Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

Volume 22, Number 6, November/December 1998

• Buy this back issue
• Second World Skeptic's Congress:
  • Science and Reason, Foibles and Fallacies, and Doomsdays
  • Alternative Medicine, Impact Threats, Abrupt Climate Change, and Efficient Energy
• The Martian Panic Sixty Years Later
• Investigative Files: Helix to Heaven

Science and Reason, Foibles and Fallacies, and Doomsdays
Heidelberg Conference attracts 300 delegates from 23 countries
Kendrick Frazier

Anti-science Postmodernists
Rhetoric Over Evidence
Kendrick Frazier

Alternative Medicine, Impact Threats, Abrupt Climate Change, and Efficient Energy
Matt Nisbet

Much Ado About Nothing
The `Fateful Hoaxing' of Margaret Mead
Derek Freeman's arguments about Margaret Mead's Samoan research fail to stand up to tests of evidence based on examination of Mead's book, her field notes, and her correspondence.
James E. Côtë

Margaret Mead, Derek Freeman, and the Issue of Evolution
Derek Freeman argues that the central issue in the Mead-Freeman controversy is evolution and that Margaret Mead was anti-evolutionary. A review of Mead's writing on evolution demonstrates that she favored an evolutionary approach throughout her career.
Paul Shankman

Gaps in the Fossil Record: A Case Study
Creationists often point out that there are gaps in the fossil record, as if that somehow invalidates it. The Morrison Formation illustrates the impossibility of an absolutely complete record -- and the coherent, detailed picture it nevertheless gives of a time and place.
David A. Thomas

The Martian Panic Sixty Years Later
What Have We Learned?
The `War of the Worlds' panic happened sixty years ago, but its lessons are as relevant today as back then.
Robert E. Bartholomew

The Perils of Post-Hockery
When we engage in post-hoc reasoning, we blur the distinction between the contexts of discovery and verification and risk misplacing our faith in unwarranted beliefs. Some simple steps can avoid the seductive traps of post-hockery.
John Ruscio

May the Force Be With You
Empty space is full of invisible force fields, and we can detect electromagnetic fields from the farthest reaches of the universe. So couldn't our thoughts generate electromagnetic fields that might be sensed by other people? Here's the problem.
Lawrence M. Krauss

Editor's Note

News and Comment

• U.K. Broadcast Commission Rejects Geller's Secrets of the Psychics Complaint
• Myth and Mystery in Southern Climes
• Broadcasting Standards Commission Adjudication on Geller Complaint
• Tolstoy Predicts Bulls' Sixth Championship (in Code of Course)
• Maria Reiche, Nazca Lines' Guardian, Dies
• The Pseudoscience of Ear Wax Removal
• Council Against Health Fraud Concerned About Veterinary Pseudoscience
• `The Straight Dope' is Colorful, Critical Thinking

Notes of a Fringe-Watcher
Science and the Unknowable
Martin Gardner

Investigative Files
Helix to Heaven
The Staircase Stands but the Myth Falls
Joe Nickell

New Books

Articles of Note

Science Best Sellers

Forum

• Who is the Cat That Curiosity Killed?
  Elizabeth Loftus

• From the Anthropic Principle to the Supernatural
  David A. Shotwell

Hoax and Reality: The Bizarre World of Multiple Personality Disorder
by August Piper, Jr.
Scott O. Lilienfeld

Abracadabra: Secret Methods Magicians and Others Use to Deceive Their Audience
by Nathaniel Schiffman
Robert A. Baker

Penn and Teller's How to Play in Traffic
by Penn Jillette and Teller
Peter Huston

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