Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

Volume 25, Number 2, March April

• Buy this back issue
• Darwin in Mind: 'Intelligent Design' Meets Artificial Intelligence
• What Can the Paranormal Teach Us About Consciousness?
• Notes of a Fringe-watcher: Distant Healing and Elizabeth Targ
• Investigative Files: Mysterious Australia
• Introducing Italy's Version of Harry Houdini
• Follow-Up: Research on the Feeling of Being Stared At

What's Wrong with the Information Argument Against Evolution?

Darwin in Mind
'Intelligent Design' Meets Artificial Intelligence
Proponents of "Intelligent Design" claim information theory refutes Darwinian evolution. Modern physics and artificial intelligence research turns their arguments on their head.
Taner Edis

A Bit Confused
Creationism and Information Theory
The argument of some creationists that modern information theory refutes Darwinian evolution is based on a confusion between two distinct information concepts. At the heart of the Darwinian thesis is not information, but complexity.
David Roche

Articles

What Can the Paranormal Teach Us About Consciousness?
Parapsychologists seem to assume that psychic phenomena-if they exist-would prove the "power of consciousness." Yet this may be no more than trying to use one mystery to solve another. Susan Blackmore reviews some of the evidence for psi and asks just what it does tell us about consciousness.
Susan Blackmore

Spontaneous Human Confabulation: Requiem for Phyllis
Examination of an oft-repeated tale of spontaneous human combustion reveals distortions, errors, and mystery mongering.
Jan Willem Nienhuys

Introducing Italy's Version of Harry Houdini
At the age of thirty-two, Italian paranormal investigator Massimo Polidoro is the author of half a dozen books, performs and lectures to capacity crowds across the globe, runs a national organization of Italian skeptics, and is a hit with the Italian media. A life that may seem very complex to most is very simple to Polidoro: he is merely leading a life inspired by his boyhood hero Harry Houdini.
Matt Nisbet

A Psychological Case Study of 'Demon' and 'Alien' Visitation
A clinical psychologist discusses a case of a depressed individual who misinterpreted hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations as visitations by demons and aliens. He came close to suicide, and even considered killing his family.
Andrew D. Reisner

Columns

Editor's Note

News and Comment

• Retired Air Force Balloon Expert Expands on Origin of 'Majestic 12' UFO Hoax
• L. Sprague de Camp: Erudite Writer on Archaeology, Ancient Engineering, and Pseudoscience (and Science Fiction Too)
• Aromatherapy Company Settles Lawsuit Disputing Health Claims
• Tabloid Busts Fox TV on Pyramid Special

Special Tribute to W. V. Quine
Paul Kurtz

Conference Report
Rousing World Skeptics Congress Convened in Sydney, Australia
Paul Kurtz

Notes of a Fringe-watcher
Distant Healing and Elizabeth Targ
Martin Gardner

Investigative Files
Mysterious Australia
Joe Nickell

Psychic Vibrations
The Great Chupacabra Conspiracy
Robert Sheaffer

Forum

• How to Live With Evolution
  Susan Bury

• Research on the Feeling of Being Stared At
  Rupert Sheldrake

• Robert Baker Replies to Sheldrake
  Robert A. Baker

• Fooling and Falling into the Feeling of Being Stared At
  Davis Marks and John Colwell

Science Best Sellers

Articles of Note

Letters to the Editor

Book Reviews

The Genesis Question: Scientific Advances and the Accuracy of Genesis
By Hugh Ross
Matt Young
[Shop for this book]

Humanist Manifesto 2000: A Call for a New Planetary Humanism
By Paul Kurtz
Mark Durm
[Shop for this book]

The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism
By Niles Eldredge
James C. Sullivan
[Shop for this book]

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