Skeptic (Altadena, CA) articles from September 2003

Skeptic (Altadena, CA) archives from September 2003

The Skeptics Society.
September 22, 2003... 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?
September 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...

The Oregon no-Vortex.('Twas Brillig ...)
September 22, 2003... THE FAMOUS "OREGON VORTEX" is up for sale for $3.5 million. I've had a number of calls from the media asking how the mysterious gravitational and magnetic forces exhibited there can be explained. That's a little like asking me to explain how...

New resource guide to debunking astronomical pseudoscience.(News)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... A new annotated guide with over 200 skeptical resources about astrology, UFO's, moon hoaxes, faces on planets, crop circles, and other examples of "fiction science" is now available on the education web pages of the nonprofit Astronomical...

Infrasound as a possible source of sensations of the paranormal.(News)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... Recent research conducted by scientists at the National Physical Laboratory in England provides strong evidence that at least one source of paranormal phenomena may be the result of a very low frequency sound (in the range 10-20 Hz) inaudible...

Cell phones and ghosts.(News)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... According to Tony Cornell, of the Society for Psychical Research in England, mobile cell phones may be eradicating ghosts. When cell phones were introduced, Cornell explained, reports of ghost sightings began to decline. "Ghost sightings have...

Biologists produce position statement on alternative medicine by L. A. Chotkowski.(News)
September 22, 2003... The Empire State Association of Two Year colleges recently held a conference on "Junk Biology," to which I was invited as one of the main speakers. Other speakers included Stephen Barrett, M.D., nationally known expert on alternative medical...

Ig Nobel Prizes awarded.(News)
September 22, 2003... OCT. 2, 2003, CAMBRIDGE, MA. The 2003 Ig Nobel Prizes, honoring achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think, were awarded at Harvard University's historic Sanders Theatre tonight before 1200 spectators in a ceremony...

The big "bright" brouhaha: an empirical study on an emerging skeptical movement.(News)
September 22, 2003... In 1999 a Gallup poll inquired of Americans: "If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be an X would you vote for that person?" X represents Catholic, Jew, Baptist, Mormon, black, homosexual,...

Parents complain: Harry Geller ban out of control.(Demon Haunted Times: all the news that's not fit to print!)
September 22, 2003... LYNCHBURG, VA -- Parents of students at Gerry Callwell elementary held a rally yesterday to protest the school's new zero tolerance policy. Protesters explained that what started off as a simple ban against paraphernalia connected to the...

"Time Travel" fictions: Andrew Bernardin responds to critics.(Forum)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... In Vol. 10 No. 2 James Richmond critiques the three articles about time travel, including my own, which appeared in Vol. 10. No. 1. In addressing my piece, "Einstein, Barman, and the Surfer: A Skeptical View of Time Travel," Richmond offers a...

Roswell aliens not anthropomorphic dummies (but not aliens either).(Forum)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... In "A Roswell Requiem" (Vol. 10 No. 1), B.D. Gildenberg did an excellent job of summarizing the story of Project Mogul, as well as laying out the history of the Roswell crash stow, and the many inconsistencies therein. I would strongly...

More lost discoveries nonsense.(Forum)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... In his review in Vol. 10, No. 2 of Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science--from the Babylonians to the Maya, by Dick Teresi, Norman Levitt correctly pointed out one of the worst aspects of the book: Teresi's eternal preoccupation...

From Christian to skeptic.(Forum)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... I want to commend Susan Kawa who wrote a letter in SKEPTIC Vol. 10, No. 2 on her courage on becoming a skeptic. I have had a similar journey to reach a scientific/rational point-of-view, but my journey has perhaps been longer because I began...

From Muslim to skeptic.(Forum)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... Before I came across SKEPTIC and your skeptical books, I was a practicing Muslim, a self-taught student of classical and mainstream Islamic jurisprudence and theology. At the time, I tried to come across as a fairly liberal propounder of the...

Is the universe acausal, and does God exist?(Forum)
September 22, 2003... In the Vol. 10, No. 2 review of Taner Edis' The Ghost in the Universe, Ronald Ebert points out the author's deficiency in employing the consequences of quantum mechanics against cosmological/ontological arguments for the existence of God. I...

The Nostradamus of comics! Or the "Byrne Curse".(Forum)
September 22, 2003... In response to my Scientific American column on Michael Drosnin's Bible Code (June, 2003) in which he claims to have predicted 9/11, and his subsequent letter to the editor, published in the October issue (go to www.sciam.com to read any of the...

The science of Stephen Wolfram forum.(Forum)
September 22, 2003... Connecting Theory and Data Wolfram, Naiditch, and the Nature of Science David Naiditch's article "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Universe" (Vol. 10, No. 2) does a great job explaining how Stephen Wolfram's ideas are not unprecedented and how...

Blame it on the Jews: anti-Semitism and the history of Jewish conspiracy theories.
September 22, 2003... NOT LONG AFTER THE WORLD TRADE Center attacks of September 11, 2001, the Internet teemed with legends and rumors about the cause of the tragedy. An alarming number of these legends implicated Jews in the attacks. The American website...

A Devil's Chaplain.(the roles of waste and cruelty in natural selection)(Cover Story)
September 22, 2003... Darwin was less than half joking when he coined the phrase Devil's Chaplain in a letter to his friend Hooker in 1856. What a book a Devil's Chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works...

Towards a theology of evolution? Humans were inevitable on earth but we are alone in the Cosmos?
September 22, 2003... LET US SUPPOSE THAT I AM AN IMMENSELY successful biochemist, and happen to be engaged in experiments involving gene manipulation. A couple of years ago I was attending a conference--keynote speaker, naturally--when I fell into conversation with...

Inevitable humans? Or hidden agendas?(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... A review of Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe by Simon Conway Morris. (Cambridge University Press, 2003, 464 pp. "Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth"--P.B. Medawar (1969, p. 28) THE OPTIMIST SEES A GLASS...

Unmasking Darwin's Cathedral: it's not just about religion.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... A review of Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and The Nature Of Society, by David Sloan Wilson, The University Of Chicago Press, 2002; 268 pages, FROM THE MARK OF ZORRO TO SPIDERMAN, literature, film and comic books have exploited...

Is God in the equations?(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... A review of The Emergence Of Everything by Harold J. Morowitz, Oxford University Press, 2002. WHO AMONG US HAS NOT used the word emergence in philosophical debate without a clear definition of what we mean? I, for one, are guilty as...

Creationism's expanding universe: linguistics may be fundamentalism's backdoor into the public education system.
September 22, 2003... IF ONE THING IS APPARENT FROM THE PAST quarter-century or so of skeptical investigation, it is that pseudoscience has an uncanny ability to infiltrate any domain of rational inquiry. Virtually every discipline from astronomy to zoology now has...

Macroevolution and microcreationism: another flaw in intelligent design creationism.
September 22, 2003... A STANDARD TACTIC USED by creationists to attack evolution is to contrast microevolution (i.e., within species evolution, which they accept) with macroevolution (i.e., between species evolution, which they adamantly reject). Microevolution,...

Wiccans v. Creationists: an empirical study of how two systems of belief differ.
September 22, 2003... IN A 1991 BOOK ENTITLED The Creationist Movement in Modern America, (1) Frank Harrold and I ran through the gamut of explanations for why people believe in special creationism, or the belief that the Earth and life were created about 10,000...

"Who made it?" The Isaac Newton Orrery story: another mythic tale misused by creationists.
September 22, 2003... THE STORY QUOTED BELOW IS WIDESPREAD and exists in many print and Internet versions: Who made it? Sir Isaac Newton had a friend who, like himself, was a great scientist; but he was an infidel, while Newton was a devout Christian. They...

Belief and the nature of the divine.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... Review of Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, by Elaine Pagels. New York: Random House 2003, 241 pages, notes and index The subtitle of this intriguing book is somewhat deceptive, in that the Gospel of John is far more central to...

The Bermuda Triangle.
September 22, 2003... There is a place, it's said, where small boats, huge ships, and even powerful military aircraft sometimes sail out into calm, clear weather... and then just vanish. Without a trace. This is the dreaded Bermuda Triangle. Here, off the east...

The vanishing dollar bill.(Madman of Magic)
September 22, 2003... EFFECT A borrowed dollar bill vanishes. PROPS * Two small pill bottles. One must nest inside the other, not loosely enough to rattle around, but not too tightly. The large one should have a 1/16-inch hole drilled in the center of...