Retreating to the Church of Anti-Vaccination
Australian Media and Politicians Taking Steps to Stamp Out Pseudoscience It’s been a month of interesting times for anti-vaccinationists in Australia, with a slew of commentary, media campaigns,...
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Bath and a Nap: Sound Bathing at the Integratron
The greatest thing about a sound bath is that it is perfectly acceptable to fall asleep during the procedure. Packed with forty or fifty people into a small, domed room in the California desert—a room...
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The Parameters of Pseudoscience
The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe. By Michael D. Gordin. University of Chicago Press, Illinois, 2012. ISBN: 978-0226304427. 304 pp. Hardcover, $29....
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The Life of Death
Hamlet and his father's Ghost by Henry Fuseli (1741–1825) More humans have died than you will ever meet, see, or learn about. Since our split from the apes, Earth has been littered with the detritus...
View ArticleHerbs Are Drugs
Herbal supplements are big business. In the United States alone, 2011 sales of all herbal products were estimated to be $5.3 billion (Blumenthal et al. 2012). Meanwhile the industry has managed to...
View ArticleInvestigating Plagiarism in New Age Books
I recently uncovered rampant plagiarism in a HarperCollins title The Element Encyclopedia of Vampires: An A–Z of the Undead, “written” (more accurately “cut-and-pasted-from-the-Internet”) by Theresa...
View ArticleThe Downing of Flight 800—The Conspiracy Theory I Believed
In the fall of my junior year at college, the investigation into the crash of TWA 800 was still underway. I was spending the year in Toledo, Spain and living with a local family as an exchange...
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Blame the Victim, But Get a Bentley
Think hard by Mutiara Karina A neuron fires. Then another. An electrochemical cascade surges across your cerebral cortex. If we had brain scanners advanced enough, we could tell that this neuronal...
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How Much Do You Love Science? Interview with Elise Andrew
Elise Andrew is a U.K. blogger, social media specialist, science communicator, and webmaster. She is the founder and maintainer of the Facebook page “I F****** Love Science,” which as of June 2013,...
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The Most Adorable Mandible
Let's be honest for a second; skeptics are oddballs. The level of rational thought skeptics demand of themselves and others is categorically aberrant. Skeptics proudly adorn themselves in science...
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Help! I’m Being Followed by Ancient Aliens!
A dwelling of the ancient Sinagua people in the Coconino National Forest. The Palatki site is located in the Coconino National Forest, just west of Sedona, Arizona. In a region where people can visit...
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When All of Us Are Nostradamus
Are you Psychic? By C. P. You open up the morning paper to check the obituaries. With a shaking hand, you read what you’ve been dreading all along—your own name. Your number is up; your fate is...
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Ideas and Insights, Inquiries and Investigations
A Lively CSICon 2012 Nashville Eyes Latest Trends in Science, Pseudoscience, and Belief NOTE: CSICon3 is only 3 months away! Join us for CSICon3 October 24-27, 2013, part of the CFI Summit, a joint...
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Failure to Replicate Results of Bem Parapsychology Experiments Published by...
Two years ago the prepublication release of a research paper by psychologist Daryl Bem claiming experimental evidence for precognition created a worldwide media stir and intense controversy within...
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An Indian Test of Indian Astrology
Indian astrologers claim they can tell a person’s intelligence from his or her horoscope. But twenty-seven astrologers failed to perform better than chance when given forty horoscopes of...
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Do You Believe In Magic? Interview with Dr. Paul Offit
This is the week that it was announced that Jenny McCarthy was joining the popular daytime television show “The View” in the USA. We can take some comfort in the fact that backlash about her...
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Treatise on Invisible Beings
Allegedly invisible entities—popular belief notwithstanding—are indistinguishable from imaginary beings. Popular belief aside, the best scientific evidence indicates that entities that are reputedly...
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Clear and Fear: Scientology Under Review
Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief By Lawrence Wright. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2013. ISBN: 978-0-307-70066-7. 432 pp. Hardcover, $28.95. Beyond Belief: My Secret Life...
View ArticleOver-reliance on Science
Science is great, one of the best processes humans have come up with. It has everything to do with how we live long, productive, healthy lives. It is not, however, the be-all and end-all method of how...
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Sandy Hook School Shooting: The Adam Lanza Death Certificate Conspiracy
Q: Is there any chance you could put my mind at ease and explain why the Social Security Death Index would list [Sandy Hook shooter] Adam Lanza as having died on December 13, 2012, the day before the...
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