Skeptic (Altadena, CA) articles from June 1999

Skeptic (Altadena, CA) archives from June 1999

'Twas Brilling...(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... Observations on a Bizarre World RANDI COMMENTS... KANSAS JOINS THE 16TH CENTURY We've all heard that Kansas has made a huge leap into the 16th century by deciding to officially disavow evolution, while the rest of our species...

DUMBTH NEWS.
June 22, 1999... From This is True RABBIT TEST John Issa was ordered by a Painesville, Ohio, court to submit a urine sample for a drug test before his sentencing on a theft conviction. The test showed he was pregnant. The court, which could have given...

A SKEPTIC IN THE TRENCHES.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... For a pilot episode for the new skeptics' television series Exploring The Unknown for the Fox Family Channel, SKEPTIC magazine publisher Dr. Michael Shermer walked on 1000-degree hot coals barefoot, and strapped himself into a motorcycle helmet...

DOES POLLEN ANALYSIS SAY THE SHROUD OF TURIN IS PRE-8TH CENTURY?(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... A NEW ANALYSIS OF POLLEN GRAINS AND PLANT IMAGES on the Shroud of Turin is said to place its origin to Jerusalem before the 8th Century. This latest study gives a boost to those who believe the shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus and seems to...

NOREEN RENIER'S LATEST "PSYCHIC SLEUTH" TRIUMPH.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... Florida "psychic detective" Noreen Renier, whose involvement in the Williston Police case (see SKEPTIC, Vol.5, No.4, 1997, 52-57), made national news, has surfaced again. This time, although the local police would not work with a "psychic," the...

CREATIONISTS "FIVE YEAR PLAN" TO "REMOVE" RADIOISOTOPE DATING.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... IN A REVEALING AUGUST 1999 LETTER TO HIS FUNDAMENTALIST FLOCK, Institute for Creation Research President John D. Morris, wrote: Greetings from your fellow laborers here at the Institute for Creation Research. Wouldn't it be wonderful to...

AOL POLL ON PRAYER AND HEALING.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... AOL POLL ON PRAYER AND HEALING It's not exactly science, but it is an interesting take on the mass users of America Online with regard to prayer, faith, and healing. The ...

ANOTHER FALSE MEMORY VICTORY.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... On Monday, June 22, in San Jose, CA, a jury awarded a woman $200,000 in damages in a case that involved a therapist who convinced her that she had killed an infant and had been raped by a satanic cult. The award might have been higher but the...

RELIGION PRIZE LARGEST IN WORLD.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... In May of this year the world largest cash prize was awarded for the greatest contribution to "progress in religion." Whereas the Nobel Prizes in the sciences last year were $978,000 each, the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion this year...

MUMMIES & SKEPTICS AT CALTECH.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... On Sunday, June 13, 1999, in Caltech's Baxter Lecture Hall, the "Mummies of Urumchi" visited the Skeptics Society at Caltech through the photographs and narrative of Occidental College archaeologist and textiles expert Dr. Elizabeth Wayland...

SCIENCE MEETS PSEUDOSCIENCE.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... THE 1999 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SCIENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS SOME YEARS AGO WHILE WORKING FOR THE LATE CONGRESSMAN GEORGE BROWN, Chairman of the Science and Technology committee, I often had to screen constituents who sought an audience...

NEWS OF THE END OF THE WORLD.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... WWW.ENDOFTHEWORLD.COM Here's a Web site no self-respecting skeptic should be without: http://www.armageddonbooks.com Blatantly encouraging people to capitalize on millennial fears this site explains: We're about to enter what...

WORLD SURVIVES THE END NOSTRADAMUS WRONG AGAIN.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... According to The Adelaide Advertiser, in an article by Ayala Goldmann of Kassel, Germany, the world has once again survived another Nostradamus doomsday prediction, this time with July or August, 1999 dates. Goldmann writes: With time...

ADDITIONAL PREDICTIONS OF DOOM AND THEIR REAL OUTCOMES INCLUDE:.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... EDGAR CAYCE: The "sleeping psychic" from Kentucky put himself into hypnotic trances then tuned in telepathically to the minds and bodies of faraway people, diagnosed ills and prescribed remedies. He also looked into the future: Look for severe...

SOMETHING TO CROW ABOUT.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... THE CENTER FOR MILLENNIAL STUDIES THIRD ANNUAL CONFERENCE BATS A THOUSAND IF YOU'RE READING THIS, you're probably an owl. I know what you're thinking: Who, me? Yes, you. The Center for Millennial Studies says so. The CMS is an...

DONATION REQUEST.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... Here in Morocco the Skeptical movement is practically unknown. No books or magazines containing a skeptical viewpoint appear anywhere, not for sale or in libraries. If anyone has back issues of SKEPTIC magazine, or copies of books by James...

EVOLUTION OF CREDULITY FORUM DEBATE.
June 22, 1999... CREDULOUS OF CREDULITY Parejko's article on "Selection for Credulity" (SKEPTIC, Vol. 7, #1) was both interesting and offensive. Parejko presents no evidence that credulity is directly related to heritable traits, and his artide increases...

THE GOD FORUM CONTINUES.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... GOD AS A DEFENSE MECHANISM I enjoy the articles and debates regarding the existence or nonexistence of God that have been featured in SKEPTIC. However, it seems to me that a belief in God is the ultimate defense mechanism, and this defense...

MORE ON JFK.
June 22, 1999... POSNER AND GERLICH No SKEPTICS I'm not sure what angers me more--that Posner is so often disingenuous, if not dishonest, about the facts of the JFK assassination, or that SKEPTIC so credulously parrots his misrepresentations. Nick...

FC FORUM CONTINUES.
June 22, 1999... STILL AWAITING ANSWERS ON FC GORMAN RESPONDS TO CROSSLEY Rosemary Crossley claims to have defended Facilitated Communication in her reply (Vol. 7, #1) to my article "Facilitated Communication in America: Eight Years and Counting," (Vol. 6,...

PR INDUSTRY & SCIENCE FORUM DEBATE.
June 22, 1999... SIANO IS PAINFULLY CORRECT Regarding Brian Siano's analysis of the PR industry and science (Vol. 7, #1), I am painfully aware that many of my colleagues have become part of the "cult of the expert," wherein special interests use any Ph.D....

SUN, STAND THOU STILL.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... LET MYTH BE MYTH & SCIENCE BE SCIENCE MAKING THE ROUNDS ON THE INTERNET during the spring of 1999 was the claim that "scientists" (usually associated with NASA, JPL, or some major university), through recent and meticulous calculations,...

THE MAKING OF A FREUD SKEPTIC.(Interview)
June 22, 1999... AN INTERVIEW WITH FREDERICK CREWs Frederick Crews was born in Philadelphia in 1933, and has spent most of his adult life in California. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Yale University, publishing in 1957 his prize-winning...

WHAT'S WRONG WITH EXTREMISM IN POLITICS.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE MEET AT THE MILLENNIUM THERE IS SOMETHING APPEALING about the claim that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice and moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue; and the late Barry Goldwater is deservedly...

"Th-Thats all Folks!".(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD...AGAIN GOOD OLD JERRY FALWELL HAS INFORMED US THAT THE ANTICHRIST IS ALIVE AND WELL and putting the finishing touches on his end-of-the-world schtick. At a conference in Tennessee recently, the irrepressible...

APOCALYPSE NEVER.
June 22, 1999... THE SEARCH FOR IMMORTALITY As MILLENNIAL PHENOMENA THE HUMAN YEARNING TO LIVE FOREVER IS AN ANCIENT LITERARY theme, usually delivered with a castor-oily dose of warning: immortality is for the gods, not men. Greek mythology tells of the...

THE ALPHA & THE OMEGA.
June 22, 1999... The Creation and the End in Biblical Eschatology YEARS AGO I WON A CREATION-SCIENCE MAGAZINE contest. My prize was Henry Morris's book The Revelation Record, which deals with the last book of the Bible and the end of the world. It makes a...

THE FIRE THAT WILL CLEANSE.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... MILLENNIAL MEANINGS AND THE END OF THE WORLD We, while the stars from heaven shall fall, And mountains are on mountains hurled, Shall stand unmoved amidst them all, And smile to see a burning world. Millerite hymn, 1843 On a brisk...

CELESTINE PROFITS.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF JAMES REDFIELD AND THE CELESTINE PROPHESY CHANCES ARE YOU OR SOMEONE you know has read The Celstine Prophesy. Since the book's publication in 1993, it has sold at an imposing clip, catapulting its author, James...

SOMETHING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE MILLENNIUM.(Brief Article)(Review)
June 22, 1999... ONE CHRISTIAN'S PERSPECTIVE ON THE MILLENNIUM A review of End-Time Visions: The Road to Armageddon? By Richard Abanes. 1998. Published by Broadman & Holman Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee by arrangements with Four Walls Eight Windows, New...

EVERYTHING You WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE END OF THE WORLD.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... The End of the World: An Annotated Bibliography, by Tom McIver. ISBN: 0-7864-0708-5. 398 pp. indexes. $55 library binding. 1999, McFarland Publisher, www.mcfarlandpub.com. Available at Amazon.com and Armageddon Books (www.armageddonbooks.com)....

THE FARCE BENEATH THE FACE OF CREATIONISM.
June 22, 1999... A Review of The FACE That Demonstrates the Farce of Evolution by Hank Hanegraaff, Foreword by Phillip E. Johnson, 1998 Nashville: Word Publishing, 240 pages HANK HANEGRAAFF is the president of the Christian Research Institute (CRI), a...

FOR HATE OR MONEY?
June 22, 1999... Review of Gerald Posner, Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Random House, 1998, ISBN:0-375-50082-0.447 pages. $25.00. POLITICS MAKES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS, to be sure, but there can be few...

PHYSICIAN AS PRIEST AND COUNSELOR.
June 22, 1999... A review of Medicine in the English Middle Ages by Faye Getz, Princeton University Press, 1998, 174 pp. THIS IS A BOOK FOR THE SERIOUS student of medieval English medical history. It covers a time span of 700 years from 750 to 1450. The...

PLUCKED IN SPACE.
June 22, 1999... A review of Little Green Men, Christopher Buckley, Random House, 1999, hardcover, 300 pp., $24.95/$34.95 Cdn., ISBN 0-679-45293-1 CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY'S Little Green Men, the story of a television host who becomes the poster boy for the...

THE FEARFUL ANGELS OF OUR NATURE.
June 22, 1999... A review of The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things, by Barry Glassner. New York: Basic Books. 276 pp., $25.00 LONG BEFORE HE PENNED THE BOOK that justified laissez faire capitalism, Adam Smith became the first...

THE BIG MED 10.
June 22, 1999... A review of Medicine's 10 Greatest Discoveries by Meyer Friedman, M.D. and Gerald W. Friedland, M.D. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.263 pages. ISBN 0-300-07598-7 In 1543, AT THE AGE OF 29, Andreas Vesalius shook the medical world...

HOW HERBS WORK.
June 22, 1999... A review of Physicians' Desk Reference For Herbal Medicine. First Edition. The Information Standard for Complementary Medicine, Medical Economics, Montvale, New Jersey, 1244 pages, $59.95. THE DIETARY SUPPLEMENT HEALTH and Education...

The History of Halloween.
June 22, 1999... The roots of Halloween go back to ancient Roman festivals where sacrifices, prayers and food were offered to honor the dead. When the Romans occupied Celtic Britain many of these activities became mixed with the Celtic new year celebrations....

A Gallery of Useful Ghosts.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... Ghosts haunt people's imaginations all around the world. This collection of colorful spirits filled widely different needs for the people who invented them. ZAR (a kind of genie) a demanding spirit who attacks women. The spirit will depart...

THE BIGGEST TOUGHEST NASTIEST MONSTER AROUND.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... HOW HALLOWEEN HELPS US DEAL WITH FEAR HOW FEAR CAN BE FUN HAVE YOU EVER HAD FUN BEING AFRAID? Do you like to tell ghost stories or go trick-or-treating? One Halloween I took my four year old to a neighborhood haunted house. He seemed...

THE SEANCE.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... Who do you need a Medium to Talk To The Dead? Suppose you came back as a ghost and wanted to contact someone you had loved. Would you choose to speak to them only through a complete stranger? Suppose you found that you were capable of...

GHOST OR HOAX?(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... Ghosts don't leave fingerprints but people pretending to be ghosts do! Here's a fingerprinting experiment to help find the culprit behind the broken dishes or rattling chains: You'll need: * A stamp pad * A piece of white paper...

HOW TO HAUNT A HOUSE.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... People love haunted houses. They are fun for the haunters as well as the hauntees. Haunting a house takes a lot of planning and it will be helpful if you have a few assistants hiding in the dark to help create the haunting effects. One very...

ALIEN AUTOPSY.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... Have fun and make your very own alien autopsy cake! It's great for a Halloween party or your birthday. My friends and I had a wild time dissecting my chocolate alien cake made with a glass alien head (sold in novelty stores as piggy bank), a...

A MILLENNIAL CONTRACT.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1999... ONE NEED NOT live in the Bible Belt, as I do, to be subjected to the fevered pronouncements from the "saved" that the world is coming to an end. In the spirit of high-minded public service and low-minded private humor, I offer a solution to all...