Skeptic (Altadena, CA) articles from January 2004

Skeptic (Altadena, CA) archives from January 2004

The Skeptics Society.
January 1, 2004... The Skeptics Society is a member supported 501(c)(3) nonprofit scientific and educational organization of scholars, scientists, historians, magicians, professors and teachers, and anyone curious about controversial ideas, that does the...

What is a skeptic?
January 1, 2004... What does it mean to be a skeptic? Some people believe that skepticism is rejection of new ideas, or worse, they confuse "skeptic" with "cynic" and think that skeptics are a bunch of grumpy curmudgeons unwilling to accept any claim that...

The amazing speaking machine of Sir David Brewster.(scientist David Brewster's reports on a speaking machine and 5 persons lifting a large man with their fingertips)
January 1, 2004... SCOTSMAN SIR DAVID BREWSTER (1781-1868) was a remarkable intellect. Though he is, unfairly, best known for his invention of the kaleidoscope, he also developed the mathematics of the polarization of light, and made substantial improvements in...

New "Isn't Round" theory demands equal time.(Demon haunted times: all the news that's not fit to print!)
January 1, 2004... LANCASTER, CA -- Supporters of a new theory about the Earth's shape are demanding equal time in the classroom. Currently, schools teach that Earth has a round shape, but a new theory is challenging that idea. "We are not flat-earthers,"...

Sham magnets as effective as the "real thing".(Magnetic Insoles)
January 1, 2004... According to Mark H. Winemiller, from the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and his colleagues Robert G. Billow, Edward R. Laskowski, and W. Scott Harmsen, in an article that appeared...

Science literacy and belief in the paranormal--an empirical test.(News)
January 1, 2004... A STUDY PUBLISHED IN SKEPTIC (Vol. 9, No. 3) by Walker et al. investigated the relationship (or lack thereof) between scientific literacy and pseudoscientific belief. The authors found no significant relationship between college students'...

Sonar ban sounded good: a skeptical analysis.
January 1, 2004... IN WHAT APPEARED TO BE a triumph for environmentalists, in 2003 a U.S. court limited the Navy's use of low-frequency activated sonar (LFA) to safeguard endangered marine species from its blare. After millions of dollars, years of research, and...

Hamlet revisited: how evolution really works.
January 1, 2004... Michael Shermer's article "To Be or Not to Be a Weasel: Hamlet, Intelligent Design, and How Evolution Works" (Vol. 9, No. 4, 16-20) discussed the metaphor originally produced (independently) by Richard Hardison and Richard Dawkins, in which...

Paranormal and God belief survey results.(News)
January 1, 2004... Fox News, of "Fair and Balanced" fame, released the results of a survey conducted September 23-24, 2003, revealing that 92% of Americans say they believe in God, 85% in heaven and 82% in miracles. Though belief in God remained at the same level...

Reports of my death ...(Forum)(Brief Article)(Correction Notice)
January 1, 2004... In his otherwise excellent article "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Universe" (Vol. 10, No. 2), David Naiditch refers to me as "The late Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg." Unless Naiditch knows something that I don't, I am still alive. --Steven...

Surgery, transplants, and UFOs.(Forum)(Brief Article)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... Recently spotted in the Science section of a mail order book club: Wedged dead center between Surgery of the Larynx and Related Structures, 2nd Edition and Guide to Liver Transplants, is a book entitled The UFO Investigator's Handbook: The...

Defense of "A Roswell Requiem".(Forum)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... In SKEPTIC Forum Vol. 10, No. 3, author Robert Shearer reviewed my "Roswell Requiem" article from Vol. 10 No. 1, 2003. He generally agreed that the whole Roswell scenario was nonsense, but rejected my Pentagon Report based conclusion that...

Constantine Beyond Belief.(Forum)(Brief Article)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... Here is an ironic footnote to Tim Callahan's review of Beyond Belief: the secret Gospel of Thomas by Elaine Pagels (Vol. 10, No. 3), in which he notes, with Pagels, that early Christianity was in fact early e Christianities, which Constantine...

Skewed study on Wiccans and Creationists.(Creation and Evolution Forum)
January 1, 2004... Regarding the article by Raymond A. Eve, "Wiccans vs. Creationists" (Vol 10, No. 3), I am a practicing Neo-pragan myself, but quite a skeptical one. I find nothing in it that is particularly dismissive of the religious beliefs of either Wiccans...

Raymond A. Eve responds.(Creation and Evolution Forum)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... I find little to disagree with in the reader's well-reasoned letter. The only thing I might wish to add in response to it has to do with the author's equating of what l referred to in the article as "paranormal beliefs" (astrology, UFOs,...

Outraged at Conway Morris's "Science".(Creation and Evolution Forum)
January 1, 2004... I read Simon Conway Morris's book excerpt (in Vol. 10 No. 3) with a growing sense of outrage. Apparently he used to be a scientist? Now it's hard to believe that he's ever even spoken to a scientist. His miscomprehension of the "selfish gene"...

Linguistic creationists.(Creation and Evolution Forum)
January 1, 2004... L. Kirk Hagen's "Creationism's Expanding Universe" (Vol. 10, No. 3) is an excellent heads-up to a disturbing trend among creationists towards publishing in the humanities and social sciences to sneak their agenda into the public school...

Smarter or better at test taking?(Smarter or Dumber Forum)
January 1, 2004... The Flynn Effect, explained by Robert Ehrlich in "Are People Getting Smarter or Dumber?" (Volume 10, Number 2), is that people are scoring better on intelligence tests in each of many recent generations. One explanation is that people are...

Why smart people believe people are getting smarter.(Smarter or Dumber Forum)
January 1, 2004... In their quest to list and analyze the underlying factors that cause smart people to believe in weird things and to assess whether we are getting smarter or "dumber" (SKEPTIC, Vol. 10, no. 2, 2003), Michael Shermer and Robert Ehrlich...

Do pesticides cause cancer? Another Skeptical Environmentalist examines the original sources.
January 1, 2004... SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO GO back to the original sources! This is almost a principle among skeptics when it comes to "paranormal" topics like ESP and UFOs because, it turns out, pro-paranormal writers have an unfortunate tendency to describe...

The pleasure of finding things out: why scientists do science.
January 1, 2004... SCIENCE IS A PERSONAL ACTIVITY. With very few exceptions, scientists throughout history have plied their craft not through a lust for glory or material reward, but in order to satisfy their own curiosity about the way the world works. Some have...

Educating believers: research demonstrates that courses in skepticism can effectively decrease belief in the paranormal.
January 1, 2004... "Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones." --Bertrand Russell, An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish, 1950 National polls consistently indicate...

Charioteer of the Gods: H.P. Lovecraft and the invention of ancient astronauts.
January 1, 2004... THE IDEA THAT EXTRATERRESTRIALS served as humanity's earliest deities came to popular attention with Swiss author Erich von Daniken's 1968 best-seller Chariots of the Gods and the influential 1973 NBC documentary based on the book, In Search of...

Was Einstein learning disabled? Anatomy of a myth.
January 1, 2004... MANY ORGANIZATIONS THAT PROMOTE THE interests of individuals with learning disabilities claim that Einstein had a learning disability, and this claim has become widely accepted. A review of biographical sources, however, provides little or no...

A solution to the dangers of teaching evolution in public schools: the creation-evolution continuum.
January 1, 2004... Editor's Introduction On November 1, 2003, a public school history teacher named Cheryl McDonald wrote to me about a serious situation that had developed at her school as a result of her teaching evolution. By way of introduction to...

The creation-evolution continuum: how to avoid classroom conflicts.
January 1, 2004... Many--if not most--Americans think of the creation and evolution controversy as a dichotomy with "creationists" on one side, and "evolutionists" on the other. This assumption all too often leads to the unfortunate conclusion that because...

The ten percent solution: anatomy of an education myth.
January 1, 2004... FOR MANY YEARS, VERSIONS OF A CLAIM that students remember "10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, 50% of what they see and hear, and 90% of what they do" have been widely circulated among educators. The source of...

Zeno's paradox and the problem of free will.
January 1, 2004... JOHN ANDERTON, THE PROTAGONIST played by Tom Cruise in Steven Spielberg's science fiction film Minority Report, finds himself in a nightmarishly paradoxical situation. As a policeman for the futuristic Pre-Crime office, Anderton relies on an...

The skinny on fat: a skeptical evaluation of the Atkins and other low carb diets.(Cover Story)
January 1, 2004... Editor's note. As we went to press with this issue the controversy over the death of Dr Atkins erupted upon the unauthorized release of documents indicating that he may have died not just of complication of a head injury from a fall, but from...

The skeptic meets CSI (Crime Scene Investigation): how far should artistic license go?(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2004... THE LEAD INVESTIGATOR BEGAN burning some residue from a human corpse "directly over gunpowder that still covered the body." That left Danny Thomas, former member of the Clarke County Fire Department "staring at his TV screen." Exclaimed...

The Christian and the Atheist.(The Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... The Christian and the Atheist A review of The Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life, by Armand M. Nicholi, Jr. Free Press, 2002. IF YOU WANTED TO CONTRAST the Christian and secular...

All You Need to Know About the Origin of Life.(Emergence of Life on Earth: A Historical and Scientific Overview)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... All You Need To Know About the Origin of Life A review of The Emergence of Life on Earth: a Historical and Scientific Overview; by Iris Fry, Rutgers University Press, 2000, 327 pp. The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding In all...

God in the Brain.(Why God Won't go Away: Brain Science & the Biology of Belief)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... God in the Brain A review of Why God Won't go Away: Brain Science & the Biology of Belief, by A. Newberg and E. D'Aquili, Ballantine Books, 2001, 226 pp. "Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters: Where God Went Wrong,...

Theological Emergency! Complexity, Emergence, and Design in Science and Theology.(From Complexity to Life: On the Emergence of Life and Meaning)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Theological Emergency! Complexity, Emergence, and Design in Science and Theology A review of From Complexity to Life: On the Emergence of Life and Meaning, edited by Niels Henrik Gregersen, Oxford University Press, 2003; 234 pages. ...

American Taliban: the Fundamentalist Threats Within Our Borders.(The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... American Taliban: The Fundamentalist Threats Within Our Borders The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America, Edited by Kimberly Blaker, New Boston Books, Michigan, 2003, ISBN 0-9725496-0-9 EVER SINCE TERRORISTS...

A Different Purpose-Driven Life.(The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... A Different Purpose-Driven Life. A review of The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? By Rick Warren. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 2002, 336 pp, ISBN# 0310205719. IN HIS MOST RECENT and bestselling book, The...

Empress Helena's Big Adventure.(The Quest for the True Cross)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Empress Helena's Big Adventure Review of The Quest for the True Cross by Carston Peter Thiede and Matthew d'Anconia, 2003, New York: Palgrave Macmillan; 205 pages, illustrations, notes, index IN THEIR FIRST BOOK, Eyewitness to Jesus...

Tutankhamun.(Brief Article)(Biography)
January 1, 2004... Once Upon A Time, a boy became king. When he took the throne, at about 9 years old, his nation had already been the most powerful and advanced nation on Earth for well over a thousand years. For ten years, this boy was the ruler of most of...

The quest for the king.(Biography)
January 1, 2004... Eventually, European nations began to dominate the world. By the dawn of the 20th century, when an Englishman named Howard Carter began his search for Tutankhamun's tomb, the British Empire was a global superpower at the peak of its might. ...

The tomb of King Tut.
January 1, 2004... After five years of backbreaking work, the project seemed to be a monumental failure. Morale was low and most Egyptologists thought that it was a waste of time and money. The search had become a target of ridicule--people dismissed it as the...

The murder of King Tut? A case far from closed!
January 1, 2004... So, how did Tut die? He died very young, even by the standards of his time. Was the young Pharaoh assassinated? It's become fashionable to assume so, particularly after the success of a 1998 book and TV documentary called The Murder of...

The mummy's curse!(Tutankhamun's tomb)
January 1, 2004... The sense of ancient ritual and mystery surrounding Tut's tomb quickly inspired rumors that it was protected by supernatural forces. Decades later, those rumors are still with us. According to the legend, an inscription near the tomb's entrance...

The Cartesian Lie Detector.(Bob Friedhoffer: madman of magic)
January 1, 2004... EFFECT Using "The Cartesian Lie Detector," you indicate the truthfulness of a volunteer's answers to your questions. PROPS * A liter-sized plastic soda bottle with the label peeled off, with its screw-on cap. * Water to fill...