Skeptic (Altadena, CA) articles from September 1999

Skeptic (Altadena, CA) archives from September 1999

MILLION DOLLAR MADNESS.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... EVER SINCE THE JREF began offering the million-dollar prize to any and all of the wonder-workers out there who think they have special powers, or would like us to think they do, there appears to have been a concerted effort to avoid that reward...

BREATHARIANS BREATH THEIR LAST.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... According to Entertainment Today, October 22, 1999, the death of a 49-year old woman in Scotland in September brought to 23 the number of no-food, no-water, "breatharian"-diet followers of Australian guru Ellen Greve who have died of starvation...

WACO: THE RULES OF REPORTING.
September 22, 1999... Dan Gifford (SomFord@worldnet.att.net), Executive Producer of the Oscar nominated documentary film Waco: The Rules of Engagement, and a speaker at the Skeptics Society Caltech debate on Waco, made this observation with regard to the latest...

REINCARNATION 4.1.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... Watch out James Van Praagh. You've got digital competition. It appears that making contact with the afterlife has gone digital. Lynn Svevad, an inventor in Holland, Mich., has patented a computer program called "Forever By My Side," and with...

DENNIS LEE'S FREE ELECTRICITY.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... Eric Krieg, President of PhACT (Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking) sends us the following: An ex-convict by name of Dennis Lee is mid way through a nationwide 45-city tour to raise money and public awareness for his endlessly...

REAL LIFE X-FILES RESEARCH.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... SHUT DOWN According to Andrew Brownstein of the Albany Times Union, August 25, 1999, the University at Albany has shut down the research of a psychology professor probing the "X-Files" world of government surveillance and mind control. At...

HOWARD STERN A REINCARNATED LESBIAN IN EGYPTIAN HAREM.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... Hypnotherapist and past-life regressionist Dr. Bruce Goldberg says that in his previous life Howard Stem was a lesbian in charge of Pharaoh's harem. Goldberg, author of Past Lives-Future Lives (Ballantine) and 10 other books on hypnosis and...

"BIBLE CODE" DEBUNKED BY JOURNAL THAT INTRODUCED IT.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... THE FOLLOWING REPORT WAS RELEASED on September 10 by Richard Ostling, AP Religion Writer. NEW YORK (AP) An international team of statisticians is debunking the controversial "Bible code," which claims the Old Testament has hidden references to...

THE 9TH FIRST ANNUAL IG NOBEL AWARDS SERVE UP SCIENCE-FLAVORED FUN.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... THE IG NOBEL COMMITTEE MUST HAVE BEEN HUNGRY when they picked their list of 1999 winners. Consider these finalists: Optimal cookie-dunking techniques; a sociological study of Canadian doughnut shops; tea-brewing instructions. Why, there's a...

IG NOBEL PRIZES AWARDED AT HARVARD.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... SOCIOLOGY: Steve Penfold, of York University in Toronto, for doing his Ph.D. thesis on the sociology of Canadian donut shops. REFERENCE: http://www.yorku.ca/dept/histarts/grad_cv/penfold.htm[less than]spen fold@yorku.ca[greater than] ...

COLORADO A VICTORY FOR SCIENCE.
September 22, 1999... By a unanimous 7-0 vote, the Board of Education of the Poudre School District (Fort Collins, Colorado) Monday night, October 25, 1999, declared that Liberty Common School (LCS) had breached its contract as a charter school when the latter...

PROFESSORS FIGHT BACK AGAINST CREATIONISTS.
September 22, 1999... The following article about scientists in Michigan fighting back against Creationists includes quotes from SKEPTIC magazine advisory board member Dr. Greg Forbes, who notes the proper place for religion in schools. Friday, October 22,...

A DEFEAT FOR CREATIONISM.
September 22, 1999... According to a report filed by Michael Janofsky on October 9, 1999, bucking recent changes in Kansas and other states that allow public schools to teach alternative views of human development, the New Mexico Board of Education voted...

FIRST EVOLUTION, NOW GEOLOGY GOES.
September 22, 1999... WICHITA, KS, Aug. 21 (UPI)--The publisher of a Kansas history textbook is removing a chapter on state geology and paleontology after the State Board of Education voted to allow schools to stop teach evolution. The non-profit Grace Dangberg...

SKEPTICS' FORUM.
September 22, 1999... PERSPECTIVES "My wife and I were recently traveling by train to Los Angeles. We each brought a magazine or two to peruse on the way. She noted with amusement that our publication choices were from considerably different perspectives, as...

CLONING FORUM.
September 22, 1999... IN DEFENSE OF SEED Michael Shermer's editorial, "Only God Can Do That?" in Vol. 7, no. 2, was refreshingly positive in contrast to the sea of negative views of human cloning in the press. I agree with all his substantive positions, but,...

THE GROUP SELECTION CHIMERA.
September 22, 1999... "It is necessary to affix right ideas to words."--Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794 Sisyphus' boulder has rolled back down the hill. Legislators in Kansas have promoted Creationism and authors in SKEPTIC have promoted Group Selection...

SOCIETY AS ORGANISM.
September 22, 1999... A GROUP SELECTION PRIMER AND REPLY TO HARTUNG Readers whose knowledge of group selection is confined to the pages of SKEPTIC must be amazed at the bits of information and misinformation, flying like shrapnel amidst insults and allusions to...

CAN WE MAKE A DEAL, JOHN HARTUNG?
September 22, 1999... Innuendo ad hominem has no place in a discussion as important as one that concerns the evolutionary roots of human nature. I hope that SKEPTIC readers will disregard Hartung when he implies that his opponents are misguided do-gooders trying to...

FIGHT FIRE WITH.
September 22, 1999... After wildfires scorched 500,000 acres in Florida last summer, the governor asked a task force for recommendations to keep it from happening again. Their conclusion: 1) controlled burns to remove dead brush is "one of the best methods" to avoid...

THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND.
September 22, 1999... The Texas Commission for the Blind is charged with helping the visually impaired get jobs. But a federal probe has shown the Commission has violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. The problem? The Justice Department says the Commission...

THE FOOLS, THE MONEY, AND THEIR PARTING.
September 22, 1999... British bookmaker William Hill says more and more people are betting that the world will end soon. "One man placed one pound [about US $1.60] on a 1,000,000-1 bet on the world ending on August 11.. .at 12:50 p.m.," a spokesman said. "We gave...

I TOLD YOU SO.
September 22, 1999... Linda Stewart, 39, was upset that her new husband smoked in bed. "According to her, he had fallen asleep the night before and left a cigarette burning, and it burned a small area on the bed," said Detective Mickey Jones. "So she said she was...

MARTINI, STRAIGHT UP.
September 22, 1999... Apparently trying to figure out how to drink booze without leaving breath odors, some Finnish girls have come up with a...well...unique way to imbibe. Tapio Jaakkola, the executive director of the Irti Huumeista drug and alcohol center in...

WRONG WAY.
September 22, 1999... Berkeley County, WV has too many streets with similar names, which can cause delays during emergencies. So it is renaming 450 streets. But people on Beaver Ridge Road are upset with the replacement name for their street: Big F Park Road. "It...

DUH BOAT.
September 22, 1999... A survey by the American Society of Travel Agents of its members has revealed the most-asked questions about cruise ship vacations. "Can I fish off the boat?" is fairly common, as is "If I don't like it, can I get off?" But one of the most...

SAGAN AND SKEPTICISM.
September 22, 1999... A REVIEW OF TWO RECENT SAGAN BIOGRAPHIES DURING THE FINAL QUARTER OF THE 20TH CENTURY, Carl Sagan (1934-1996) was the world's most prominent scientist. He well deserves the two long, narrative biographies that have just appeared by...

THE MEASURE OF A LIFE.
September 22, 1999... CARL SAGAN AND THE SCIENCE OF BIOGRAPHY WHAT IS THE MEASURE OF A LIFE WHEN IT IS GONE? A newspaper obit? A magazine story? A potted television biography? How shall we capture the essence of that life? A list of accomplishments? Highlights...

When Satan Came to Texas.
September 22, 1999... A Study in a Satanic Panic Witch Craze SOME FOLKS IN THE SMALL BUSTLING TOWN OF GILMER, TX, county seat of Upshur, say that Satan came to town in 1992 and wreaked his havoc. Others say that it was not Satan, but only a mix of lust,...

PENIS PANICS.
September 22, 1999... THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PENISSHRINKING MASS HYSTERIAS IT SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING from a poor B movie. It might even make the 1978 cult film Attack of the Killer Tomatoes seem plausible. I'm referring to scares where communities are swept up in the...

THE MAD CASSER OF BOTETOURI COUNTY.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... PHANTOM ASSAILANTS & THE MADNESS OF CROWDS HISTORY IS REPLETE WITH EPISODES of collective delusion, during which substantial numbers of the members of a community are convinced that they have been attacked by a nonexistent assailant. These...

THE GODMAN OF INDIA.
September 22, 1999... SEX, LIES AND VIDEO TAPE IN THE SATYA SAI BABA STORY WHEN A LUMINESCENT BALL OF LIGHT ENTERED Easwaramma while she was bathing, little did she, or Pedda Venkappa Raju, her illiterate husband, realize that the Lord had chosen her surrogate...

THOUGHT FIELD THERAPY.
September 22, 1999... STILL SEARCHING FOR THE QUICK FIX "IT IS BEYOND AMAZING. I have never seen any treatment so powerful.... It is extraordinarily powerful, in that clients receive nearly immediate relief from their suffering and the treatment appears to be...

EYE MOVEMENT MAGIC.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... EYE MOVEMENT DESENSITIZATION AND REPROCESSING A DECADE LATER WHILE STROLLING THROUGH A PARK ONE DAY, Francine Shapiro noticed that certain of her troubling thoughts suddenly lost their distressing qualities. Curious about what had happened,...

EXTRASENSORY POWERS OR SIMPLE PROBABILITIES?
September 22, 1999... IDENTIFYING PHOTOS IN OPAQUE ENVELOPES If three photographs showing common situations or items are sealed in opaque envelopes, and if 25 people gathered in the same room can see the sealed envelopes but have no idea what the photos depict,...

TESTING PSI & PSI-MISSING.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... WHEN INVESTIGATING group results of extrasensory performance, most researchers find chance results (Kurtz, 1985, 508-9). However, a discrepancy exists, as some parapsychologists consistently find results that statistically vary from chance....

ETs MAY BE OUT THERE... BUT HE SAYS THEY'RE NOT HERE.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... AN INTERVIEW WITH PHILIP J. KLASS, THE WORLD'S LEADING UFO SKEPTIC Invited to take part in an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) panel discussion on UFOs some 33 years ago, Washington aerospace journalist Philip J....

ANATOMY OF NONSENSE.
September 22, 1999... CAROLINE MYSS AND HOLISTIC MEDICINE EVALUATED PHILOSOPHER PAUL KURTZ, in his masterful book The Transcendental Temptation, identified two traits common to all types of supernormal thinking: (1) All varieties of magical thinking thrive when...

THE FAUSTIAN BARGAIN.(Review)
September 22, 1999... A review of The Golem at Large: What You Should Know About Technology by H. Collins and T. J. Pinch, 1998, Cambridge University Press. pp. 160 $24.95. ISBN: 052-155-1412. IN JEWISH LEGEND THE GOLEM was a humanoid created by cabalistic...

DOUBLE VISION.(Review)
September 22, 1999... A review of Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell Us about Human Behavior by Nancy L. Segal (New York, NY: Dutton, 1999) 396 pp. Hardcover. $27.95. ISBN 0-525-94465-6. IN 1875 CHARLES DARWIN'S cousin, Sir Francis Galton, inaugurated the...

NAZI MEDICINE.(Brief Article)(Review)
September 22, 1999... A review of The Nazi War On Cancer by Robert N. Proctor. (Princeton, NJ: University Press, 1999) 371 pp. Hardcover. $29.95. ISBN 069-100-1960. ROBERT ROCTOR, AUTHOR of Racial Hygene: Medicine under the Nazis, presents some startling new...

ET PHONE ME.(Brief Article)(Review)
September 22, 1999... A review of Captured by Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe, by Joel Achenbach. 1999. Simon and Schuster. $25.00. pp. 399. ISBN: 684-84856-2 IN THE WEE HOURS of the morning of August 8, 1983, I was abducted by...