Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

[SkeptInq@aol.com]

 Skeptical Inquirer Electronic Digest, March 23, 2000

 Visit the CSICOP and Skeptical Inquirer Magazine website at
 http://www.csicop.org. Receiving over 200,000 hits per year, the CSICOP site
 was rated one of the top ten science sites by HOMEPC magazine. Send comments
 regarding SI DIGEST to editors Matt Nisbet at mcn23@cornell.edu and Barry
 Karr at skeptinq@aol.com.

 In this edition of SI DIGEST:

 --WASH. POST: Health Concerns Grow Over Herbal Supplements
 --NPR Talk of the Nation: Jared Diamond and Guns, Germs, and Steel
 --NPR Science Friday: The Consequences of Technology
 --The EDGE: Inteview with William Calvin on Consciousness

 --WASH. POST: HEALTH CONCERNS GROW OVER HERBAL SUPPLEMENTS

 For the full article, go to
 http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32685-2000Mar17.html

 By Guy Gugliotta
 Washington Post Staff Writer
 Sunday, March 19, 2000; Page A01

 [Mounting evidence suggests that increasing numbers of Americans are falling
 seriously ill or even dying after taking dietary supplements that promise
 everything from extra energy to sounder sleep. The victims include men and
 women of all ages as well as children whose parents are feeding them snacks,
 drinks and nostrums made with herbal supplements that are neither regulated
 by the federal government nor tested for their effects on the young. While
 the Food and Drug Administration issues periodic warnings about the dangers
 of individual supplements, no organization or agency has ever made a
 comprehensive analysis of the sickness and death associated with them. But
 in attempting the first national survey, The Washington Post collected
 statistical snapshots from health officials, researchers and advocates
 reaching almost every state in the country. Among the findings:...]


 --NPR TALK OF THE NATION: JARED DIAMOND AND GUNS, GERM, AND STEEL

 NPR Talk of the Nationa
 Thursday, March 23, 2000

 To listen to the program on RealAudio go to:
 http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnpd01fm.cfm?PrgDate=03/23/2000&PrgID=5

 Host: Juan Williams
 Book Club: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

 GUESTS:
 JARED DIAMOND
 *Professor of Physiology at the UCLA Medical School
 *Author, "Guns, Germs, and Steel:The Fates of Human Societies" - won 1998
 Pulitzer Prize (W.W. Norton, 1997/hardcover)
 *Recipient of the National Medal of Science Award

 JOEL MOKYR
 *Chair of the Economics Department and Professor of History at Northwestern
 University
 *Author of "The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic
 Progress" (Oxford University Press, 1990)

 How is it that European cultures came to dominate so much of the globe? Most
 people would say "guns." But uncovering the deeper answer to that question
 requires a comprehensive review of thirteen thousand years of human
 history-- which is exactly what scientist Jared Diamond accomplished. Jared
 Diamond will join host Juan Williams to discuss his Pulitzer-Prize winning
 book, "Guns, Germs, and Steel," on the next Talk of the Nation book club of
 the air, from NPR News.

 --NPR SCIENCE FRIDAY: THE CONSEQUENCES OF TECHNOLOGY

 Friday, March 17

 To listen to the RealAudio of the program, go to
 http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnpd01fm.cfm?PrgDate=03/17/2000&PrgID=5

 HOUR TWO: Consequences of Technology
 (14.4 | 28.8)
 This week, a leading computer technologist sounded a warning for his
 colleagues and the public to consider the unintended consequences of
 21st-century technologies--particularly robotics, genetics, and
 nanotechnology. In this hour, we'll talk about the quest for intelligent
 machines, how our relationship to computers is changing, and whether
 computers could ever threaten human existence.

 Guests:

 Bill Joy
 Co-founder and Chief Scientist
 Sun Microsystems
 Aspen, Colorado

 Ray Kurzweil
 Author, The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human
 Intelligence
 (Penguin Books, 2000)
 President
 Kurzweil Technologies
 Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts

 Sherry Turkle
 Author, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet
 (Simon and Schuster, 1995)
 Professor, Sociology of Science
 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 Cambridge, Massachusetts

 --THE EDGE: INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM CALVIN ON CONSCIOUSNESS

 COMPETING FOR CONSCIOUSNESS: How Subconscious Thoughts Cook on the
 Backburner
 A Talk by William H. Calvin

 For the full interview go to:
 http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/calvin/index.html
 Introduction by
 John Brockman

 [According to theoretical neuroscientist Bill Calvin, treating consciousness
 solely as awareness or attention greatly underestimates it, ignoring the
 temporary levels of organization associated with higher intellectual
 function. "The tasks that require consciousness," he says, "tend to be the
 ones that demand a lot of resources. Routine tasks can be handled on the
 back burner but dealing with ambiguity, groping around offline, generating
 creative choices, and performing precision movements may temporarily require
 substantial allocations of neocortex." Recently, Calvin has proposed "a
 specific mechanism (consciousness as the current winner of Darwinian copying
 competitions in association cortex) that seems capable of encompassing the
 higher intellectual function aspects of consciousness as well as some of the
 attentional aspects. It includes features such as a coding space appropriate
 for analogies and a supervisory Darwinian process that can bias the
 operation of other Darwinian processes." "Competing for Consciousness",
 derived in part from Calvin's 1996 book The Cerebral Code, is presented
 simultaneously on EDGE and as a plenary talk for the Tucson III
 consciousness forum.-JB The Talk...]

 --------------------------------

 SI Electronic Digest is the biweekly e-mail news update of the Committee for
 the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP.)

 Visit http://www.csicop.org/.

 Rated one of the Top Ten Science sites on the Web by HOMEPC magazine.

 The Digest is written and edited by Matthew Nisbet and Barry Karr. SI Digest
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 CSICOP publishes the bimonthly SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, The Magazine for Science
 and Reason.  The March/April 2000 issue features articles on "Vividness,
 Availibility, and the Media Paradox," "Physics and the Paranormal,"
 "Efficacy
 of Prayer," and "A Skeptical Analysis of Reverse Speech."

 To subscribe at the $18.95 introductory Internet price, go to:
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