The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine

This brief text helps students to think critically, using examples from the weird claims and beliefs that abound in our culture to demonstrate the sound evaluation of any claim. It explains step-by-step how to sort through reasons, evaluate evidence, and tell when a claim (no matter how strange) is likely to be true.

In this groundbreaking work, J. Anderson Thomson, Jr., MD, with Clare Aukofer, offers a succinct yet comprehensive study of how and why the human mind generates religious belief. Dr. Thomson, a highly regarded psychiatrist known for his studies of suicide terrorism, investigates the components and causes of religious belief in the same way any scientist would investigate the movement of astronomical bodies or the evolution of life over time, that is, as a purely natural phenomenon.

“Magnanimity is in short supply,” writes A. C. Grayling is this wonderfully incisive book, “but it is the main ingredient in everything that makes the world a better place” And indeed Meditations for the Humanist: Ethics for a Secular Age is itself a generous, insightful, wide-ranging, magnanimous inquiry into the philosophical and ethical questions that bear most strongly on the human condition.

Our brain is the best tool we have for understanding the world, but our mental software has bugs. We have a better chance of sorting out the truth from the baloney if we understand the ways in which our brain works.

These exercises are from a Summer Youth Program for High School Students titled, “Brain Glitches” and taught by Diane Graft. In these exercises, students learn about Game Theory.

Does superstitious behavior affect your luck? In this presentation students use their knowledge of the scientific method to answer that question. For their final research project, the following superstitions are tested: (1) walking under a ladder, (2) opening an umbrella indoors, and (3) spilling salt.

This presentation depicts the history of academic thought on voter turnout and shows how recent neuroscience has changed the prevailing wisdom on the subject. While political science scholars of the 70’s and 80’s believed voters were rational calculators, neuroscience has shown that emotion and narrative play a strong role in this process.

The presentation explores the evolutionary basis for the creation and consumption of art in all forms. It discusses art’s adaptive function; as well as, its role in natural and sexual selection. The universality and evolutionary basis of aesthetic tastes in art is also discussed.

We all know the cliché “To err is human.” To most extent, this is true – human error is the cause of 70% of airplane crashes, 90% of car-wrecks, and 90% of workplace accidents. We love telling people that they (not us) are wrong and happily point out their oversights. But is there another side of making mistakes? This PowerPoint presentation explores why human beings are so prone to making errors and why it is sometimes quite good to make…

“People are emotionally drawn to the supernatural. They actively want weird, spooky things to be true …Wiseman shows us a higher joy as he deftly skewers the paranormal charlatans, blows away the psychic fog and lets in the clear light of reason”. (Richard Dawkins, Professor). Richard Wiseman is clear about one thing: paranormal phenomena don’t exist. But in the same way that the science of space travel transforms our everyday lives, so research into telepathy, fortune-telling and out-of-body experiences produces…

This academic text features articles regarding paranormal, extraordinary, or fringe-science claims. It logically examines the claims of astrology; psychic ability; alternative medicine and health claims; after-death communication; cryptozoology; and faith healing, all from a skeptical perspective.

The great astronomer and science writer challenges New Agers and explains social phenomena like UFOs, alien abductions, recovered memories, satanic cults, witch crazes, hallucinations, and how to detect baloney. This is Sagan’s most popular book among skeptics, filled with quotable maxims, popular among college professors as a supplemental text for students, but a classic for everyone who cares about living in a sane and safe world without superstition.

In this age of scientific enlightenment, many people still believe in mind reading, past-life regression theory, New Age hokum, and alien abduction. A no-holds-barred assault on popular superstitions and prejudices Why People Believe Weird Things debunks these nonsensical claims and explores the very human reasons people find otherworldly phenomena, conspiracy theories, and cults so appealing.

This presentation introduces the “Social Perspectives” segment of the course. JFK’s remarks on the separation of Church and State to the Houston Ministerial Association in 1960 are addressed in the context of Rick Santorum’s criticism. Sean Faircloth’s book, Attack of the Theocrats, is previewed. The question “Is America a Christian Nation?” is addressed before examining the phenomenon of Christian Nationalism.

In this class students will utilize scientific critical thinking to examine the causes of various strange phenomena, including alleged paranormal events, magic, superstition, mystery illness, bogus therapies and pseudoscience. The main goal is to teach students how to think about weird things when they encounter them.

Evolution, Economics, and the Brain is a doctoral-level Transdisciplinary Course designed to address large issues in which students employ knowledge and research protocols from many different disciplines to shed new light on specific problems. One of the books assigned—Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature—integrates evolution, history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, economics, and political science to explain a single phenomenon: the decline of violence. It is a model work in transdisciplinary integration.

This presentation introduces the “Personal Perspectives” segment of the course. It covers the typologies of apostasy based on the work of Sociology Professor Phil Zuckerman, before introducing “The Clergy Project.” The personal experiences of Dan Barker are discussed. Various psychological factors underlying conformity to religious belief are examined, including obedience to authority, social proof, and groupthink.

This presentation draws on the work of Dale McGowan, and addresses the following topics: (1) Prevalent cultural attitudes towards atheists; (2) Our evolved tendency towards moral behavior; (3) The campaign against labeling children; (4) McGowan’s “Seven Secular Values”; (5) The Purpose Driven Life; (6) Addressing Death with Children; (7) Creative Secular Rituals; and (8) McGowan’s “Best Practices” for raising freethinkers.

This presentation introduces the “Ethical Perspectives” segment of the course. Based largely on the work of Sikivu Hutchinson, the following topics are addressed: (1) Racism in America using high profile contemporary examples; (2) Black religiosity; (3) The Black Church as a historically important safe harbor from racism; (4) Gender Politics—why African-American women are disproportionately religious; and (5) A brief historical overview of Black Freethought and Secular Humanism.

This presentation opens criticism of the Catholic Church in popular narratives, before a discussion of the televised IQ2 Debate—“Motion: The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world.” Based largely on the work of English Historian, David Ranan, three historical landmarks of Church power are examined, including (1) The Trial of Galileo (Inquisition); (2) The Holocaust (Anti-Semitism); and (3) The Child Abuse Scandal. The presentation concludes by addressing the recent political activism of the Catholic Church opposing same-sex…