Archives: Online Exclusives
Hot or Cold: Grief Vampire Tyler Henry Reads Jerry OâConnell
Grief Vampire Tyler Henry has a new Netflix show out, so the media is bending over backward to pimp for him. These enablers have no conscience whatsoever. They just label his show âentertainment,â and if someone points out the obviousâthat manipulating grieving peopleâs emotions isnât helpâthey will handwave it away. Theyâll ask why he is …
âDemons and Saviorsâ: Revisiting the Columbus Poltergeist Case
I recently watched a documentary series on Hulu titled Demons and Saviors, about Tina Resch, who was claimed to have psychic abilities as a teen and was later convicted of murdering her three-year-old daughter, Amber. As you can tell from that summary, there is a lot to unpack, not only in Tinaâs case but the …
Science and Pseudoscience in London: A Skepticâs Tour
I appear not to be like other tourists. Because I am interested in science and pseudoscience and because I am a writer whoâlike most of our ilkâis perpetually on the prowl for material, when I visit a new city, I find myself seeking out the science, magic, and superstition unique to that place. So far, …
Cult Cops: What Happens When Sheriffs Believe Conspiracy Theories?
The small town of Millersville, Tennessee, has become embroiled in controversy over the hiring of their Assistant Police Chief Shawn Taylor. First, allegations of police misconduct emerged following a child predator sting in May. Operation Clean Sweep was a joint sting operation with a non-profit group called Veterans For Child Rescue (V4CR), who were said …
After All These Years, Still No Evidence of Consciousness in Plants: A Reply to Reber et al. on Plant Consciousness
We have posted Massimo Pigliucciâs response to the comments from the latest Skeptical Inquirer. Please read the original article if you have not already. Consider subscribing to Skeptical Inquirer for exclusive articles and access to the SI archives. The discussion on the alleged consciousness of plants and other nonanimal organisms is, I think, a good …
Comment on Massimo Pigliucciâs âAre Plants Conscious?â (Vol. 48, no. 5)
We have posted comments to Massimo Pigliucciâs article from the latest Skeptical Inquirer. Please read the original article if you have not already. Consider subscribing to Skeptical Inquirer for exclusive articles and access to the SI archives. We found Professor Pigliucciâs recent essay âAre Plants Consciousâ highly interesting and engagingly written. We are admirers of …
âWoodpeckers Donât Play Footballâ: The Concussion Repercussion
I dislocated my shoulder during wrestling practice in 2015. The nature of this type of injury leaves an indelible mark, and I can still recall it vividly nearly a decade later. Iâd toppled backward, arm outstretched and externally rotated to break my fallâan amateur mistake. The pain was instant and searing. I felt a âfizzingâ …
Human Population Growth: Where Do We Stand Now?
The human population has evolved over millions of years from Homo habilis, confined to Africa with a population of less than one million, to Homo erectus, the first species to spread globally but with a very low population. The advent of Homo sapiens and the Neolithic Revolution saw a significant increase in population, from around …
Vitamin C: Scurvy Savior or Immune Overdose? More of a Good Thing Isnât Always Better
The dietary supplement industry is lucrative; itâs currently valued at $177.5 billion dollars globally. The market exploded in the United States after the passage of the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. This legislation, passed under the guise of medical freedom, aimed to create a profitable marketplace of unregulated products targeting people with a …
Minister or Mountebank: Was Evangelist John Ramirez Once a Satanist?
During the 1970s, the surge of interest in alternative religions to Christianity and practices that fall under the umbrella of the New Age movementâastrology, tarot card reading, etc.âled many conservative Christians to believe that the devil was actively recruiting souls through what young people treated as mere fun and games. Christian evangelists capitalized on the …
Do Conspiracy Theory Believers Think Critically? A Critical Analysis
An analysis of false conspiracy theories and the arguments supporting them shows that they often violate standards and principles of critical thinking. This suggests that when individuals endorse them, they are not thinking critically. False conspiracy theories abound, many of which strain credulity. Representative Marjorie Taylor Green famously proposed that the 2018 California wildfires resulted …
El Charles Fort mĂĄs personal
«Un chiflado curioso, probablemente sincero, pero infinitamente crĂ©dulo». AsĂ define H. P. Lovecraft a Charles Fort (1874-1932) en una carta que escribe en 1935 a Emil Petaja, un joven seguidor que con el tiempo se convirtiĂł en escritor de ciencia ficciĂłn.i Lovecraft parecĂa tener las ideas claras sobre el padre de lo paranormal. Sin embargo, …
Get Real, Jason AlexanderâNo, Really
I noticed an interview going around social media that featured my friend and fellow psychic investigator Bob Nygaard from the Really? No Really podcast with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden. The interview was uploaded to YouTube on July 23, 2024. If you are unaware of who Bob Nygaard is, you should know his work. My …
Anticipating CSICon 2024: Everything THEY Don’t Want You to Know
In this final entry of my series of video interviews with the speakers scheduled to appear at this yearâs CSICon, I called upon Susan Gerbic to help me with making a full disclosure of the valuable, hard-to find, inside information about all things CSICon.
Anticipating CSICon 2024:A Video Interview with Banachek
This is part of my series of video interviews with the speakers scheduled to appear at CSICon 2024. This conference is run by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and will take place in Las Vegas from Thursday, October 24, through Sunday, October 27. (You can find all the details and register right here.) For the past …
A Skeptic Visits the Conjuring House
An unassuming farmhouse located in the town of Burrillville, Rhode Island, was made famous by the 2013 horror film The Conjuring. Written by Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes and directed by James Wan, it starred Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as Ed and Lorraine Warren. The story is based on the alleged paranormal experiences …
1,000 Episodes! An Insiderâs Take on The Skepticsâ Guide to the Universe
Editorâs note: George Hrab wrote this article for Skeptical Inquirer to honor The Skepticsâ Guide to the Universe podcast. During the recording of the 1,000th episode, these sentiments also served as his opening remarks. If you ever need to make the seven-hour car ride from New Zealandâs capital city of Wellington to its often-mistaken-for-the-capital-city of …
The Boxer Who Sparked a Transgender Debate without Being Transgender
“It hurt like hell,” said Italyâs Angela Carini to her cornermen. Her welterweight contest against Algeriaâs Imane Khelif lasted just forty-six seconds. The pugilists were squaring off in the preliminary rounds of the Olympic boxing competition in Paris. After absorbing a few solid right hands and fearing her nose was broken, the Italian retreated to …
Dowsing for Hidden Objects | A Paranormal Challenge
In this episode, the Center for Inquiry staff gathered at the Buffalo, NY headquarters for a staff retreat. Never one to pass up an opportunity, Jim Underdown, our CFIIG Director, scheduled a dowser for our $500K Paranormal Challenge. Norbert, who drove two hours to take the test, claimed that he could find any object just …
Unicorn Steaks and Bigfoot Burgers with the Seattle Skeptics
The last SkeptiCamp for 2024 in the United States is in the bag. Monterey, Los Angeles, Raleigh, Albuquerque, Buffalo, and now Seattle. The goal was to get groups meeting back in person, to give back to their communities with a free all-day set of speakers. The secondary goal was to find leadership, doers, and future …
Anticipating CSICon 2024: A Video Interview with Daniel Simons
This is part of my series of video interviews with the speakers appearing at CSICon 2024, the conference that will take place this October in Las Vegas. This episode features experimental psychologist Dr. Daniel Simons, the Ig Nobel Prize winner for the Invisible Gorilla Test.
Anticipating CSICon 2024: A Video Interview with Forrest Valkai
This is part of my series of video interviews with the speakers appearing at CSICon 2024, which will take place this October in Las Vegas. This episode features biologist and science communicator Forrest Valkai, attending his very first CSICon to share his infectious enthusiasm about science.
Anticipating CSICon 2024: A Video Interview with Timothy Caulfield
This is part of a series of video interviews with the speakers appearing at CSICon 2024, the conference that will take place this October in Las Vegas. This episode features the director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta and Gweneth Paltrowâs archnemesis, Professor Timothy Caulfield.Â
A Skeptical Guide to Glyphosate: Toolkit for Ten Common Claims
Agricultural advances have made farming and our foods safer and more abundant than at any other time in history. Everyone wants safe food and sustainable farming. But modern technologies are victims of their own success, and media ecosystems exacerbate confusion. And while everything is a chemicalâand chemicals enable food productionâthe word evokes fear and anxiety. …
Medical Whistleblower: Peter Wilmshurst
âItâs self-evident to me that doctors should be honest, but it seems not to everyone,â says Peter Wilmshurst. As a cardiologist, he has studied and published ground-breaking papers on decompression after diving. Skeptics, however, know him primarily for his forty years of blowing the whistle on medical fraud: unreported conflicts of interest, faked data, misbehaving …
A Life Shattered by Pseudoscience
On January 8, 2021, Kevin Plantan left his home in Naples, Florida, on his way to a regular monthly visit to see his fourteen-year-old daughter, SP, who was living with her mother in Hanover County, Virginia. He arrived the next day, and by prior arrangement with his ex-wife, he drove to Courthouse Park in Hanoverâthis …
Anticipating CSICon 2024: A Video Interview with Andrea Love
This is part of my series of video interviews with the speakers appearing at CSICon 2024, the conference that will take place this October in Las Vegas. This episode features biomedical scientist and science communicator Andrea Love, PhD, whose CSICon talk is titled âEcho Chambers vs. Evidence: Ideological Conflicts in Science Acceptance.â
Trouble at Potbelly Hill: Whatâs the Truth about Göbekli Tepe?
Introduction For skeptics, the weekly broadcast of Ancient Aliens on the History Channel is a festival of conspiracy theories and woo-woo entrepreneurship. Recently, the show has come to rely on a digest format in which material shown in earlier episodes is assembled under a common theme, such as âGovernment Cover-Upsâ or the like. In many …
From Superstition to Science: How Education Banishes Fear of Witchcraft
Allegations of witchcraft and human rights abuses in Africa and India are pernicious and represent a unique challenge for humanist activists. Organizations such as Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AFAW), founded by Leo Igwe, have been defending and supporting victims of what the United Nations calls sorcery-accusation related violence (SARV) in Africa since 2020. In Papua …
The Curious Case of the Grafton Monster
Nestled in the heart of the Tygart Valley in northern West Virginia lies the city of Grafton, home to 4,722 residents according to the most recent census data. Grafton, recognized as the birthplace of Motherâs Day in the United States, was once a booming town known for its railroads and its strategic significance during the …
Anticipating CSICon 2024: A Video Interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson
This is part of my series of video interviews with the speakers appearing at CSICon 2024, the conference that will take place this October in Las Vegas. This episode features the well-known astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who will be making his eagerly anticipated second CSICon appearance.
âSlapping Therapistâ Convicted of Manslaughter for Second Time
A therapy hardly anyone has ever heard of has now killed at least two people because the practitioner who promotes it insists that it can cure diabetes, among other ailments, and that drugs are poisons and should be withdrawn. The âtherapyâ is âpaida lajin,â also known as âslap and stretch,â and the practitioner is sixty-one-year-old …
Spring Energy: The Supplement Exposed by Skeptical Athletes
The United States has twice as many supplement brands as it does McDonaldâs restaurants. Thatâs a lot of supplements. Of those 30,000 or so, only a handful have robust evidence for efficacy. Prominent among them are carbohydrate supplementsâthe drinks and gels of concentrated sugar that cyclists, triathletes, and marathon runners chug throughout their races (over …
I’ve been wearing sunscreen wrong
Fresh off the beach in Tenerifeâlaying on my stomach in bed, unable to turn over due to the red sunburn covering my back, and unable to sleep from the painâI got to wondering about sunscreen and such. What exactly does SPF mean? Will a tan really protect me from further burns? Is aloe the best …
How Does the Ouija Board Work?
I have been writing about the discredited communication method facilitated communication (FC) for several years, and to explain one of the mysteries of FC, Iâve tossed off the phrase âit is a Ouija-like phenomenon.â Iâve also seen writers use the reverse formulation, describing the actions of Ouija board players as similar to facilitated communication. Recognizing …
Anticipating CSICon 2024:A Video Interview with Kevin Folta
This is part of my series of video interviews with the speakers appearing at CSICon 2024, the conference that will take place this October in Las Vegas. This episode features molecular biologist and science communicator Dr. Kevin Folta.
âThe Psychic Who Predicted My Romantic Futureâ or Not.
I know that the New York Times writes their headlines to hook people into clicking on the article, and this oneââThe Psychic Who Predicted My Romantic Futureââcaught my eye. This is a Modern Love article written by Christene Seda and published July 12, 2024. Link here. Take a look; itâs a quick sweet read about …
SkeptiCamp New Mexico
We are off to a great start! Four SkeptiCamps in 2024 completed, and three more are ready to go! In this article, I will sum up the fourth, SkeptiCamp New Mexico! CFI Western New York, Seattle, and Eugene, Oregon remain. The Monterey County, Los Angeles, and Raleigh SkeptiCamps are in the past but not forgotten; …
At-Home Allergy Tests: Are They a Useful Alternative to a Clinical Allergist Visit?
The at-home DIY health industry is booming. The global wellness product market was valued at $5.6 trillion in 2022 and is expected to grow to over $7 trillion by 2025. This includes dietary supplements, nutrition products, fitness equipment, health and wellness apps, and even unapproved consumer health tests. This market has exploded because of many …
Anticipating CSICon 2024: A Video Interview with Rina Raphael
This is the first in a series of interviews I am conducting with the speakers appearing at CSICon 2024, the conference that will take place in Las Vegas in October. This episode features former wellness-rat and Goop apologist turned wellness industry critic, journalist Rina Raphael.