News: Galileo Acquitted; Scientology v. IRS; Physicist Touts Meditation; Yogi Fights Crime; End of the World; Earth Out of Orbit; Astronaut Bends Spoons; Psychic Car Repair; Skeptical Balance; Psychical Grant; Randi Update; Geller Calls; Deviations: A Skeptical Investigation at Edgar Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment; In Brief and In Review: Books and Articles of Interest Darwin, Darwinism, and the Darwinian Culture; The Case of the Missing Brain
View table of contents and availability
volume 01 number 2
Cryonics
Science Fact or Science Fiction; The Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Dead: the History of Resuscitation; Reaching for Tomorrow: Technical Aspects of Cryonics; Basic Questions and Answers About Cryonics From Alcor Life Extension Foundation; Physicist in the White House?; “Holy Grail” Discovered; Black Holes; Acupuncturists and Chiropractors Fined; Secular Alcohol Treatment; Greenhouse Doubts; Laws of Robotics; UFO Info; Hume’s Maxim: What Does It Take To Establish A Miracle?; The Use and Abuse of Statistics in the “Real World”; Skeptical Perspectives: “Can Science Cheat Death?” Cryonics, Altered States and the Quest for Transcendence. Galileo, Gould, Transcendental Meditation, JFK Assassination, Conspiracy Theories; Freud; Catastrophic Catastrophes; Science in Western Culture
View table of contents and availability
volume 01 number 1
Tribute to Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov Tributes by Steve Allen, Martin Gardner and Harlan Ellison; Skeptics Society’s Manifesto; The Most Precious Thing We Have — The Triumph of the Scientific Method…
View table of contents and availability
SKEPTIC App
Whether at home or on the go, the SKEPTIC App is the easiest way to read your favorite articles. Within the app, users can purchase the current issue and back issues. Download the app today and get a 30-day free trial subscription.