Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

[Barry Karr <SkeptInq@aol.com>]

Skeptical Inquirer Electronic Digest, December 8, 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:

 --IVAN KELLY: Are Scientists Undercover Astrologers?
 --Evolutionary Biology Class Debates Michael Behe
 --NY TIMES: Stone Age Man is Hoax
 --COMP. THERAPIES IN ALT. MEDICINE: Occult and Alternative Medicine Beliefs

 --IVAN KELLY: ARE SCIENTISTS UNDERCOVER ASTROLOGERS?

 Are Scientists Undercover Astrologers?
 By Ivan W Kelly & Geoffrey Dean

 For the full article, go to
 <http://www.smitpotze.demon.nl/Astrology-and-Science/asuca.htm>
 Summary

 Some astrologers and sympathetic defenders claim that scientists are often
 engaging in astrological research under new labels. But to be astrological
 such research would have to involve birth charts, which is not the case.
 Conversely, astrology as practiced by astrologers would have to be
 scientific, which again is not the case. In effect their claim tries to
 obtain indirect support for astrology on the cheap. To paraphrase what
 Winston Churchill said of Mussolini, "Astrologers want Napoleon's victories
 without fighting Napoleon's battles." Are scientists undercover astrologers?
 Most definitely not.


 --EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY CLASS DEBATES MICHAEL BEHE

 From Massimo Pigliucci, Associate Professor
 Departments of Botany and of
 Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
 University of Tennessee, Knoxville
 TN 37996-1100 USA
 <http://fp.bio.utk.edu/skeptic>


 The transcripts of a recent online chat between my class of Advanced
 Evolutionary Biology and intelligent design theorist Michael Behe (author of
 "Darwin's Black Box") are available online at
 <http://fp.bio.utk.edu/skeptic/Chats/behe.html>

 --NY TIMES: STONE AGE MAN IS HOAX

 NY TIMES: Meet a 'Stone Age' Man So Original, He's a Hoax
 By HOWARD W. FRENCH
 FROM THURSDAY'S TIMES
 For the full text of the article, go to
 <http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/07/world/07JAPA.html>

 Since the unearthing of Stone Age tools was announced here in 1993,
 Tsukidate and its 16,000 inhabitants have been at ground zero of a giddy
 archaeology boom in Japan.

 --COMP. THERAPIES IN ALT. MEDICINE: OCCULT AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE BELIEFS


 Does experience of the 'occult' predict use of complementary medicine?
 Experience of, and beliefs about, both complementary medicine and ways of
 telling the future

 A. Furnham

 Complementary Therapies in Medicine
 p 266-275, Volume 8, Number 4, December 2000
 Abstract


 This study looked at the relationship between ratings of the perceived
 effectiveness of 24 methods for telling the future, 39 complementary
 therapies (CM) and 12 specific attitude statements about science and
 medicine. A total of 159 participants took part. The results showed that the
 participants were deeply sceptical of the effectiveness of the methods for
 telling the future which factored into meaningful and interpretable factors.
 Participants were much more positive about particular, but not all,
 specialties of complementary medicine (CM). These also factored into a
 meaningful factor structure. Finally, the 12 attitude to science/medicine
 statements revealed four factors: scepticism of medicine; the importance of
 psychological factors; patient protection; and the importance of scientific
 evaluation. Regressional analysis showed that belief in the total
 effectiveness of different ways of predicting the future was best predicted
 by beliefs in the effectiveness of the CM therapies. Although interest in
 the occult was associated with interest in CM, participants were able to
 distinguish between the two, and displayed scepticism about the
 effectiveness of methods of predicting the future and some CM therapies.
 Copyright 2000 Harcourt Publishers Ltd

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

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