Hairdryers and UFOs

Our Debt to the Ancient Greeks

Ten years ago, my wife, Ruth, and I

Junk Medicine in Dentistry

Robyn E. Blumner is president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry and executive director of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science. She is a lawyer who previously held posts as a syndicated columnist and editorial writer at the Tampa Bay Times and as executive director of the ACLU of Florida and ACLU of Utah.

Solving the Hidden-Tomb Myster y at Rosslyn Chapel

Joe Nickell, PhD, is a former stage magician and Pinkerton detective who has spent more than half a century solving the world’s strange mysteries using the techniques of science.

The (Linguistic) Fall of Rationality

Massimo Pigliucci is the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. His books include Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk (Chicago Press) and Philosophy of Pseudoscience (coedited with Maarten Boudry, Chicago Press). More by him at https://massimopigliucci.org .

Understanding Gluten

Harriet Hall, MD, also known as “The SkepDoc,” is a retired family physician, a CSI fellow, and an editor of the Science-Based Medicine blog. Her website is www.skepdoc. info.

Eat Popcorn: The Current State of the Priming ‘Train Wreck’

Stuart Vyse is a psychologist and author of Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition, which won the William James Book Award of the American Psychological Association. He is a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

Buried Alive in Brazil: Modern Premature Burials

Benjamin Radford is a research fellow at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and author or coauthor of fourteen books, including America the Fearful: Media and the Marketing of National Panics.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR]

‘Best Magazine I’ve Read in Decades’ I hate

On Memor y and Braver y: W hen You Can Be Screamed at and Honored on the Same Day

Editor’s note: Psychologist and CSI Fellow Elizabeth Loftus is one of the world ’s leading experts on human memory. She has long been outspoken in her criticisms of the controversial claims about repressed memories and innovative in her research showing how false memories can easily be created. She is Distinguished Professor of Psychological Science, Criminology, and Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine. On July 14, 2022, she delivered the commencement address at Australian National University (ANU) and received an honorary doctorate “for exceptional contributions to psychological science, pioneering applications to the administration of justice, and her unwavering pursuit of scientif ic freedom.” This is her talk.

A Brief Histor y of Bunk

The familiar word bunk (short for its original

What Happened to the COVID-19 Power of Prayer Study?

Dr. Dhanunjaya Lakkireddy is a cardiologist of some

THE ANTIKYTHERA MECHANISM: The Greek Computer of Science and Reason

Ancient Greeks had a toothed-geared bronze astronomical computer, most likely designed and built under the super vision of Hipparchos. It reveals much about their commitment to use science and reason to understand the natural world.

Science and Civil Liber ties: The Lost ACLU Lecture of Carl Sagan

Around 1987, Sagan gave an uncannily prescient lecture to the Illinois state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Truth, Relativism, and Identity Politics

Since the inquisitions of Galileo and through the present, scientific knowledge has been seen as threatening to political and ecclesiastical authorities. While shared beliefs and group identities provided sur vival value for our distant ancestors, contemporar y identity politics places knowledge in peril.

There’s Something about Mary (but It’s Not What You’ve Heard)

The former chief officer of the Queen Mary demystifies the tale of an alleged haunting aboard the now-retired ship.

Dinosaur Bones and Radiocar-bunkum

Recent anti-evolution propaganda claims that radiocarbon in dinosaur bones shows that the bones are mere thousands of years old. However, the bones are millions of years old. They only seem to be younger because fossil bone accumulates new radiocarbon, which produces falsely young radiocarbon readings.

Pseudoscience Offered by a Young-Earth Creationist

The Cambrian Tapeats Sandstone in the Grand Canyon area of Arizona cannot have been wet and soft when it was locally folded and cannot have originated during the supposed worldwide Noah’s flood.

The Flaws in Forensic Science

The 2009 National Academy of Science report Strengthening

Patterns of Fear and Factual Distortion in America

Do the news media sometimes provide a distorted