Back Issues, volumes 16–20
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?
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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?, …
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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…
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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…
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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…
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