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11-05-11
In this week’s eSkeptic, we present Pat Linse’s debunking of the alleged fraud on Obama’s long form birth certificate.
11-05-04
There is certainly no shortage of diet fads and weight loss myths. The plethora of contradictory information can make it difficult for us to distinguish between sound nutrition science and plain old nonsense. In our second review of the year of Gary Taubes’ latest book Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It (read the first review here), Harriet Hall, M.D. (the Skepdoc) advises against jumping on any bandwagons.
11-04-27
In this rich article on an ancient problem, Skeptic contributor Phil Mole discusses the problem of free will. The problem is this: how can we hold people accountable for their actions if we live in a determined universe? A variety of solutions to the problems are reviewed from the ancient Greeks to modern scientists, philosophers, and even science fiction writers such as Philip K. Dick in his classic novel Minority Report. Mole finds compelling new arguments from complexity theory and…
11-04-20
In this week’s eSkeptic, Justin Trottier reviews Ray Jayawardhana’s new book Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life Beyond Our Solar System.
11-04-13
In a soon-to-be-published controversial paper entitled “Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect,” Daryl Bem claims to have found significant statistical data in support of precognition in various situations through a series of nine experiments. Nicolas Gauvrit presents several analyses critiquing the methodology and statistical data presented in Bem’s study.
11-04-08
In this eSkeptic, Michael Shermer announces his lecture schedule for Illinois and Wisconsin for April 2011.
11-04-06
In this week’s eSkeptic, we present Australian skeptic Geoffrey Dean’s critical analysis of Alexander Panchin’s article The Saturn-Mars Effect (from Skeptic magazine volume 16, number 1) which offered an explanation for the Mars Effect as a statistical artifact. Following Dean’s critique, Panchin responds.
11-03-30
Since the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, 2011, a storm of misinformation about earthquakes and natural disasters has followed. In this week’s eSkeptic, professor of geology and author of the new book Catastrophes: Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Tornadoes, and other Earth-Shattering Disasters, Dr. Donald R. Prothero shines a scientific light on some of this misinformation and discusses the difficult nature of earthquake prediction.
11-03-23
In this week’s eSkeptic, we reprint an essay in which Michael Shermer conjectures about the many paradoxes that arise from theories of time travel. Shermer reviews some of the problems which scientists have determined will relegate time travel to the realm of science fiction.
11-03-16
In a spin on David Letterman’s “Stupid Pet Tricks,” psychologist Bryan Farha examines the very real world of stupid pet psychic tricks — people who think their pets have psychic power. Farha not only debunks the claims of psychic pet owners but reveals how the tricks are done through a series of techniques based on natural (not supernatural) powers.
11-03-09
In this week’s eSkeptic, James N. Gardner reviews Brian Greenes’s book The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos.
11-03-02
In this week’s eSkeptic, Jason Colavito reviews Scott Sigler’s book Ancestor and follows up by interviewing the author.
11-02-23
In this week’s eSkeptic, Bob Conrad reviews Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God by Greg Graffin and Steve Olsen.
11-02-16
In this week’s eSkeptic, we announce Science Symposium: 100 years of adventures in science and pseudoscience. Skepticism’s leading luminaries offer their expertise in a series of lectures and workshops designed to sharpen your skepticism and fine tune your critical thinking skills. Friday–Sunday, June 24–26, 2011.
11-02-09
In this interview with one of the pioneering women in the skeptical movement, Carol Tavris picks up where Stephen Jay Gould left off on his Mismeasure of Man with her mythbusting book The Mismeasure of Woman. Tavris uncovers a host of myths about women and shows what science actually tells us about gender difference with respect to cognition.
11-02-02
In this week’s eSkeptic Massimo Pigliucci reviews Sam Harris’ latest book The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values.
11-01-26
J. S. Snelson discusses how our biological immune system protects our bodies from an invasion of foreign agents and pathogens, and, in the context of the historical discovery and treatment of malaria, how our ideological immune system protects our minds from an invasion of foreign ideas and doctrines.
11-01-19
In this week’s eSkeptic, we announce the new season of lectures at Caltech, as well as launch the new Skepticality podcast fro iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android mobile devices fro $1.99!
11-01-12
In this week’s eSkeptic we present Mikhail Simkin’s findings from a study wherein he applied a scientific approach to literature in evaluating its quality and worth. participants were asked to blindly distinguish between passages written by Charles Dickens and passages written Edward Bulwer-Lytton (the author who penned the infamous line ‘It was a dark and stormy night. ’ Is Mikhail Simkin’s scientific approach to assessing the quality of literature valid? Take our poll at the end of the article.
eSkeptic for January 5, 2011
In this week’s eSkeptic, Barry Rein reviews Why We Get Fat: And What To Do About It by Gary Taubes (Knopf, 2011, ISBN-13: 978-0307272706)
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