Home : Skeptical Inquirer magazine

Volume 28, Number 5
September/October 2004

• Buy this back issue
• Can the Sciences Help Us to Make Wise Ethical Judgments?
• The Columbia University 'Miracle' Study: Flawed and Fraud
• The Campeche, Mexico 'Infrared UFO' Video
• Lady Homeopathy Strikes Back . . . But Science Wins Out
• Review: What the #$*! Do We Know?

Articles

Can the Sciences Help Us to Make Wise Ethical Judgments?

Scientific knowledge has a vital, if limited, role to play in shaping our moral values and helping us to frame wiser judgments. Ethical values are natural and open to examination in the light of evidence and reason.

Paul Kurtz

The Columbia University 'Miracle' Study: Flawed and Fraud

The much-hyped Columbia University prayer study was flawed and suspicious from the start but now has been fatally tainted with fraud and scandal.

Bruce Flamm

'Teach the Controversy'

An Intelligently Designed Ruse

In their quest to have Intelligent Design theory included in educational curricula, proponents have rallied behind a specious strategy, exhorting school boards to "teach the scientific controversy" surrounding the issue of evolution.

Robert Camp

The Campeche, Mexico 'Infrared UFO' Video

Mysterious objects filmed by the Mexican military in March 2004 created a flurry of excitement and strange claims. A new analysis from a respected expert suggests that the images have a prosaic explanation-despite premature dismissals by skeptics and believers alike.

Robert Sheaffer

The Anthropic Principle and the Big Bang: Natural or Supernatural?

A Simple Probabilistic Answer

A vast literature is devoted to discussion of the anthropic principle. This article offers a simple discussion of the anthropic principle in Bayesian probabilistic terms. While it intentionally simplifies the problem, it demonstrates that interpretations of the anthropic principle based on the hypothesis of its supernatural origin can be refuted on simple probabilistic grounds.

Mark Perakh

Alternative Medicine and the Biology Departments of New York's Community Colleges

A Survey

Chiropractic is increasingly being integrated into-and legitimized by-community college science departments, an association that confuses science-based academic biology with a field rife with pseudoscientific and antiscientific practices.

Frank Reiser

Labyrinths: Mazes and Myths

The use of labyrinths began as a New Age fad but has quickly gone mainstream, with dozens of books, magazine articles, organizations, Web sites, and seminars devoted to the topic. Despite the popularity of labyrinths, literature on the subject is rife with anti-scientific, paranormal beliefs and the movement has escaped any in-depth critical examination.

Benjamin Radford

Columns

Editor's Note

Fraud and Fertility, Science and Ethics

News and Comment

• Science and Ethics Conference Brings Together Minds from Canada, Europe, and the U.S.
• Stem-Cell Debate: Public Still Undecided; Opinion Could Sway
• Cold-Fusion Proponent Eugene Mallove Murdered
• SI Jesus Article Draws AP Writer's Ire
• Elizabeth Loftus Elected to National Academy of Sciences
• Betz, Druyan, Helfand Elected CSICOP Fellows; 3 Consultants Named
• CSICOP Fellow Neil deGrasse Tyson Hosts Nova Miniseries
• Pinker, Tarter Named Among Time's 100 Most Influential People

Investigative Files

Ships of the Dead

Joe Nickell

Thinking About Science

Did Popper Refute Evolution?

Massimo Pigliucci

Notes on a Strange World

Lady Homeopathy Strikes Back . . . But Science Wins Out

Massimo Polidoro

Science Best Sellers

Forum

Obscurantism, Tyranny, and the Fallacy of Either Black or White

Ralph Estling

Tablets and Tabloids: Skeptical Reading

John C. Whittaker

Letters to the Editor

Reviews

Perfect Planet, Clever Species: How Unique Are We?

By William C. Burger

William Harwood

What the #$*! Do We Know?

Directed by Mark Vicente, Betsy Chasse, and William Arntz

Eric Scerri

Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear

By Jim Steinmeyer

Edward Summer