SI DIGEST 2-9-98
SkeptInq@aol.com
Tue, 10 Feb 1998 09:04:45 EST
SKEPTICAL INQUIRER ELECTRONIC DIGEST
For free Digest subscriptions, go to:
http://www.csicop.org/list/index.html#subscribe
February 9, 1998
SI Electronic Digest is the weekly e-mail news update of the Committee for
the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP.)
Visit http://www.csicop.org.
The Digest is written and edited by Matthew Nisbet and Barry Karr. SI
Digest has over 1800 readers worldwide, and is distributed via e-mail from
the
Center for Inquiry-International, Amherst N.Y., USA.
PLEASE FORWARD TO YOUR SKEPTICAL FRIENDS.
For free Digest subscriptions, go to:
http://www.csicop.org/list/index.html#subscribe
(If you lack web browser access, e-mail: SINISBET@aol.com)
Send comments, media inquiries and news to:
SINISBET@aol.com
(716-636-1425)
CSICOP publishes the bi-monthly SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, The Magazine for Science
and Reason. To subscribe at the $17.95 introductory price, call 1800-
634-1610. The Jan/Feb issue features Claudio Benski on "Testing New Claims of
Dermo-Optical Perception."
In this week's SI Digest:
-- WWW.CSICOP.ORG Named Top 10 Science Web Site
-- PREVIEW: March/April SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Magazine
-- Jan/Feb NUTRITION FORUM Explores Dubious Supplement Marketing
-- How to Get PBS Firing Line's Creation vs Evolution Debate on Video
WWW.CSICOP.ORG NAMED TOP 10 AMONG SCIENCE WEB SITES
For Immediate Release
Contact: Matthew Nisbet 716-636-1425
WWW.CSICOP.ORG NAMED TOP 500 WEB SITE OF 1997
RATED TOP 10 AMONG SCIENCE SITES
The Web Source for Skepticism of the Paranormal and Pseudoscience
AMHERST, NY-- HOME PC magazine named www.csicop.org among the World Wide
Web's top 500 sites of 1997. The respected personal computing and technology
publication also rated the CSICOP website as among the top ten on the web for
science.
"Did aliens build the pyramids? Does alternative medicine work? Such claims
are critically investigated from a 'responsible, scientific viewpoint' on
these pages, which also host the Skeptical Inquirer Journal" writes HOME PC.
The CSICOP web site offers features and articles from the latest issues of
SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, The Magazine for Science and Reason. It also displays
articles from the Skeptical Briefs newsletter, as well as audio and visual
clips from recent CSICOP media appearances. The site archives past press
releases, weekly reports and timely announcements, and includes a skeptics
chat room and links and listings for an international network of skeptical
organizations and web resources.
"The media have now virtually replaced the schools, colleges and universities
as the main source of information for the general public. But the
irresponsibility of the media in the area of science and the paranormal
remains a worldwide problem. It is even a greater crisis in the 'new' media.
The Web has exploded with extraordinary claims. CSICOP's web site is meant as
an on-line guide for criticism of the paranormal and pseudoscience. It is an
integral part of CSICOP's campaign to promote critical thinking and reason"
says CSICOP chair Paul Kurtz.
CSICOP's website is visited daily by hundreds of researchers, members of the
media, and the internet curious. To read HOMEPC magazine's Top Ten Science
Sites go to:
http:\\techweb.cmp.com/hpc/websites/42web23.htm
—30—
CSICOP is an international, non-profit organization dedicated to the critical
examination and investigation of claims of the paranormal and fringe science.
Founded in 1976, CSICOP is always receptive to departures in thought, yet
insists that they be tested before they are accepted. The bi-monthly journal
the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, The Magazine for Science and Reason , is the main
forum for publication of these inquiries. Both CSICOP and the SKEPTICAL
INQUIRER are based at the Center for Inquiry, Amherst N.Y.
PREVIEW: SKEPTICAL INQUIRER MARCH/APRIL ISSUE
Contact: Matthew Nisbet 716-636-1425
To order call: 1800-634-1610 (US Only)
The March/April issue of SKEPTICAL INQUIRER returns to the repressed memory
debate, interviews famed writer Martin Gardner, explores the strange
friendship of Houdini and Conan Doyle, answers popular questions regarding
spontaneous human combustion and features Richard Dawkins on the "appetite for
wonder".
Special Report: The Price of Bad Memories
Elizabeth Loftus
The tide is turning in the repressed memory controversy--fewer individuals
are suing family members for alleged past abuse, and more are suing their
therapists for planting false memories.
Loftus is in the Psychology Department, University of Washington. She
coauthored The Myth of Repressed Memory (St. Martin's Press) and is president-
elect of the American Psychological Society.
ESSAY: Science, Delusion, and the Appetite for Wonder
Richard Dawkins
Science runs the gamut from the tantalizingly surprising to the deeply
strange. It is well qualified to feed our human need for wonder and mystery.
Dawkins is Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science
at Oxford University. A CSICOP Fellow and author of such books as The Blind
Watchmaker, River out of Eden, and Climbing Mount Improbable, Dawkins has a
special ability to write clearly about deep matters that invoke the awe of
science.
Houdini and Conan Doyle: The Story of a Strange Friendship
Massimo Polidoro
The fascinating tale of the Magician and the Knight. Illusionist Houdini and
author Conan Doyle were both profoundly attracted by spiritualism, and yet
their opinions were completely opposed.
Polidoro is head of research at CICAP (the Italian Committee for the
Investigationf of Claims of the Paranormal), author of various books dealing
with the critical examination of paranormal claims, and a graduate student in
psychology at Padua University. polidoro@aznet.it
A Mind at Play: An Interview with Martin Gardner
Kendrick Frazier
Prolific writer and author Martin Gardner overcomes his natural reclusiveness
to talk with SI editor Kendrick Frazier. Gardner founded the modern skeptical
movement with his 1952 classic Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science and
its sequels. He has entertained and informed generations of scientists with
his three decades of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN mathematics columns. Gardner helped
found CSICOP in 1976, and has written his "Notes of a Fringe-Watcher" column
for every issue of SKEPTICAL INQUIRER since 1983.
Spontaneous Human Combustion: Thoughts of a Forensic Biologist
Mark Benke
Paranormal proponents and popular articles are quick to attribute certain
dramatic fire-death characteristics to an unknown or bizarre power source, but
in all such deaths documented in forensic literature, there has been no need
to resort to bizarre interpretations to account for observed fact.
Benke works as a forensic scientist at the Institute for Forensic Medicine,
University of Koln, Germany, and at the Office of the Chief Medial Examiner,
New York City. benecke@compuserve.com
NUTRITION FORUM EXPLORES DUBIOUS SUPPLEMENT MARKETING
In an effort to keep skeptics up-to-date on the latest in the growing number
of unverified health claims, CSICOP alerts you to the following publication:
The Jan/Feb issue of NUTRITION FORUM explores the ethics of pharmacists who
push unproven supplements and dubious remedies, and examines the claims of
promoters of the superhormone DHEA. NF is a bi-monthly newsletter that tracks
the latest in nutrition claims. (Prometheus Books)
The Unethical Behavior of Pharmacists: How to Market Dubious Supplements and
Unproven Remedies
Stephen Barrett, MD
Most pharmacists who work in retail pharmacies have a serious potential
conflict of interest. On the one hand, they are professionals, expected to be
knowledgeable about drugs and to dispense them in a responsible and ethical
manner. On the other hand, their income depends on the sale of products.
Pharmacy schools teach that "nutrition insurance" is rarely needed, that
"stress" supplements are dubious, and that doses above the RDAs are seldom
appropriate, yet pharmacists seem content to sell supplements to people that
don't need them.
Barrett is a retired psychiatrist who resides in Allentown, PA. His 44 books
include The Vitamin Pushers: How the "Health Food" Industry Is Selling America
a Bill of Goods.
The Hyping of DHEA: Long on Claims, Short on Evidence
Beth Fontenot, MS, RD
It's in magazines, on store shelves, in the news, on talk shows, on the
Internet, and in books. Promoters promise youth and health to all who partake
of it. *It* is DHEA, a major steroid hormone secreted by the adrenal glands.
The advertisements for DHEA are filled with "research-backed claims" that
quote one prominent researcher after another and frequently misrepresent their
findings.
Fontenot is a nutrition consultant and freelance nutrition writer in Lake
Charles, LA. She serves on the adjunct faculty at both McNeese State
University, LA and Lamar University, TX.
To order NUTRITION FORUM call: 1-800-421-0351 or 716-691-0133 outside the
USA.
HOW TO ORDER PBS FIRING LINE'S CREATION VS. EVOLUTION DEBATE
In December, PBS aired an outstanding debate between proponents of
intelligent design versus defenders of evolution. A two-hour Firing Line
special, the program took place at Seton Hall University in South Orange,
N.J., before a student audience.
Host William F. Buckley, Jr., and his colleagues argued in favor of the
proposition,
"Resolved: The evolutionists should acknowledge creation." Joining Buckley
in the
affirmative were Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson, author of _Darwin on
Trial,
Reason in the Balance, and Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds; LeHigh
University biochemist Michael Behe, author of _Darwin's Black Box_; and David
Berlinski, whose Commentary article last year on the defects of evolution
generated considerable attention.
Opposing the resolution were CSICOP fellow Eugenie C. Scott, executive
director of the National Center for Science Education; Barry Lynn, executive
director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State; philosopher
Michael Ruse, author of _But Is It Science?_; and biologist Kenneth Miller of
Brown University.
To order copies of the debate, contact:
Firing Line
2700 Cypress
Columbia, SC 29205
1-803-799-3449
Show title: Creation and Evolution
transcript: $10
video tape: $49.50
--30--