Archives: Online Exclusives
“Ghostly Bride” Caught on Construction Site Not a Ghost
On August 18, 2020, at 1:53 a.m., Adam Lees received a security alert on his laptop. Lees is the managing director of Limitless Security and is currently in charge of security at the construction site of Ultima at Sherborne Wharf, a new apartment building in Birmingham, England. The security alert meant that something triggered …
There is NO WAY the Psychic Could Have known!
Mark Edward and I hear this statement so often that I’m going write an article about it. “There is NO WAY the psychic could have known that!” With a lot of emphasis on the “NO WAY” part. These are the statements that usually follow that first statement: I’m not on social media anywhere. This happened …
Will Wearing a Hat Make Me Go Bald?
While losing the hair on our heads doesn’t have any serious medical implications on its own, it can be seriously damaging to our psyches. Studies have shown that both women and men with alopecia, or hair loss, experience increased stress, diminished self-esteem, and other negative psychological effects. Some of us live in fear of our …
Letter to America: The Black Box that Wouldn’t Die
It was in 1985 that I first read—in the LA Skeptics’ newsletter, LASER—that polygraphs were highly unreliable as a method of telling whether someone was lying. We popularly call them “lie detectors,” but even proponents admit this is not an accurate description. Polygraphs measure physical parameters such as heart and breathing rates, blood pressure, and …
Grief Vampires – An Update
I am often asked why we are still fighting the same old fight with these psychics. Why won’t they go away when we have exposed them over and over again? It is frustrating; they do seem to be everywhere. But I think we are seeing some hope. Data shows that the psychic world is a …
Are You Dehydrated?
Do you worry that you are or might become dehydrated? Do you feel guilty if you don’t drink eight to ten glasses of water a day? Are you tethered to a water bottle? Have you been frightened by warnings on the internet? “Eau” dear! “Water” you thinking? You may have been “flooded” with a tsunami …
Trump and COVID-19: Population Health Neglect, Hydroxychloroquine Hype, and a Gambler’s Fallacy
Cover Image Courtesy of Flickr I am wary of anything offered with a sales pitch of “What do you have to lose?” I wonder about undisclosed risks that are difficult to anticipate. I wonder how good the prospects are for gain. I wonder whether the pitchman is trying to take advantage of people who …
Resurrecting the Spiricom (Hoax)
I’m going to make this clear up front: I am not a fan of ghost hunting shows. However, as they still capture the public’s interest, I will occasionally watch an episode that alerts my skeptical radar either from a dubious history or an overhyped video of a “ghost.” This time around, my attention was called …
Am I Drunk, Hungry, or Both? Alcohol as an Appetite Stimulant
If you’ve never gotten fast food after leaving a bar late at night (or, more correctly, early in the morning) I’d highly recommend it. I’ve never been sure if it’s the intoxication, the tiredness, or the unusual hour that makes post-pub falafel taste like heaven, but somehow after I go out drinking with my lab …
Letter to America: A Short Tour of Thirty Years of British Skepticism
I’ve written elsewhere about how Britain’s The Skeptic magazine was founded. I heard James Randi speak in 1981, read Skeptical Inquirer, attended the 1985 London CSICOP conference, and asked what I could do. Starting a newsletter in Britain was suggested. It’s still alive. What hasn’t been collated anywhere is a précis of some of the odder events since. The …
Deuterium Depleted Water
I recently learned there was a thing called deuterium depleted water (DDW). First, I asked “Whaat?” and then I asked “Why?” The atoms of the most common isotope (99.99 percent) of hydrogen contain only one proton, one electron, and no neutrons. Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen with one neutron and one proton in its …
Nathan H. Lents on Our Not So Intelligent Design
Nathan H. Lents was a featured speaker at CSICon 2019, and his presentation on the not so intelligent design of the human body was one of my personal highlights. Following his recovery from a bad bout of COVID-19, I caught up with Lents to discuss these subjects and more.
Human-Guided Evolution Closer than You Think
Evolution is often thought of as a solely long-term process. But the conception that its effects are only seen after millions of years ignores a crucial part of the evolutionary process: adaptation. Because we tend to fixate on the drastic changes caused by evolution over huge timescales, it’s easy to ignore the small variations between …
Psychic Jeanette Wilson’s Spirit Photos … or Misguided Assumptions?
I was not familiar with “medium” Jeanette Wilson prior to receiving a message from my friend Susan Gerbic (of the Guerilla Skeptics on Wikipedia project) one morning. Gerbic explained that she had organized another psychic sting operation, code-named Operation Purple Pinecone Pie, which focused on gathering information about Wilson’s alleged psychic healing abilities and her …
Introducing PENSAR: Spanish Language Skeptic Magazine
Alejandro Borgo, editor of the newly launched CFI online publication, Pensar, invites you to explore the Spanish language magazine for science, reason, and freethought. Check it out at Pensar.org.
Robert Brotherton: Curb Your Enthusiasm
My New York-based mother, who was born in 1913, remembered the 1938 Mercury Theater radio broadcast of Orson Welles’ “The War of the Worlds”—or rather she remembered that it tricked many people into believing Martians were invading the area. “People panicked. There were suicides,” she told me, more or less. Rob Brotherton begs to differ. …
They Oddly Did Not See This Coming
We have all seen those clever memes on social media of pictures from a psychic fair with an additional sign that says, “Cancelled due to Unforeseen Circumstances.” We pass them around and have a little chuckle; well we are at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (or at the end if you believe psychic Jeanette …
One Less Thing to Worry About: Undercooked Pork
We have plenty of things to worry about: the pandemic, global warming, the economy, racial tensions, and much, much more. But here is some good news to ease the worry burden: you can stop worrying about eating undercooked pork. Most people agree that undercooked pork is bad, but not everyone can explain why. The “why” …
The Thomas John Experience—Buckle Up, He’s Back!
Well it is here: Thomas John Flanagan’s newest bit of fame. His new show, The Thomas John Experience, will air on CBS All Access on Thursday, June 4, 2020. If you have been following the story of Thomas John through my writings, you will know that he has been exposed so many times that he …
Facts and Myths of Male Fertility: Tight Underwear, Hot Tubs, Marijuana, and More
Did you know that the average cisgendered male human produces approximately the same number of morphologically normal sperm per day as a hamster, despite having testicles ten times the size? Yeah, me neither. Until I started researching this article, that is. Besides being another piece of trivia to add to my arsenal of hamster knowledge …
Of Eye Movements and Autism: The Latest Chapter in a Continuing Controversy
A recent study of the communication technique rapid prompting method (RPM; a.k.a. spelling to communicate)1 in a prestigious journal bears the bold title “Eye-Tracking Reveals Agency in Assisted Autistic Communication.” Unfortunately, the study does nothing of the kind. It does, however, reveal the lengths to which proponents of this unsubstantiated communication method are willing to …
Investigating Psychic Predictions in a Missing Persons Case
In January 2020, my friend and colleague Ben Radford asked if I would be interested in an investigation project for his podcast Squaring the Strange, which he cohosts with Celestia Ward and Pascual Romero. The podcast tackles various myths and mysteries from a skeptical and scientific point of view, and I’ve been a guest several …
Pandemic Stories in the News: Something to Laugh About
Steven Novella said it best: “Pandemics breed more than a contagious disease. They spread fear, misinformation, pseudoscience, and exploitation.” I would add, “and humor.” I have written about COVID-19 before, first on the February 4 in an article on Science-Based Medicine about how alternative medicine had jumped on the bandwagon, then again in my March …
When a Negative Doesn’t Really Mean Negative: Why Quality Matters Just as Much as Quantity When Testing for COVID-19
On March 22 at 9 a.m., my alarm went off to wake me and my boyfriend up in time for our weekly online Dungeons and Dragons session. I opened my eyes to see my partner already awake (a very rare occurrence in of itself) and in rather poor sorts. He was shivering, weak, had hardly …
Strategies to Improve Skeptical Thinking
Mr. Hale, why are you so skeptical? Why do you have a negative view of everything? Do you believe anything? I hear these types of questions—from both students and my colleagues—on a regular basis. These questions seem to imply skepticism is a bad thing instead of a valuable tool and a key part of critical …
Investigating Artifacts at the Archive of the Afterlife
On September 28, 2019, many of my paranormal enthusiast friends celebrated the unofficial “National Ghost Hunting Day,” taking part in nighttime ghost hunts at various historical locations throughout the country. On this night, hundreds of ghost hunting teams streamed live videos of their investigations, sharing their adventures with the entire world via social media. Investigating …
Kissed by a Wolf: An Interview with Deborah Hyde
“It has been the passion of my life,” says Deborah Hyde of studying the supernatural. “Belief in the supernatural sheds so much light on the human condition—social psychology, cognition, anthropology—that far from being just some frivolous add-on to what we are, it’s kind of at the center of us.” Like many, she says she began …
What do I do with his Damn Book?
I’m writing this from stay-at-home California, and if you are reading this soon after its publication, you are likely reading it from a stay-at-home somewhere in the world. What I am asking now is “Why did this happen without warning? Why didn’t they see this coming?” No, not the governments of the world, although that’s …
Coronavirus and Cognitive Dissonance: A Personal Story
I don’t typically use Facebook for its intended purpose. If I want to start a political argument with someone, it’s going to be face-to-face so I can look that no-good America-hater straight in the eye. This is harder these days, even though we’re all more stressed out than usual, so I recently succumbed and argued …
Can Naturopathic Doctors Combat COVID-19?
Last week, the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP) announced that it urges government officials coordinating the national COVID-19 pandemic response to utilize all licensed healthcare professionals, including naturopathic doctors (NDs) “to support other medical professionals in changing the trajectory of this public health crisis.” Yes, we’re facing shortages of health care workers to respond …
An Environmental Disaster Brought to You by Meat: Chicago’s Bubbly Creek
Originating near West 38th Street and flowing northward until it joins with the main river just above West 31st Street, the southern fork of the south bend of the Chicago river is much better known by the name Bubbly Creek. Only 2,000 meters long, this creek has been bubbling like a hot tub for over …
COVID-19: A Field Day for Scams and Misinformation
Our world has been disrupted due to legitimate fears about COVID-19. People are afraid, and unscrupulous and/or misinformed people have been quick to exploit those fears. The FTC has offered advice for consumers to help them avoid coronavirus scammers. On March 19 they published Part 2, and the FTC and FDA have sent out warning …
Who’d Be an Atheist in Ireland? Michael Nugent
It is hard to overstate how much the Republic of Ireland has changed since the 1980s. The Catholic Church was able to influence voters to reject the 1987 referendum proposing to remove the Tenth Amendment ban on divorce from the Irish constitution and ensure that safe sex (that is, condoms) was not mentioned in public …
Vaccine Activism: The Day the Vaxxed Bus Came to Town
This January, a few days after our local SkeptiCamp, the Vaxxed bus visited Monterey, California. It’s a problem anytime the Vaxxed bus visits anywhere, but this was my city and I wasn’t happy about it. First a bit of information. Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe is an American pseudoscience “documentary” directed by discredited doctor Andrew …
Innerhalb des Informationsnetzwerk Homöopathie – Udo Endruscheit über Aktivismus im skeptischen Bereich
Udo Endruscheit ist ein deutscher Skeptiker und sehr aktiv im Informationsnetzwerk Homöopathie (INH). Er ist ein produktiver Schriftsteller und ein Aktivist im Bereich der sozialen Medien. Ich habe mit ihm über seinen skeptischen Hintergrund und seine aktuellen Arbeitsfelder gesprochen. Annika Harrison: Hallo, Udo. Kannst du dich kurz vorstellen? Udo Endruscheit: Hallo, Annika. Ich …
Inside Information Network Homeopathy—Udo Endruscheit on Activism in the Skeptical Sphere
Udo Endruscheit is a German skeptic and very active within Information Network Homeopathy (INH). He is a prolific writer and an activist on social media. I spoke with him about his skeptical background and his current fields of work. Annika Harrison: Hi, Udo. Could you quickly introduce yourself? Udo Endruscheit: Hi, Annika. I’m simply …
A Test for Earlier Diagnosis of Autism? Not Convincing
Autism is diagnosed on clinical grounds by observing the child’s behavior. There is no blood test or any other objective test to diagnose it. But that hasn’t stopped people from claiming to have found one. Among other candidates, a saliva test has been proposed, and now an eye scan. In summer 2019, a press release …
Old Wives’ Tales and Truths
Some old wives’ tales are easy to dismiss. We all know that masturbating won’t really make your palms grow hair and that neither the position of your belly nor your internal temperature can predict the sex of your baby. However, other old wives’ tales are more difficult to dismiss. White spots on our nails being …
Good Day New York Fox 5 and Grief Vampire Matt Fraser
I just can’t understand why morning TV shows give free publicity to grief vampires such as Matt Fraser. The hosts laugh and have a good ol’ time as if this is just a jump-house of frivolous fun bubbles. They think that people communicating with the dead is as normal as a six-toed cat. Kind of …
Afraid of the Thirteenth Floor? Superstition and Real Estate, Part 2
Banner photo: Elevator buttons from the Flamingo Hotel & Casino, site of CSICon 2019. (Author photo) In my January column, I described the influence of feng shui on the Chinese real estate market. Although it would be hard to match the pervasive influence of traditional Chinese superstition in real estate and other areas of …