Clik here to view.
Skeptical Ambassador
Sometimes we become so embroiled in our own affairs that we forget there are skeptic and humanist allies all over the world and things to see that underscore our causes. And so I was reminded on a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monster Catfish: Investigating a Whopper
For its fourth season, the popular television show Monster Fish, on the cable channel National Geographic Wild, asked for my opinion of an old photograph depicting a humongous catfish—one estimated to...
View ArticleTaking Back Skepticism
Skepticism is at the heart of the scientific method. Genuine skeptics don’t come to conclusions until they’ve considered the full body of evidence. That’s why it took many years for the scientific...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fake Turin Shroud Deceives National Geographic Author
When a great magazine like National Geographic speaks, the world naturally listens. We were especially glad this is so when—for its March 2015 cover article, “The War on Science”—it cited such attacks...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Are Skeptics Psychic?
It might seem odd to choose a hotel full of skeptics to be the subject of a test of psychic ability, but then again, who’s to say that skeptics themselves aren’t endowed with such talent—one perhaps...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sylvia Browne’s FBI File: Examining Her Alleged Detective Work and a Federal...
During Sylvia Browne’s decades-long career offering psychic readings and doing television appearances, she made numerous claims about working with law enforcement to solve crimes. In an age before the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Crazy Beliefs, Sane Believers: Toward a Cognitive Psychology of Conspiracy...
Where do conspiracy beliefs come from? Recent behavioral research suggests that they do not reflect pathology or lazy thinking but may instead come from normal, rational minds. As part of its...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Do People Believe in Gods?
Rationalists have found the ubiquity and persistence of belief in the supernatural hard to satisfactorily explain. Recent psychological research uncovering a universal, innate, adaptive tendency...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Founding of NMSR: A Look Back after Twenty-Five Years
New Mexicans for Science and Reason (NMSR) has been proudly on its own for twenty-five years. But it had its origin in a national and even international movement to help spread science-based...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Facilitated Communication: The Fad that Will Not Die
Many readers will remember facilitated communication (FC). Back in the early 1990s, a new treatment came rushing onto the scene making promises that were enormously attractive to parents of children...
View ArticleThe New Pope Saints
On April 27, 2014, two former popes—John XXIII (Angelo Roncalli, 1881–1963) and John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla, 1920–2005)—were made saints of the Roman Catholic Church. As such, they are believed to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Behind the Magic: An Interview with James Randi
James Randi is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Formerly a professional stage magician (“The Amazing Randi”), he began to use his considerable experience in illusions and...
View ArticleOrganized Skepticism: Four Decades ... and Today
To begin, I want to take you back to just over forty years ago, the year 1974. (For readers barely born then, I apologize; I need to give some historical perspective about organized skepticism, but...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Physician Wallace Sampson, Expert on False Medical Claims, Dies at Eighty-Five
The skeptical community has lost a shining star. On May 25, 2015, Wallace Sampson, MD, died in California at the age of eighty-five from complications of heart surgery; he had been in the hospital...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Alien Lights? At Phoenix, Stephenville, and Elsewhere: A Postmortem
Investigations show that famous nighttime “alien light” sightings were all due to objects in the sky, but not the extraterrestrial spacecraft UFO enthusiasts imagined. At around 8:30 on the night of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When Don’t the Highly Educated Believe in Evolution? The Bible Believers Effect
Among those who believe the Bible is the word of God, those with more formal education are less likely to believe in human evolution than those with less education. Democrats and Republicans differ in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dillinger’s Ghost and Hoover’s Vendetta against G-Man Purvis
Not since Jesse James, had a bank robber attained such a Robin Hood image. Although there were other “public enemies” of the Depression Era—such as “Pretty Boy Floyd” and “Baby Face” Nelson—John...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Has Science a Problem?
As skeptics, we value ideas that are grounded in science over those that come from somewhere else. We believe that the methods of science, when conscientiously applied, produce the best available...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dr. Pierce: Medicine for ‘Weak Women’
In the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, alleged cures for “female weakness” were among the nostrums marketed by quacks. Apparently these were sold with the realization that women...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fortean Frog Falls: Facts and Fallacies
In 2014, I wrote a piece about the classic Fortean phenomenon of mysterious objects falling from the sky. Here’s an excerpt: For millennia, people have reported a rare and strange phenomenon: a sudden...
View Article