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Cuando los escépticos alimentamos al monstruo
La Bestia del Mar, en el ‘Tapiz del Apocalipsis’ de Angers. / Kimon Berlin Hay en España un programa de televisión que desde hace más de diez años funciona como un gigantesco aspersor de...
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Skeptics Can Be Conned Too: An Interview with Maria Konnikova
Photo by Thomas Hawk Maria Konnikova has the kind of quietly commanding presence and eloquent speech that makes you want to record her every word and play it back in case you missed something. Which...
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Consensus: Could Two Hundred Scientists Be Wrong?
The recent publication of a book about neuroscience’s most famous amnesia patient—known for decades only as H.M.—has stirred up a controversy in the world of science. On August 3, 2016, the New York...
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“That Doesn’t Mean It Really Happened”: An Interview with...
Elizabeth Loftus is the expert on bad memories. Not the sort of bad memories like your first boyfriend dumping you. The sort of bad memories created when a therapist convinces his client that, as a...
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The Challenges of Science Communication: An Interview with Kevin Folta
Kevin Folta is a professor and chairman of the horticultural science department at the University of Florida. He is known for his work with strawberries and how light can be used to influence produce...
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Scoping the Sciences
As the evidence piles up supporting climate change, the battle over the science in public arenas portrays a false sense of scientific controversy. Scientific misunderstanding is not climate change...
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Pseudorelatos sobre el chupacabras
La mayoría de la gente da por sentado que el chupacabras, como sus hermanos Piegrande y Nessie, apareció hace décadas o siglos. Sin embargo, como lo trato en mi libro Tracking the Chupacabra: The...
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Return of the Grief Vampire Tyler Henry
August 2016 is upon us. Yes, I know that you are all thinking: What could be so important about that month other than the birthday of the Amazing Randi? Happy eighty-eighth, Randi! Well in case you...
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From TAM to CSICon: An Interview with Ray Hall and Katie Dyer
Ray Hall and Katie Dyer are professors at California State University, Fresno, Ray in physics and Katie in child and family science. For years, Ray has worked behind the scenes for the James Randi...
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Alabama School Panic: Is ‘Clown Lockdown’ the New Normal?
by Celestia Ward Over the past week schools throughout Alabama have been threatened by several people claiming to be clowns. Responses to the threats—many of them originating (or shared) on social...
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Fifteen Minutes of Skepticism: The Sunday Papers, An interview with Jay Diamond
Jay Diamond is known on the West coast for his unending enthusiasm for scientific skepticism as well as his San Francisco speaker series and activist group, Reason 4 Reason. Jay also presented a...
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A Questionable Letter of Recommendation for Ear Candling
The New York Times Magazine has published a remarkable article by Kathryn Jezer-Morton: a letter of recommendation for ear candling. It is part of a regular series of “Letters of Recommendation” that...
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How to Talk about Conflict of Interest
HBO, via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MepXBJjsNxs Scientists and the modern scientific process have taken quite a beating over the past few weeks. First, the New York Times reported (based on a...
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Skeptical Community Mourns the Loss of Robert Todd Carroll
By Sgerbic - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link Robert Carroll, philosopher, CSI Fellow, and prominent skeptic widely known for his online Skeptics Dictionary, died from pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer...
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Don’t Fear a Franken Public
In January 2016, Campbell Soup generated headlines by announcing that it would voluntarily label its products containing genetically modified (GM) corn, soy, beets, and other crops. Like most food...
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The Keeper of the Skeptic’s Dictionary: An Interview with Robert Todd...
From The Skeptic’s Dictionary, Volume 15, No.5, May 2016: “It would probably be more fashionable to go out with a bang rather than with a whimper, but at this time, this is as good as it is going to...
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Theresa Caputo: The Fake Long Island Medium
Theresa Caputo, a self-proclaimed psychic whose Italian origins are quite evident (she was born Theresa Brigandi), has been a celebrity for quite some time now thanks to her reality TV show Long...
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Gallows Ghosts? Mystery at Brisbane’s Tower Mill
Figure 1. Brisbane’s historic Tower Mill is reportedly haunted. (Sketch by Joe Nickell) According to The Ghost Guide to Australia (Davis 1998, 224), one or perhaps both of the ghosts of two...
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Stick It In Your Ear! How Not To Do Science
Have a sore throat? No worries! No need for lozenges, medicines, or home remedies. All you need to do is let someone stick needles in your ear! According to a recent study, ear acupuncture relieves...
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The Screening Test that Caused an Epidemic
There is a worldwide epidemic of thyroid cancer. South Korea has been hit the hardest; in 2011, the rate of thyroid cancer diagnoses was fifteen times what it was in 1993. There have also been...
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