The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine

Science Salon Podcast # 42: The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything. A dialogue between Michael Shermer and psychologist Clay Routledge (Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of the Invisible World) on life’s deepest and most meaningful issues.

Michael Shermer reviews It’s Better Than it Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear by Gregg Easterbrook; On MonsterTalk, Blake Smith interviews City of the Dead tour-guide Fred Fogarty about the Greyfriars Kirkyard and the Mackenzie Poltergeist.

In this week’s eSkeptic, Campus Craziness: A New War on Science, in the latest edition of Skeptic magazine (22.4); UFOs, Chemtrails, and Aliens on MonsterTalk; and Dr. Robert Trivers discusses The Evolutionary Genetics of Honor Killings.

In this week’s eSkeptic, medical sociologist Dr. Robert E. Bartholomew, examines a “baffling epidemic of hallucinations” that was reported to have broken out in Oregon in October of 2016. Was it an outbreak of mass suggestion, or simply an surge of shoddy journalism?

In this week’s eSkeptic, Michael Shermer discusses the question of whether artificial intelligence poses an existential threat to human beings; MonsterTalk interviews Guy Lyon Playfair about The Enfield Poltergeist; and Bill Nye Saves the World on Netflix and in the latest issue of Skeptic magazine 22.1!

Blake Smith presents a possible solution to a 1996 photograph of a purported phantom cowboy rising from the grave.

Blake Smith revisits the mystery of the "Goddard’s Squadron Ghost" in light of new evidence.

Blake Smith turns to face a mysterious figure in the back seat.

Blake Smith digs deeply into a famous photograph of the ghost of WWI airman Freddy Jackson, and concludes that Jackson may never have existed.

Just in time for Halloween, Blake Smith recommends some of the spookiest episodes of MonsterTalk, The Science Show About Monsters.

Do you know someone who has had a mind altering experience? If so, you know how compelling they can be. A life can be changed or an entire religion founded on the basis of a single brain-generated hallucination. These phenomena are so powerful that throughout history seekers of knowledge have sought to induce them. They are one of the foundations of widespread belief in the paranormal. But as skeptics are well aware, accepting them as reality can be more than…

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, we announce the release of Michael Shermer’s latest book, The Believing Brain: From Ghosts, Gods, and Aliens to Conspiracies, Economics, and Politics—How the Brain Constructs Beliefs and Reinforces Them as Truths. Synthesizing 30 years of research, Shermer presents his comprehensive theory on how beliefs are born, formed, nourished, reinforced, challenged, changed, and extinguished.