Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

Volume 23, Number 6, November/December 1999

• Buy this back issue
• The Physics Behind Four Amazing Demonstrations
• Research Review: New Analyses Raise Doubts About Replicability of ESP Findings
• Notes of a Fringe Watcher: The Star of Bethlehem
• Readers Forum on Science and Religion

Special Report

Blooming 'Shroud' Claims
News of pollen and plant-image findings on the Shroud of Turin are based on earlier, scientifically discredited research.
Joe Nickell

Articles

The Universe and Carl Sagan
Few people ever extolled the wonders of science with more eloquence or were as effective in defending reason and campaigning against pseudoscience as Carl Sagan. A polymath prodigy and visionary interdisciplinary scientist with lifelong passions for planetary astronomy, the origins of life, and seeking extraterrestrial intelligence, Sagan turned his early enthusiasms about UFOs to rigorous but open-minded skepticism. An excerpt from a new biography, Carl Sagan: A Life.
Keay Davidson

The Millennium Thought Contagion
Thought contagions are beliefs that program for their own copying in humans much as computer viruses do in computers. Their self-spreading effect explains the techno-apocalyptic ideas swirling around the Y2K bug, including secular hell-doomsday ideas, logic-resistant strains of myth, and embedded rumors. Educating people about this can reduce the hazards of mass failures in "mental software."
AAron Lynch

'Debunking the Debunkers'
A Response to an Astrologer's Debunking of Skeptics
An article published in The Mountain Astrologer in the fall of 1998 claimed to rebut criticisms of astrology by debunkers. An examination of the astrologer's arguments shows that astrology has almost no resources with which to respond to critics.
I.W. Kelly

The Physics Behind Four Amazing Demonstrations
Here is the physics theory behind four dramatic demonstrations-walking on broken glass, dipping one's fingers in molten lead, breaking a concrete block over someone lying between beds of nails, and picking up an orange-hot piece of silica tile.
David G. Willey

Another Lunar Effect Put to Rest
Thirty years ago, published reports suggested that plants could grow better on lunar "soil" than they could on terrestrial soils. A series of experimental errors, reporting errors, and omissions led to this conclusion. Previously unpublished data easily explain the reported effects.
Haven Sweet

Columns

Editor's Note

News and Comment

• Space.com's CIA-UFO Cover-up Mixes with News on Web
• August 11 Eclipse Feeds Superstition, Fears
• False Memory News
• The Monkey Business in Kansas
• 'Intelligent Design's' Chinese 'Deep Throat'?
• VP Gore Sidesteps, Backtracks, and Stumbles Forward

Research Review
New Analyses Raise Doubts About Replicability of ESP Findings
Scott O. Lilienfeld

Notes of a Fringe Watcher
The Star of Bethlehem
Martin Gardner

Investigative Files
Curses: Foiled Again
Joe Nickell

Psychic Vibrations
Looking for Mr. Goodape
Robert Sheaffer

Science Best Sellers

New Books

Articles of Note

Readers' Forum on Science and Religion

Letters to the Editor

Book Reviews

Amazon purchases help fund CSICOP On-line

Rocks of Ages:
Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life
By Stephen Jay Gould
Reviewed by Mark W. Durm and Massimo Pigliucci
[Amazon]

Once Upon a Number:
The Hidden Mathematical Logic of Stories
By John Allan Paulos
Reviewed by Mark Durm
[Amazon]

Who's Afraid of Human Cloning?
By Gregory E. Pence
Terence Hines
[Amazon]

Fox Television's "Signs from God"
Fox Broadcasting Network
Reviewed by Joe Nickell

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