Table of Contents
SKEPTIC |
A QUARTERLY PUBLICATION OF THE SKEPTICS SOCIETY, DEVOTED TO THE INVESTIGATION OF EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS & REVOLUTIONARY IDEAS & THE PROMOTION OF SCIENCE & CRITICAL THINKING |
FEATURES:
12 SKEPTICAL NEWS
More Recognition for Skeptics' web Site; Caltech Ranks #1; Conspiracy
of Racism Nonexistent in Church Fires; Skeptics European Rep; Quantum Quackery;
Psychic Math; Seancegate; Life on Mars: Should We Be Skeptical?; UFO Fragment
Fake?; Man Jailed in Repressed Memory Case is Finally Free; Murder Plot
Tied to UFOs; Computer Confessions; Evolution-Deniers Defeated; Jehovah's
Witnesses' Secret Book Revealed on Internet; The Quadro Drama Continues;
Whatever Happened to Madalyn Murray O'Hair?; Publisher's New Age Gold.
17 DUMBTH NEWS:
Celebrate Crime; Cheap Husband; Phallic Symbols; The Dog Made Me
Do It; Sorry Don Vicente; Don't Forget to Write; What's in a Name?
18 FORUM
Giants, Floods, & Footprints; McIver Missed the Ark; McIver
Responds; Just the Way Folks Is; Learning is Wildcard of Behavior; Anthropology
_ Ethics; Why Shouldness, Not How Should -- Irons Responds; Indigenous
People Obligated; Oubré Responds; Balls & Curves; Freedom Within
Determinism; That's the Way the Ball Bounces -- Hartung Responds; Bad Science
For Generation X; Velikovskian Wishful Thinking; A Tail by Any Other Name;
Is Radar Just Another "Interpretation" of the World?; Olson Responds;
The Leikind Principle Problem; SAP's the Problem -- Leikind Responds; Bryan
Inconsistency; Abortion Issue Fraught With Difficulties; Utilitarian Bats
and Balls; English Professors Powerless; Coercing Coercion; Skepticism
a Christian Virtue; Nonscience v. Protoscience; Religious v. Secular Wars;
A Witch Story
SPECIAL SECTION:
CONSPIRACY!
36 Farrakhanspiracy:
Louis Farrakhan and the Paranoid Style in African-American Politics
by Harold Brackman
44 The End
of the World & the New World Order:
Black Helicopters, Hong Kong Gurkhas, Global Conspiracies, and
The Mark of the Beast
by Tim Callahan
52 The Great Political Correctness Panic:
Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Thought Police
by Brian Siano
62 Interview: Jerry Brown
We the People? On Money, Politics, and Who Really Runs America
by Frank Miele
ARTICLES:
10 'TWAS BRILLIG COMMENTARY
20 Questions Revisited, or, How the Slick Police Psychics Fool
the Bumbling Cops
by James Randi
26 The End of Science
Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific
Age
by John Horgan
34 Dreams of the End of Science
It is the End of the Beginning for Science, Not the Beginning
of the End
by John Casti
84 Heretic-Personality
Alfred Russel Wallace and the Nature of Heretical Science
by Michael Shermer
94 Freud's Follies
Psychoanalysis as Religion, Cult, and Political Movement
by Kevin MacDonald
66 Testing the Claims of Mesmerism
The First Scientific Investigation of the Paranormal Ever Conducted,
Commissioned by King Louis XVI. Designed, Conducted, & Written by Benjamin
Franklin, Antoine Lavoisier, & Others.
Translated by Charles & Danielle Salas
Introduction by Michael Shermer
110 The Question All Skeptics are Asking
What Will Tomorrow Bring?
by Bernard Leikind.
112 Authors & Contributors
IN BRIEF AND IN REVIEW:
100 MOVIE REVIEWS
Extraterrestrial Hollywood
Aliens; Independence Day; Phenomenon
by Tom McDonough
103 BOOKS IN BRIEF
Full House: The Spread of Excellence From Plato to Darwin
by Stephen Jay Gould; Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge
to Evolution by Michael J. Behe; The Night is Large: Collected Essays
by Martin Gardner; In Search of the Light: The Adventures of a Para-psychologist
by Susan Blackmore; Reincarnation: A Critical Examination by Paul
Edwards; The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy by Charles Officer
and Jake Page; Feet of Clay: Saints, Sinners, and Madmen: A Study of
Gurus by Anthony Storr; Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding
of Consciousness by Daniel C. Dennett; How Brains Think: Evolving
Intelligence, Then and Now by William H. Calvin; Searching for Memory:
The Brain, the Mind, and the Past by Daniel L. Schacter.
106 AUDIO TAPES
The World of Philosophy.
University Press Audiobooks.
108 BOOK REVIEW
The Bell Curve Cracks
-- Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth, by Claude
S. Fischer, Michael Hout, Martin Sanchez Jankowski, Samuel R. Lucas, Ann
Swidler, and Kim Voss.
Reviewed by Brian Siano