Skeptic (Altadena, CA) articles from September 2007

Skeptic (Altadena, CA) archives from September 2007

'Twas Brillig ... Sam Harris and the question of PSI.(Critical essay)
September 22, 2007... OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS I HAVE BEEN ADVISED by several of my readers that my acceptance of Sam Harris--author of The End of Faith--might be unwise, not because of his writings about religion, but because of his apparent acceptance of some...

Curing the common cold.(The Skep Doc)
September 22, 2007... I HAVE A CARTOON PLAQUE, painted many years ago by my brother in a fit of creative zaniness, entitled "Milestones in Medicine: Dr. Harriet Hall Cures the Common Cold." It shows me masked and gowned for surgery, brandishing a chain saw. The...

A tribute to Don Herbert (Mr. Wizard): television's original science teacher.
September 22, 2007... A few hours after being the first person to receive the Committee for Elementary Science International's Science Advocate Award and a standing ovation from a thousand science teachers, Don Herbert was asked to pull a water-balloon into a...

Darwin v. Design: a report on the Discovery Institute's conference in Knoxville, Tennessee.(Charles Darwin)
September 22, 2007... IT WAS 9:00 IN THE MORNING WHEN I entered the Knoxville Convention Center on Saturday, March 24, 2007, for the Discovery Institute's conference on Darwin and Design. Attendance fluctuated throughout the day, but averaged an impressive 700-800...

Science education and belief in pseudoscience: good news--but the glass is still two-thirds empty.
September 22, 2007... IN 1985 I BEGAN COLLECTING BOTH my own data and other people's studies regarding the prevalence of pseudoscientific beliefs in both small samples, and in the public at large. At the time many found the results, which indicated these beliefs...

The Deepak delusion.(FORUM)(Deepak Chopra)(Letter to the editor)(Brief article)
September 22, 2007... I must say I was baffled by Deepak Chopra's review of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. It wasn't so much a book review as an open handed slap in the face directed at Mr. Dawkins and anyone who opposes allowing gut feelings being admissible...

Dawkins and religion.(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)(Brief article)
September 22, 2007... I was disappointed by the latest issue on Dawkins and religion, While a lot of effort was put into the question "Why is there religion?", that question doesn't provide enough guidance to gain deep understanding. I would postulate that asking...

The evolution of true friends.(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)(Brief article)
September 22, 2007... In "The Science of Friendship" (SKEPTIC, Vol. 13, No. 2) Mark Vernon worries that evolutionary psychology's explanations for friendship are simplistic and insulting because they attribute the making of friends to the "low motives" of...

The secret's mistaken physics.(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)(Brief article)
September 22, 2007... To counter The Secret's claim that "you've got enough power in your body to illuminate a whole city for nearly a week," consider a typical caloric intake of 2,000 Calories per day. In physical terms a Calorie is a kilocalorie or kcal. Typing...

What is superstition anyway?(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
September 22, 2007... While I enthusiastically share the general approach taken by Lindeman and Amio (Skeptic Vol. 13, No. 1) in their attempt to formulate a naturalist theory of superstition, I feel that the definition they propose is unacceptable because it would...

Pseudogenes: evidence for evolution?(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
September 22, 2007... In Tim Callahan's review of Monkey Girl by Edward Humes (SKEPTIC Vol. 13 No. 2), he notes that pseudogenes are "an effective proof of shared ancestry." Since pseudogenes are not subject to natural selection, they don't change greatly. Hence,...

Why this universe forum.(Letter to the editor)
September 22, 2007... Robert Kuhn's article in SKEPTIC Vol. 13, No. 2 ("Why This Universe"), is a wonderfully clear, thoughtful, and inclusive taxonomy, with enough comparison and discussion to make it more than just a taxonomy. Someone from an Eastern tradition...

Cosmos and coincidence: intelligent design theory fails to account for sub-optimal design.(Essay)
September 22, 2007... THE UNIVERSE'S BASIC CONSTANTS APPEAR free-tuned for life. For example, if the ratio between the strong and weak nuclear force were only slightly different, life would have been impossible. Many such coincidences exist. (1) Therefore, say...

Science and secondhand smoke: the need for a good puff of skepticism.(Report)
September 22, 2007... THERE IS NOTHING MORE POWERFUL THAN A lie whose time has come. Thus, the smoking bans. The experts proclaim that 63,000 Americans are killed yearly by secondhand smoke, more than the victims of AIDS, drank drivers, the Iraq war, and...

Clearing the air: what does science really say about secondhand smoke?(Report)
September 22, 2007... SECONDHAND SMOKE IS A BIT LIKE abortion and global warming: it invokes such strong emotions that it is difficult to view the evidence objectively. In his analysis of the subject (see preceding article) Sidney Zion is right about one thing:...

Mercury rising: exposing the vaccine-autism myth.
September 22, 2007... ON JUNE 11, 2007, NEARLY 5,000 PARENTS OF autistic children fried a lawsuit against the federal government, claiming that childhood vaccines (specifically the mercury-containing thimerosal in the vaccines) caused their children's autism. The...

The trouble with psychiatry.(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual)
September 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ONE MORNING IN JUNE OF 2005, WHILE EATING my breakfast flakes, I looked up in time to catch Tom Cruise being interviewed by Matt Lauer on the Today Show. This was supposed to be a promotional interview for his new...

Animals and medicine: do animal experiments predict human responses?
September 22, 2007... FRANKIE TRULL OF THE FOUNDATION FOR Biomedical Research has stated, "Every major medical advance of this century has depended on animal research," (1) and Dr. Wise Young, neuroscientist from Rutgers University has said, "There's never been a...

Contested testimony: in scientific disputes: the case of the origins of AIDS.
September 22, 2007... THERE IS MUCH EVIDENCE THAT, IN MANY domains of human life, lying and deception are ubiquitous. (1,2) Most children learn to lie quite successfully at an early age. It has been argued that certain types and levels of deception are selected in...

Double blind or double talk? Reading medical research with a skeptical eye.
September 22, 2007... ONCE UPON A TIME, NOT SO LONG AGO, A new drag was tested carefully by its manufacturer, demonstrated to be safe, and approved by the FDA. After it went on the market, people started reporting a lot of side effects. An independent researcher...

Bonobos, left and right: primate politics heats up again as liberals and conservatives spin doctor science.
September 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IMAGINE THAT YOU'RE A WRITER AND YOU have decided to offer your readers a first-hand account of the politically correct primate, the idol of the left, known for its "gay" relations, female supremacy, and pacific...

Burn Down the Thinkeries!(Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays)(Book review)
September 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A review of Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays by Frederick Crows, Emeryville, CA: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2006, 404 pp., $16.95. ISBN-10: 1593761015, ISBN-13:978-1593761011 IF THE GREEK PLAYWRIGHT Aristophanes...

Theodicy for atheists: the problem of evil in a Darwinian world.(Darwin Loves You: Natural Selection and the Re-enchantment of the World )(Book review)
September 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A review of Darwin Loves You: Natural Selection and the Re-enchantment of the World by George Levine, Princeton University Press, 2006. 336 pps. $29.95. ISBN 0-691-12663-1 CONCEIVABLY, IT WOULD BE good to have a...

A two part review of The Physics of Christianity.(Book review)
September 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Physics of Christianity by Frank Tipler. New York: Doubleday, 2007. 336 pp., $27.50. ISBN-10: 0385514247; ISBN-13: 978-0385514248. Blinded by Science? Part One: The Physics of Christianity Reviewed by a...

The physics of nonsense.(Critical essay)
September 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Part Two: The Physics of Christianity Reviewed from the Viewpoint of Biblical Scholarship DR. FRANK TIPLER REALLY, REALLY--no, I mean really--needs to take a basic, freshman course in comparative mythology. He...

Atlantis.(Brief article)(Photograph)
September 22, 2007... This idea that the world may once have enjoyed a golden age with advanced knowledge now lost and forgotten has been common for thousands of years. The Greek philosopher Socrates told of a lost civilization called Atlantis that was unmatched in...

Fire-bringer myths.(Brief article)(Photograph)
September 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Another common myth involves a god or hero who gave important wisdom or technology to humankind. In these out-of-this-world origin stories, many cultures imagined supernatural characters who brought their ancestors...

Eyes to the heavens!(Brief article)(Photograph)
September 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the summer of 1969, the world was mesmerized as human beings walked on the Moon for the first time. Imagine it! For people who've grown up in the years after that "giant leap for mankind" (as astronaut Neil...

Chariots of the Gods?
September 22, 2007... Within months of Neil Armstrong's first step onto the Moon, a strange book that claimed to explain the origin of civilization soared triumphantly to the top of the bestseller lists. Chariots of the Gods?, written by a Swiss author named Erich...

Arrival of the space Gods?
September 22, 2007... Chariots of the Gods? claims that several thousand years ago, at the dawn of human civilization, aliens landed on the Earth and interacted with humans. They might have been fairly ordinary creatures. (Imagine them as, say, working astronauts,...

A rich Swiss fondue.
September 22, 2007... Chariots of the Gods makes the argument that there is clear evidence of alien visitation in the distant past--and lots of it. This evidence is of basically two kinds. First, von Daniken claims that many ancient monuments, such as the...

Chariots of the Gods?(Brief article)(Photograph)
September 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SUPPOSES THAT PROOF OF ALLEN CONTACT CAN BE FOUND IN OLD LEGENDS AND STORIES-EVEN, IT TURNS OUT, IN FICTIONAL STORIES. VON DANIKEN ASKS, "WHAT DARING IMAGINATION INVENTED THE 'OPEN, SESAME!' INCIDENT IN THE TALE OF...

Who is this guy?(Erich von Daeniken)(Brief article)
September 22, 2007... Who is Erich von Daniken, the author who claims that almost everything ever discovered by archaeologists is wrong? Because he claims to know more than all the thousands of archaeological experts who dedicate their lives to the scientific study...

Poisoning the well?(Photograph)
September 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When talking about yon Daniken's ideas, his critics usually begin by pointing out that he's a three-time convicted criminal. In fact, he wrote the first sequel to Chariots of the Gods? while serving one of his prison...

A history of deception.(Brief article)
September 22, 2007... At one of his criminal trials, a court-appointed psychiatrist testified that von Daniken was "a master swindler," a liar, and a criminal psychopath. Looking at his past, it's easy to see a pattern of deceptive behavior... [ILLUSTRATION...

The caves of gold.(Brief article)
September 22, 2007... How good is the evidence for lost civilizations presented by von Daniken and other authors? Let's check out some specific claims one by one. We'll begin with a case that seemed at first like the best evidence ever presented for the existence of...

Enter Von Daniken.(Erich von Daniken)
September 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the 1970s, the old legend of the lost Caves of Gold reached a strange new climax. In a sequel to Chariots called Gold of the Gods, Erich von Daniken made the stunning claim that deep underground, far below" the...

Busted!(Brief article)
September 22, 2007... "To me this is the most incredible, fantastic story of the century," Daniken boasted. "It could easily have come straight from the realms of Science Fiction if I had not seen... the incredible truth in person." There was just one problem:...

A chain of lies?(Brief article)
September 22, 2007... Moricz said von Daniken was never there at all, and even von Daniken admitted the main scene in the book was fake. Why believe anything about this outlandish Caves of Gold story? We probably shouldn't. There are no pictures of the zoo or...

The priest's gold.(Brief article)
September 22, 2007... Or are they? Von Daniken claimed that an Ecuadorian priest named Father Crespi had a collection of gold artifacts from the cave system. Gold of the Gods includes many pictures of these objects. Von Daniken claimed "that the characters on these...

Why not simply go back?(Brief article)
September 22, 2007... If his claims were true, why would von Daniken let this controversy so badly damage his career, reputation and book sales? Why tolerate accusations of fraud when all he had to do was go back to the cave and get all the proof he needed? He...

The comic books in the rocks.
September 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the South American country of Peru, there is a mid-sized city called Ica. Tragically, Ica was devastated by a huge earthquake in August of 2007, from which it is still recovering. For decades before the quake,...

Pterodactyl riders?(Brief article)
September 22, 2007... We know Ica Stone pictures of people riding pterodactyls are unrealistic because the last pterodactyls went extinct millions of years before the first humans evolved. But it's so much fun to imagine that I wanted to find out: if they lived at...