review
Neuroscience—one of the great intellectual achievements of modern science—often suffers from spasms of “premature extrapolation” due to oversimplification, interpretive license, and premature application in the legal, commercial, clinical, and philosophical domains. In this week’s eSkeptic, Harriet Hall, M.D. (a.k.a. The SkepDoc), takes a look at the science of neuroscience in light of Sally Satel and Scott Lilienfeld’s book Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience.
In this week’s eSkeptic, Donald R. Prothero reviews Among the Creationists: Dispatches from the Anti-Evolutionist Front Lines, by Jason Rosenhouse (Oxford University Press, 2012, 256 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0199744633). This post also appeared on Skepticblog.org.
In this week’s eSkeptic, Dr. Chris Edwards reviews Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander (Basic Books, 2013, 592 pages).
In this week’s eSkeptic, Dr. Chris Edwards examines some of the claims made by Kristine Barnett about her autistic savant son, James, in her book entitled The Spark: A Mother’s Story of Nurturing Genius.
In this week’s eSkeptic, Donald R. Prothero reviews Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s film Blackfish (Magnolia Pictures, 2013), about Tilikum — a killer whale in captivity at SeaWorld responsible for the deaths of several people.
In this week’s eSkeptic, George Michael reviews Mary Roach’s book, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (W.W. Norton & Company, 2013, ISBN: 0393068471).
In this week’s eSkeptic, John Rael reviews Mark Edward’s book Psychic Blues: Confessions of a Conflicted Medium—a book “written by a long-time and current practicing psychic who freely admits to the reader that there is no such thing.”
Could it be that geneticists, biochemists, zoologists, biologists, geologists, paleontologists, ecologists, comparative anatomists, physiologists, and cosmologists are all wrong about evolution? In this week’s eSkeptic, Ingrid Hansen Smythe reviews documentary film by Ray Comfort called Evolution vs. God: Shaking the Foundations of Faith. The film makes the audacious claim that “there is no evidence for Darwinian evolution; that it’s not scientific.”Watch the trailer and then read the review.
In this week’s eSkeptic, Harriet Hall, M.D reviews Richard Burton’s book A Skeptic’s Guide to the Mind: What Neuroscience Can and Cannot Tell Us About Ourselves.
For some obsessed fans of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film, The Shining, there exists hidden meaning in the film. Are these fans suffering from confirmation bias, or did Stanley Kubrick intend to leave clues, like a riddle to be solved? In this week’s eSkeptic, Will Dowd conspiracy thinking in this review of Room 237, a documentary directed by Rodney Ascher, produced by Tim Kirk, and distributed by IFC Films (released January, 2012, 102 minutes).
In this week’s eSkeptic, Kenneth W. Krause reviews Pandora’s Lunchbox: How Processed Food Took Over the American Meal by Melanie Warner (Scribner, 2013). Kenneth W. Krause is a contributing editor and “Science Watch” columnist for the Skeptical Inquirer.
In this week’s eSkeptic, Donald R. Prothero reviews The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People, by Neil Shubin (Pantheon, New York, 2013).
In this week’s eSkeptic, Trevor Fehrman reviews Eric Walter’s documentary film My Amityville Horror (IFC Films 2012), in which, for the first time ever, Daniel Lutz delivers his perspective on perhaps the most famous ghost story in America: the 1975 Amityville haunting.
In this week’s eSkeptic, Jim Lippard reviews three books: Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), The Church of Fear: Inside The Weird World of Scientology by John Sweeney (Silvertail Books, 2013), and Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill with Lisa Pulitzer (William Morrow, 2013).
In this week’s eSkeptic, L. Kirk Hagen reviews Human No More: Digital Subjectivities, Unhuman Subjects, and the End of Anthropology, edited by Neil Whitehead and Michael Wesch (University Press of Colorado, 2012, ISBN 978-1607321897).
In this week’s eSkeptic, Mike Moran reviews Brad Warner’s book Hardcore Zen Strikes Again (Cooperative Press, 2012, ISBN: 978-1937513078).
In this week’s eSkeptic, Glenn Branch reviews Brook Wilensky-Lanford’s book Paradise Lust: Searching for the Garden of Eden.
In this week’s eSkeptic, Michael Shermer reviews Stuart Firestein’s book Ignorance: How it Drives Science (Oxford University Press, 2012, ISBN 13: 97801-998-28074). This review was originally published in Nature, 484, 446–447 (26 April 2012) as “Philosophy: What we don’t know.”
Evolutionary “selfish gene” theory well accounts for why we would be nice to our kin and kind but why would strangers would be nice to one another? In this week’s eSkeptic, Michael Shermer reviews The Moral Molecule: The Source of Love and Prosperity by Paul J. Zak (Dutton, 2012, ISBN: 978-0-525-95281-7) and Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame by Christopher Boehm (Basic Books, 2012, ISBN: 978-0-465-02048-5). This review was originally published in both the print and online…
In this week’s eSkeptic, Donald R. Prothero reviews Ivan R. Schwab book, Evolution’s Witness: How Eyes Evolved (Oxford University Press, New York, 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-536974-8).
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