Conspiracy Theories and Incredible Tales

The seventieth anniversary of the so-called Roswell Incident came and went this past summer with a refreshing lack of fuss.

We lead off this issue with a two-article section on Conspiracy Theories and Incredible Tales, a timely look at thinking and behaviors that are at the root of many modern claims and confusions. Nearly every day’s news brings new evidence of conspiratorial thinking or word of someone embellishing the truth about their own lives and …

New observations and new research have increased our understanding of past, current, and future climate change since the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA3) was published in May 2014…. Since NCA3, stronger evidence has emerged for continuing, rapid, human-caused global warming of the global atmosphere and ocean. This report concludes that “it is extremely likely …

“Why can’t we do this every weekend?” asked Leighann Lord, comedian and sometime cohost of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk Radio podcast, as she opened the first day of lectures at the ninth annual Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism (NECSS). It was Lord’s first emcee gig for NECSS and the meeting’s first time at midtown …

The 1937 disappearance of pioneer pilot Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan in the Pacific Ocean has been the subject of continuing research, debate, and speculation—most recently in a July 9 show titled Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence. Here is the History Channel’s explanation of the show’s premise: Buried in the National Archives for …

Can people live for years without food? Some have claimed to, including certain holy persons. One nineteenth-century marvel in Brooklyn alleged not only to have lived without sustenance but to have experienced a nine-year trance state, possessed clairvoyant abilities, and recovered from paralysis and blindness. She was Mollie Fancher, a woman whose well-nourished body made …

I have recently been sent—courtesy of Skeptical Inquirer Editor Ken Frazier—a most remarkable book, edited by Dana Richards of George Mason University and copyrighted this year by World Scientific Publishing Co. This is 458 pages of closely packed texts of correspondence exchanged between the late Martin Gardner and the late Marcello Truzzi between May 1970 …

This year, 2017, marks the hundredth anniversary of one of the most famous hoaxes in history: the Cottingley fairies photos, taken by two Yorkshire girls in 1917. Or were they? A new hypothesis, recently put forward in the pages of Fortean Times magazine, suggests that the photos may actually have been taken later, after very …

In 1989, Ralph Rosnow and Robert Rosenthal, two well-respected experts on statistical methods in psychology, wrote the following memorable line: “We want to underscore that, surely, God loves the .06 nearly as much as the .05”. For researchers in psychology, this was an amusing statement.

I was sent a link to your article about the Sandy Hook conspiracies (https://tinyurl.com/y747c2gf), and my question is: Why even give these people the time of day? I unfortunately watched the [pro-conspiracy] YouTube video before realizing what I had done: contributed to helping the creator make money off of YouTube. Why help drive traffic to …

It is tempting to dismiss events such as last year’s “Pizzagate” shooting as the work of disturbed or unintelligent people, but social research provides an opportunity to explain the seemingly absurd episode and perhaps help avert future tragedies.

To increase excitement into what is perceived as a normal, uneventful life, some people create their own personal myths of adventure and accomplishment. These are not just exaggerations of real events, and such narratives can be in the realm of the fantastic.

A high school biology teacher asked the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science (a division of the Center for Inquiry) a series of questions about teaching evolution. Bertha Vazquez, director the foundation’s Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science (TIES), answered.

You are a skeptic, and your child has autism. How do you react?

There are many myths behind movie lore concerning jinxes and mysterious deaths, but a closer look reveals these curses to be attributable more to publicity and rumor than to the supernatural.

Pioneer physicist and science popularizer Dan Q. Posin saw the power of television for education and inspiration. Almost lost to history, his history has new relevance today.

John Oliver recently criticized the anti-vaccination movement on Last Week Tonight. Oliver humorously pointed out some of the major flaws with the anti-vaccination view. Vaccines have saved millions of lives. There is a difference between correlation and causation. There is no evidence that vaccines containing thimerosal are unsafe. There is no evidence that vaccination causes …

Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. Al Gore. John Shenk and Bonni Cohen, directors. Documentary. Actual Films/Participant Media, 2017. 1 hour 40 minutes. Eleven years after his much-discussed documentary on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore returns with his follow-up, Inconvenient Sequel, released in theaters nationwide this past August. In this film, Gore devotes less …

Dear Martin, Dear Marcello: Gardner and Truzzi on Skepticism. Edited by Dana Richards. World Scientific, Singapore, 2017. ISBNs: 9789813203693 hardcover, 9789813203709 softcover. 458pp. Hardcover, $88; softcover, $48. Martin Gardner (1914–2010) was a famous writer and philosopher of science, and Marcello Truzzi (1935–2004) was trained in sociology. Both had backgrounds in magic, giving them intimate knowledge …

The Loch Ness Mystery Reloaded. By Ronald Binns. Zoilus Press, London, UK, 2017. ISBN 9781999735906. 222 pp. Paperback, £12. With his new book, The Loch Ness Mystery Reloaded, Ronald Binns takes another bow as the man who cast the net and drew up from the depths the ultimate truth about the fabled creature, Nessie. Binns …

Should biologists use new gene-editing technology to modify or “correct” the human germline? Will our methods soon prove sufficiently safe and efficient and, if so, for what purposes? Much-celebrated CRISPR gene-editing pioneer Jennifer Doudna recently recalled her initial trepidations over that very prospect: Humans had never before had a tool like CRISPR, and it had …