Skeptic (Altadena, CA) articles from June 2005

Skeptic (Altadena, CA) archives from June 2005

The Omnitron is still with us.('Twas Brillig ...)
June 22, 2005... IN 1987, DOWSER DELL WINDERS AND I MET on a Fort Lauderdale beach to test his "Omnitron" device--a $3,495 wired-up dowsing rod machine that he was selling. I recently came upon the videotape of that session. Mr. Winders, who presently...

President Clinton reveals Roswell UFO secrets.(NEWS)(Interview)
June 22, 2005... In an interview with Lain Wozniak on September 14, 2005 for FinanceAsia.com, former President Bill Clinton offered these revealing observations about what really happened at Roswell, New Mexico. Wozniak: What really happened at Roswell?...

The IgNobel Prizes, 2005.(analysing IgNobel winners)
June 22, 2005... For all the exciting things that science has given the world--from penicillin to television to ridiculously tiny cell phones--the people working to advance our knowledge of the universe have developed a reputation for being a bit stodgy. The...

In memorial: Philip J. Klass: a UFO (Ufologist friend's obituary).(NEWS)(Obituary)
June 22, 2005... PHILIP J. KLASS, A CO-FOUNDER OF THE COMMITTEE for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and a friend and mentor to me, died on August 9 at age 85 following several years of declining health. Though best known...

Homeopathic placebo: a new study shows (again) that homeopathic medicines do not work.(risk factors of homeopathy)
June 22, 2005... THE AUGUST 26, 2005 ISSUE OF the highly-regarded British medical journal Lancet reported the results of a study that compared the findings from 110 homeopathy trials with the findings from 110 conventional medical trials. Entitled "The End of...

Harry Potter and the goblet of fear.(criticism of harry potter series)
June 22, 2005... The Harry Potter sensation continues its march into cultural history with the latest of the now six volume series shattering sales records previously broken by earlier Potter books. That success was repeated in the four movies based on the...

Young Earth Creationists of the world unite!(Intelligent design)
June 22, 2005... Report on the Mega Creation Conference, Lynchburg, VA, July 18-22, 2005 With the intelligent Design (ID) proponents sucking up all the anti-evolution oxygen these days, it is easy to forget that the Young Earth Creationists (YEO are still...

Intelligent design and Hurricane Katrina.(laws of physics)(Brief article)
June 22, 2005... Those who propose ID as a substitute for a supplementary mechanism to evolution, and say that an IDer (i.e., God) is needed to explain or fine-tune certain aspects of organic evolution have placed themselves in an unenviable position. The IDer...

The truth is out there ... about 9/11.(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2005... I would gently remind George Case who wrote the article in Vol. 11, No. 4 on conspiracy theories that once in awhile they turn out to have merit. Using 9/11 conspiracy theories as an example it should first be pointed out that the official...

The mind's own brain.(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2005... In his article "How the Human Got its Mind" (SKEPTIC, Vol. 11, No. 4), Henry Schlinger tries to dismiss the idea that humans have minds. I do not think that the idea of the mind is going to go away. Schlinger argues that everything we think of...

Derrida, Newton, Einstein, and Hawking.(Death of Philosophy/Derrida Forum)(Critical essay)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2005... Though I enjoyed L. Kirk Hagen's article on Derrida ("The Death of Philosophy," SKEPTIC, Vol. 11, No. 4, 2005), I was disturbed by some implications regarding recent academic philosophy that might prejudice the leas informed reader. ...

Demonizing Derrida and deconstruction.(Death of Philosophy/Derrida Forum)(Critical essay)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2005... In his dismissal of Derrida, L. Kirk Hagen demonstrates a thorough and ironic misunderstanding of deconstruction--thorough in the sense that it could hardly be more wrong, and ironic in the sense that as a scientist Hagen is especially...

The origin of alien faces: examining Malmstrom's template: exploring errors and options in abductees' experiences of alien faces.
June 22, 2005... In "Close Encounters of the Facial Kind" (Vol. 11 No. 4), Frederick Malmstrom argues that an explanation behind the consistency of alien facial features (e.g. large eyes, slender nose) may be that abductees are drawing upon the influence of an...

More on cholesterol forum.(total cholesterol)
June 22, 2005... Cholesterol, Statins, and Mortality: A Skeptical Look Harriet Hall, M.D., takes Marshall Deutsch, Ph.D., to task for using mixed data from developed countries and undeveloped countries to show that low serum total cholesterol (TC) levels...

Doubting Dr. Dino's doubter forum.(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2005... Kent Hovind's $250,000 challenge for proof of the evolutionary hypothesis ("Doubting Dr. Dino," SKEPTIC, Vol. 12, No. 1) is unanswered, but that does not prove his claim that the hypothesis is religious. The fact that Hovind offered the...

The enigma of coral castle.
June 22, 2005... THERE IS A CASTLE NEAR MIAMI, FLORIDA, made entirely of huge blocks of limestone. It is claimed that a single man built it alone, using only simple hand tools. (1) The man's name was Edward Leedskalnin (1887-1951). Born in Latvia, he received...

Al gone awry: the futile quest for artificial intelligence.(neuroscience research to achieve artificial intelligence)
June 22, 2005... On March 24, 2005, AN ANNOUNCEMENT WAS MADE in newspapers across the country, from the New York Times (1) to the San Francisco Chronicle, (2) that a company (3) had been founded to apply neuroscience research to achieve human-level artificial...

Meeting the man with the camera brain: the curious case of Ted Serios.
June 22, 2005... WHILE I DIDN'T EXACTLY SOAR EFFORTLESSLY through my teens and twenties, seizing the day and welcoming every sunrise and whatnot, life still unraveled mysteriously and with a charming lack of purpose. And then, at thirty, I wandered into a...

The Dover decision: a stunning blow against intelligent design creationism--how the Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District trial unfolded.
June 22, 2005... ON NOVEMBER 4, 2005, AFTER 40 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF testimony, the first evolution-Intelligent Design trial of the 21st century drew to a close in Federal court in Harrisburg, PA. While evolution trials in the 20th century had focused more on...

The illusion of design.
June 22, 2005... THE WORLD IS DIVIDED INTO THINGS that look as though somebody designed them (wings and wagon-wheels, hearts and televisions), and things that just happened through the unintended workings of physics (mountains and rivers, sand dunes, and solar...

ID and SETI: can intelligent design be considered scientific in the same way that SETI is?(Intelligent design and search for extraterrestrial intelligence)
June 22, 2005... "Some things have to believed to be seen."--Ralph Hodgson ONE OF THE MOST UBIQUITOUS RHETORICAL devices used by "Intelligent Design" (ID) theorists in support of their ideas is the argument from analogy with human designs and endeavors....

The other intelligent design theories: intelligent design is only one of many "alternatives" to Darwinian evolution.(proponents of intelligent design)
June 22, 2005... THERE IS RICH IRONY IN HOW THE PRESENT battle over Creationism v. Darwinism has taken shape, and especially the ways that this round differs from previous episodes. A clue to both the recent success--and the eventual collapse--of "Intelligent...

No case at all.(Book review)
June 22, 2005... A review of The Case for a Creator. A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Towards God. By Lee Strobel. Grand Rapids, Mi: Zondervan, 2004, 337pp. $16.99 ISBN-0310241448 IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR FINELY nuanced argument...

Science without borders.(comparing science and religion)
June 22, 2005... The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Morgan Road Books/Random House. 2005, 209 pp. $24.95 ISBN: 0-7679-2066-X. IN A 1987 LECTURE IN PASADENA, CA, on "The Burden of...

9/11: a date that will live in infamy.(Book review)
June 22, 2005... A Review of The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 by David Ray Griffin. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2004, 249 pp, $15.00, ISBN 1-56656552-9 DAVID RAY GRIFFIN'S FANCIFUL tale of Bush...

Creationism by any other name.(Intelligent design)(Movie review)
June 22, 2005... A review of the film The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe INTELLIGENT DESIGN (ID)--basically the old "argument from design"--dresses itself up in technical jargon in order to acquire a thin veneer of scientific...

Dawn of the Aquarian age.(Book review)
June 22, 2005... A review of The Cult of Alien Gods: H. P. Lovecraft and Extraterrestrial Pop Culture, by Jason Colavito, Prometheus Books, 2005, 398 pp. $19.00, ISBN: 1591023521 WHEN I WAS A NEW STUDENT IN high school in Garden Grove, a Southern...

Political Science.(Book review)
June 22, 2005... A review of The Republican War on Science, by Chris Mooney. Basic Books, 2005, 342 pp. $24.95, ISBN: 0-465-046-754 SIXTY YEARS AGO, SCIENCE emerged dramatically from its ivory tower, with a flash and a bang. Even before Hiroshima, a...

Pyramid power.
June 22, 2005... Have you ever heard that pyramids have mysterious powers? Is there something about their shape that generates supernatural forces or focuses a powerful energy field? In the 1970s, a far-out New Age fad called "pyramid power" swept through...