The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine

Harriet Hall, M.D. examines the dubious claims of radiation hormesis — that low levels of radiation are beneficial to health.

British philosopher Dr. Colin McGinn avers that it is wrong to say that God is by definition all powerful; he is only powerful within the limits of his nature.

Fake news, crafted to exploit us, wreaks havoc on our health, finances and politics. VeriSign founder David Cowan avers that science is the key to combatting the spread of disinformation.

After his appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast # 961 with Graham Hancock and Randall Carlson, Michael Shermer devoted a special issue of Skeptic magazine (22.3) to Hancock’s theory that an ancient lost civilization predates by tens of thousands of years all other known ancient civilizations. The follow is Dr. Shermer’s account of the show and a refinement of his notes for why he is skeptical of Hancock’s theory.

In the new book America Before: The Key to Earth’s Lost Civilization, author Graham Hancock looks for traces of a lost Ice Age civilization in the Americas. Despite relying on controversial research and drawing extreme conclusions, his hunt still comes up short.

The breadth of what can be meant by the word “hoax” makes the concept — and consequences — worthy of renewed study. Michelle E. Ainsworth reviews Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News by Kevin Young and Hoax: A History of Deception: 5000 Years of Fakes, Forgeries, and Fallacies by Ian Tattersall and Peter Nevraumont.

Dr. Raymond Barglow discusses three mistaken approaches to the opioid epidemic in this article that appeared in Skeptic magazine 24.1 (2019).

What is it about the human mind that so effortlessly translates natural events into messages from another realm — even despite our best attempts to deny that there’s any message in them at all?

Often someone who makes a public comment out of compliance with progressive opinion is set upon by online vigilantes, attacked personally, repents, and promises to do better next time. Using two cases as touchstones, Stewart Justman draws an analogy between the extraction of such an apology and the extraction of a false confession to a crime of violence, the critical point being that in both instances the pressured party may well begin to believe the accusations against him or her.

Intelligent Design advocate, Dr. Michael Behe, has recently written his third book attacking modern evolutionary theory called Darwin Devolves: The New Science About DNA that Challenges Evolution. In this article from Skeptic Magazine 24.1, Professor of Biology Dr. Nathan H. Lents points out some of the many flaws in Behe’s book.