Skeptic » Reading Room

No, Being Religious Will Not Save You from Suicide

Jesse Bering | June 11, 2018

Jesse Bering responds to Bill Donohue’s claim that if Anthony Bourdain had been a religious man, he wouldn’t have taken his own life.

Jordan Peterson’s Evidence-Based Endeavor

Jonathan N. Stea | June 6, 2018

Jonathan N. Stea avers that the self-help material that psychologist Jordan Peterson provides to the masses mirrors the principles found in evidence-based clinical psychological literature.

Science and Pseudoscience

Harriet Hall, M.D. | May 23, 2018

Harriet Hall, M.D. (aka the SkepDoc) reviews Pseudoscience: The Conspiracy Against Science by Allison B. Kaufman and James C. Kaufman.

Five Questions about Human Errors for Proponents of Intelligent Design

Nathan H. Lents | May 9, 2018

Nathan H. Lents asks five pointed questions of proponents of Intelligent Design that are inevitably raised by examples of poor design in the human body. Lents’s new book, Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, From Pointless Bones to Broken Genes, is now available.

What Biology Can Teach Us About Crime and Justice

Nathan H. Lents & Lila Kazemian | May 2, 2018

Nathan H. Lents and Lila Kazemian discuss evidence from a variety of disciplines as disparate as animal behavior and moral theology that point toward more humane, efficient, and effective responses to crime and punishment that work in concert, rather than in conflict, with our evolutionary psychology.

Moral Philosophy and its Discontents

Michael Shermer | April 27, 2018

Michael Shermer responds to Massimo Pigliucci’s critique of his Scientific American column on utilitarianism, deontology, and rights, entitled “You Kant be Serious: Utilitarianism and its Discontents.” (May 2018).

Not in Your Stars

Harriet Hall, M.D. | April 25, 2018

Harriet Hall, M.D. (aka the SkepDoc) reviews Horoscopes: Reality or Trickery? by Kimberly Blaker (Green Grove Press. 2018. 78 pages.), a delightful new book for children age 9–13 that encourages readers to ask questions and gives them the tools to find the answers for themselves.

Diet Sodas: Are the Dangers in the Chemicals or the Headlines?

Harriet Hall, M.D. | April 18, 2018

Headlines about recent scientific studies are notoriously unreliable. Harriet Hall, M.D. (aka the SkepDoc) examines a study that caused alarming headlines last year about the dangers of drinking diet soda.

Hope and Hype for Alzheimer’s

Harriet Hall, M.D. | April 4, 2018

Harriet Hall, M.D. (aka the SkepDoc) clarifies what we know and don’t know about Alzheimer’s.

Deterrence and its Discontents

David Barash | March 28, 2018

There are skeletons in the closet of nuclear deterrence. Advocates of nuclear deterrence say nuclear weapons are not only justified, their existence seems to have worked, and to be working, right now. David Barash avers that skepticism of nuclear deterrence is long overdue.

Juicing for Health or Torture

Harriet Hall, M.D. | February 27, 2018

Harriet Hall, M.D. (aka The SkepDoc) examines many of the health benefit claims for juicing, and finds them lacking scientific scrutiny.

Trouble in the Multiverse

Peter Kassan | February 21, 2018

The notion that there can be more than one universe at first seems oxymoronic. Peter Kassan discusses the problematic notion of a multiverse arising from a highly speculative interpretation of quantum mechanics.

The Rise of Victimhood Culture (detail of book cover)

Honor, Dignity, Victim: A Tale of Three Moral Cultures

Kevin McCaffree | February 14, 2018

Kevin McCaffree reviews the forthcoming book The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars (March 21, 2018) in which sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning have produced the first systematic theoretical analysis of the moral culture of “victimhood” emerging on university campuses.

Virtual Violence

Terence Hines | February 6, 2018

Do “violent” video games pose “as big a health risk as alcohol and drug abuse” and are they “ruining the youth of America”? Terence Hines reviews Moral Combat: Why the War on Violent Video Games Is Wrong, by Patrick M. Markey and Christopher J. Ferguson.

pH Mythology: Separating pHacts from pHiction

Harriet Hall, M.D. | January 31, 2018

pH diets, alkaline water, urine pH tests, pseudoscience and bogus cancer cures abound. In this column, Harriet Hall, M.D. combats the plague of pH misinformation by distinguishing pHacts from pHiction.

Psychology’s Unhealed Wound

Mario E. Herrera & Lawrence Patihis | January 24, 2018

Mario E. Herrera and Lawrence Patihis review Mark Pendergrast’s new book: Memory Warp: How the Myth of Repressed Memory Arose and Refuses to Die.

Unsubstantiated: A new Netflix documentary purporting to provide proof of alien visitation fails to deliver

Tim Callahan | January 16, 2018

Tim Callahan reviews Unacknowledged: An Exposé of the World’s Greatest Secret, a new Netflix documentary, purporting to provide proof of alien visitation, that fails to deliver.

Trial by Therapy: The Jerry Sandusky Case Revisited

Frederick Crews | January 3, 2018

Frederick Crews reviews Mark Pendergrast’s book The Most Hated Man in America: Jerry Sandusky and the Rush to Judgment: a sustained, comprehensive case—based on detailed evidence and reasoning—that Jerry Sandusky (found guilty on 45 counts of child molestation) was, in fact, blameless.

I, Too, Am Thinking About Me, Too

Carol Tavris | December 27, 2017

Social psychologist Carol Tavris reminds us that it is more important than ever to tolerate complexity and ask questions that evoke cognitive dissonance whenever a movement is fueled by rage and revenge.

Why Freud Matters: Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, and the Skeptical Humanist Tradition

Raymond Barglow | December 13, 2017

Raymond Barglow discusses how the psychoanalytic tradition inaugurated by Sigmund Freud casts light on the mainsprings of human motivation and helps to explain human irrationality and encourage recovery.

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