Skeptic (Altadena, CA) articles from June 2003

Skeptic (Altadena, CA) archives from June 2003

What is a skeptic?
June 22, 2003... 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...

Homeopathy, the French, psychic dreams, testing astrology, and numerology.('Twas Brillig ...)
June 22, 2003... A would-be applicant for the mullion-dollar challenge has written me, puzzled about the fact that I place homeopathic claims into the "paranormal" class, for purposes of the JREF challenge. I explained to him that homeopathic claims are...

Southern Bigfoot Convention draws criticism.(Demon Haunted Times)
June 22, 2003... CONSTERNATION, TX -- As the largest group of Bigfoot enthusiasts--the Southern Bigfoot Convention (SBC-prepares to kick off their annual meeting, other cryptozoologists are publicly speaking out against them claiming they are intolerant of...

Great Balls of Mystery! Is the slow rotation of this massive granite ball paranormal or normal?
June 22, 2003... On October 31, 2002 the Columbus Dispatch published a story about a rotating stone ball titled "Goodness, Gracious, Great Ball of Mystery." It was Halloween so it was reasonable to assume that causes other than the paranormal might be at work....

New Mexico has new holiday to honor Extraterrestrial Culture.(News)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... On Saturday, March 22, 2003, New Mexico Republican Representative Daniel Foley, who, appropriately, resides in Roswell, announced that New Mexicans can now celebrate every second Tuesday in February as "Extraterrestrial Culture Day" after the...

"Silver Fleece" Awards given for anti-aging pseudoscience.(News)
June 22, 2003... On March 14, 2003, the second annual "Silver Fleece" Awards, a lighthearted effort to make the public aware of anti-aging quackery, were announced at the joint Conference of The National Council on the Aging and the American Society on Aging by...

Evolution endorsed by Steves.(scientists named Steve)
June 22, 2003... On February 16, 2003 a first-of-its-kind statement on evolution signed by over 200 scientists was unveiled at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual convention in Denver, CO. The statement, sponsored by the National...

Dead silence: our experience at a "live" seminar with John Edward.(News)
June 22, 2003... JOHN EDWARD CAME TO OMAHA, NE, in November, 2002, and appeared before a crowd of approximately 2,500 people. Some had traveled from as far away as Kentucky to see "the man who speaks for the dead." The scene had a revival meeting feeling, but...

What's the harm? When psychic mediums serve as grief counselors.(News)
June 22, 2003... Here's my fantasy--I imagine I hear the voice of john Edward saying: "I am not a therapist or a grief recovery counselor. If you feel incomplete with a loved one who has died, please consult an expert in that area. I am an entertainer. Please...

Psychic dodge ball: the Sylvia Browne chronology.(News)
June 22, 2003... Sylvia Browne is one of most popular "spiritual mediums" in the country, thanks to television hosts Larry King and Montel Williams. Her claims are monumental. She "diagnoses" health problems, purports to communicate with the dead, and even...

Can science explain the Jesus miracle? Persinger responds to critics.(Science And The Resurrection)
June 22, 2003... Science, the Resurrection, and the Ludicrous Leap I don't know that I have laughed out loud before now at an article in what I consider to be a magazine that advocates critical thinking and reason. This is my response to Michael Persinger's...

Special time travel section.(Forum)
June 22, 2003... Time Traveling with Oedipus Rex In the article, "The Chronology Projector Conjecture," Michael Shermer neglects a possible consistent version of time travel. This is the case where the equations governing the evolution of the universe...

Letters: Rupert Sheldrake; open minds; Ockham's Razor; thought.(Forum)
June 22, 2003... Rupert is Wrong It would be hard to imagine anyone missing the point by much more than Rupert Sheldrake did in his article in Vol. 10, No. 1 claiming that "hard" sciences do not regularly conduct blind research. Using double blind...

How I reluctantly became a skeptic.(Forum)
June 22, 2003... I've been reading, steadily, the small library of skeptical books, and felt it was time to register some of my comments. I may represent the "average" convert from conventional thinking to skepticism and nontheism. I am a college graduate in my...

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya universe: Stephen Wolfram: a new kind of science--or a not-so-new kind of computer program?
June 22, 2003... IN MAY 2002, AFTER SPENDING A DECADE living as a recluse, the legendary Stephen Wolfram stepped into the public arena with the publication of a book promising to revolutionize the way we do science. For hundreds of years, scientists have...

Are people getting smarter or dumber?
June 22, 2003... IN MY DARK MOMENTS (usually after grading a physics exam), I sometimes wonder if there has been a general deterioration in human reasoning ability. Fortunately, on most days this feeling is fleeting. On other occasions when I am pleasantly...

Why smart people believe weird things.
June 22, 2003... "When men wish to construct or support a theory, how they torture facts into their service!"--John Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, 1852 During the month of April 1998, when I was on a lecture tour for the...

Can the media help science?
June 22, 2003... IS IT REALLY ESSENTIAL THAT THE PUBLIC understand science? Why not let scientists do their thing, and let the rest of the world get on with its business too? Unfortunately, in the modern world, that is a path we can ill afford to follow....

Mind over media: how the news legitimizes the paranormal and why it matters.
June 22, 2003... SCIENTISTS ARE "MAD," "DANGEROUS," "useless" twits, often plagued, and ultimately destroyed, by their insistence on reason. At least this is how skeptic William Evans believes they are portrayed by the entertainment industry. That is, if they...

Pious fantasies.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... A Review of Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science-from the Babylonians to the Maya, by Dick Teresi, Simon and Schuster, 2002. 453 pages. DICK TERESI'S LOST DISCOVERIES will probably flourish commercially because educators...

The ghost of God.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... A review of the Ghost in the Universe: God in Light of Modern Science, By Taner Edis, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002, 326 pp., $29.00, ISBN: 1-57392-977-8. IS THERE A GOD? MOST PEOPLE have grappled with this question at some time...

From scripture to space oddity.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... A review of Bible Code II: The Countdown by Michael Drosnin, Viking 2002, 292 pages, hardcover, $26.95. ISBN:0-670-03210-7. MICHAEL DROSNIN'S LATEST attempt to milk the so called "Bible Code" for its commercial possibilities opens with him...

Deus ex machinas, shamanism, and gonzo science for the digiterati.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... A review of Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the Border Between Science and Spirituality, by John Horgan, Houghton Mifflin, New York, 2003, 292 pages, $25.00, ISBN: 0-618-06027-8. YOU CANT FAULT THE PREMISE of John Horgan's new book:...

Mount Everest and the savage yeti.(50 Everest)
June 22, 2003... A HALF CENTURY AGO humans first reached the top of the world's highest mountain--a feat that remains one of history's most daring and spectacular human accomplishments. Just before noon on May 29th, 1953, two explorer, Edmund Hillary (from New...

An Englishman in Nepal.(Brian Houghton Hodgson)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... During the 1800s, European nations dominated many Asian countries and meddled in their political affairs. In 1832, when a biologist named Hodgson wrote the first article in Western literature to mention the yeti myth, India had been under...

Naming Everest.(50 Everest)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... As the Surveyor General of India, Englishman Sir George Everest spent decades creating amazing new maps of India and the Himalayas. After he retired, the Royal Geographical Society of London proposed that a certain mountain, then identified as...

The first tracks!(supposed yeti tracks, 1889)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... Over the next few decades, many Europeans spent time in the Himalayas, but few of them described encounters with hairy monsters. The next yeti milestone was the very first sighting, in 1889, of supposed yeti tracks by a Westerner: another...

A grey wolf?(50 Everest)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... By 1921 the yeti had become a popular mystery, and newspapers carried tales of the yeti alongside news of the great mountain climbers who were beginning to conquer the Himalayas. That year, while the first British Everest Reconnaissance...

What's in a name?(50 Everest)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... Newspaper coverage of the tracks found by Howard-Bury's 1921 Everest expedition included the first use of the name "abominable snowman." However, instead of "abominable snowman" (or 'filthy man of the snows'), the Nepalese words meh-teh kagmi...

The 1933 overflight.(Mt. Everest)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... On April 19th, 1933, in one of flight history's pioneering adventures, two specially modified biplanes successfully flew over the world's highest mountain. Although tourists now fly over Everest all the time, attempting it in 1933 was a daring...

A Nazi versus the yeti.(mountaineer Ernst Schafer)
June 22, 2003... Oddly enough, the history of the yeti has a Nazi connection. During the 1930s, a German scientist named Ernst Schafer spent years studying wildlife in and around the Himalayas. He conducted much of the early research on the giant panda, the...

The Shipton print the best yeti evidence.(mountaineer Eric Shipton)
June 22, 2003... The modern hunt for the yeti begins with the final push to conquer Everest in the early 1950s. The famous mountaineer Eric Shipton and his team were near the border of Nepal and Tibet, on the return journey of the 1951 Everest Reconnaissance...

Footprints.(possible yeti tracks)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... When considering if a track could belong to a yeti we need to think about how complicated footprints really are. Although people think of footprints as being accurate molds of feet, they're really better thought of as records of an event: feet...

Melting.(supposed yeti tracks)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... Very early in yeti research, people pointed out that tracks in snow expand as they melt. This effect has almost certainly some yeti tracks out of footprints left by wolves, bears, and even human beings. Also, tracks melt unevenly. Shaded parts...

Everest: the top of the world.(50 Everest)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... At 29,035 feet (5 1/2 vertical miles, or 8,850 meters), Mount Everest is the highest point on the surface of the globe. It reaches almost as high as the cruising altitude of modern jetliners. In the centuries that human beings have known...

The legacy.(results of fame generated by Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay)
June 22, 2003... One of the nicest things about the story of Hillary and Norgay's feat is what they did with their fame and fortune afterward. Hillary has spent the rest of his life working with the Sherpas to improve everyday life in their poverty...

The search for the yeti!(50 Everest)
June 22, 2003... The publicity surrounding the 1953 conquest of Everest focused attention on the footprint photographed two years previously by Eric Shipton. Around the world, people seriously speculated that the strange footprint had been made by a totally...

The Texas oilman.(Tom Slick's search for the Himalayan yeti)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... The Daily Mail expedition caught the attention of a flamboyant Texas oil millionaire named (strangely enough) Tom Slick. He was also influenced by a new book, On The Track of Unknown Animals, which laid out the foundations of what soon became...

Scalps and relics.(50 Everest)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... The only real victory won by the Slick expeditions was the discovery that various supposed yeti relic--skins, scalps and mummified hands--were kept at certain Buddhist monasteries. These items, some of them centuries old, were considered holy,...

The Hillary expedition.(Edmund Hillary)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... Sir Edmund Hillary himself led a yeti expedition that began in 1960. Sponsored by the World Book Encyclopedia, this expedition was meant to provide research material about high altitude medicine, and to follow up on the many tales of large,...

The yeti goes international!(50 Everest)
June 22, 2003... Governments in the Himalayan area have always had a conflicted relationship with the yeti. What is a government to do with an animal that might or might not even exists On the one hand, if it turned out to be real it would be a rare, amazing,...

Reinhold Messner's quest.(50 Everest)
June 22, 2003... Although it may seem that yeti hunting belongs in the past, there are still adventurers today who are intrigued by this great mystery. Of these, perhaps the greatest is a mountain climber named Reinhold Messner who recently spent ten years on a...

Is the mystery solved?(50 Everest)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... Probably! Although it's just barely possible that unknown animals are behind some yeti reports, it's clear that most reports were describing brown bears all along. The bears live in the same areas as yetis, act like yetis, and look like yetis....

Editorial: facing a grizzly.(50 Everest)(Editorial)
June 22, 2003... Growing up in bush-camps in Northern British Columbia, Canada, I'd seen many black bears, but, although I'd seen documentaries and Hollywood movies about grizzlies, I'd never seen a grizzly in the wild. Then, as a young man, I began my career...

The voice of the yeti!(Otherwise known as the "bullroarer")(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... EFFECT The bullroarer can drive people crazy with the strange buzzing noise it makes as you spin it. TO OPERATE IT Hold the free end of the cord or handle. Start to whirl the bullroarer around your head as shown. As soon as it...