The Amazing Meeting 5
The Amazing Meeting, an annual conference hosted by the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), is more than just a get-together for skeptics. It's the basis for a community of like-minded people from all over the world who are often excluded, and sometimes shunned, for their convictions.

Baloney Detection Kit
In his book, "The Demon-Haunted World", Carl Sagan provides tools for skeptical thinking. This excellent list is a strong tool to weed out the bad seeds in science.

Continuing Popular Belief in the Supernatural in the 19th Century
This essay examines the continuing popular belief in the supernatural in the nineteenth century. The topic of the supernatural is a large one, and could encompass everything from spiritual healing to telepathy, via mesmerism. We shall see how – whatever their phenomenological reality – the popularity of particular beliefs has moved up and down the cultural elevator.

The Daubert Test Of Reliability: Fighting "Junk Science" In The Courtrooms
In continuation of Renata Zilch's article on the Toxic Mold scare, this is a brief overview of the US court system's treatment of scientific and other expert testimony under the standards set forth by the Supreme Court in Daubert (Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 595 (1993)). The "toxic" mold case cited by Renata Zilch in her article had the testimony of the Plaintiff's expert excluded on the grounds that the methodology used was simply too unreliable to be useful to the jury.

Dead Man's Hand: Playing the Game of Cold Reading
How many times have you been asked to explain cold reading? How well have you done? Maybe talking to dead people is very much like playing professional poker.

A Demonstration of Charpentier's Illusion
In 1891, Charpentier published the first systematic report of what has been called the Size-Weight or Charpentier's illusion. A classroom demonstration of this illusion may be constructed with a large container, such as an empty 9.5 L water container, 13 film cans, a Kg of lead shot and a scale. It can even fool James Randi.

Destinies Twined
Some times it happens that the lives of two people are linked to each other by Fate. The odds in this story are 1 to 8,294,400,000 that a friend of mine and myself are destined to have our lives intertwined. Or are they?

5th World Skeptics Congress
A foggy morning in October, around 500 skeptics waited outside the Congress Theatre "Pietro d'Abano" in order to be registered for the 5th World Skeptics Congress.

Get Rich Quick!
How would you like to get rich, quickly and perfectly legally? How does almost $2,500,000 sound? Know what you can do with this kind of dough? Buy a fancy sports car. Or save a little bit of the world...

Hallmarks of Paranormal Chicanery
In his book, "Flim-Flam!", James Randi describes 20 points that can be applied to paranormal phenomena.

A Hard Truth
You have to give up something to be a scientist. It may be painful, but it has to go. What is it? It's a freedom.

In Defense of the Tools of Skepticism
In 1988, an article appeared in the alt.paranormal newsgroup of the Internet. It was critical of the tools used by skeptics in discussions with non-skeptics and in evaluating the extraordinary claims made by proponents of the paranormal. This article is a point-by-point response to each of the criticisms in the article.

Is Courtesy Used To Defend Ignorance?
Does politeness and a desire not to offend lead to a defacto defense of the most illogical and downright silly of claims?

A Logical Analysis Of Winston Wu's Anti-Skeptic Article
This analysis is a response to Winston Wu's online article, "Debunking Common Skeptical Arguments Against Paranormal and Psychic Phenomena".

The Logical Fallacies
The ability to reason, plus other physical atributes, is no doubt what sets human beings apart from other animals, and what has given them the privilege to becoming the dominant species on Earth.

Media & Science
Scientific reasoning is not something that is reserved for scientists, and it should not be. A public understanding of the scientific method is as important, if not more important, than knowledge of scientific facts. But certainly the facts are of interest, and if we are not able to check the facts for our selves we rely on others to do it for us. But whom can we trust with such important work as to tell us how things really are?

Occam's Razor
Skeptics frequently talk about Occam's Razor. They use it to choose between alternative explanations for something, especially where no one alternative has been either proven or disproven. But what is it?

Pseudoscientists vs Paranormalists
Not long ago I was asked if Dr. Gary Schwartz's professional career was going the way of Pons & Fleischmann. Pons & Fleischmann made a big splash with their initial announcement of cold fusion in 1989. But as the attempts to replicate the experiment by other labs met with failure, and Pons & Fleischmann failed to produce any positive results, they faded to obscurity. After the news made by Schwartz's books on his study of mediums is he headed for the same fate?

Science, Forteans & Skeptics
This essay describes and discusses the way in which science and scientists are represented in the Fortean and Skeptic communities. Both communities are interested in what might be loosely termed 'New Age' topics (although such topics might be more accurately called 'Fortean', as we shall see when we describe the Forteans). Both communities have their own ways of approaching such topics, into which enter such questions as trust in science, anti-scientific sentiment, and so on.

A Skeptic's Story
How Two Skeptic Reports Became One…and the Universe Trembled!

Thermodynamics for Two, Please
"Evolution is impossible because it breaks the Second Law of Thermodynamics." Oh, yeah? Bob Riggins has news for you.

Top Excuses For Not Taking The Randi Challenge
Some have tried to take the JREF Challenge, but most don't. Incredibly enough, we do not see the world's psychics, dowsers, astrologers, or benders of cheap cutlery hurry to pick up the money. Far from it. Why could that be? What could their excuses be? Let's take a look at some of these excuses, and see if they stick.

The Transfiguration Of A Believer
How the death of my cat started me on my journey that would, for the main part, always be characterized by one thing: need. From atheism, theism, deism, always with an undercurrent of agnosticism, it wasn't until I dropped the Biblical inerrancy view though, that the objections of "unbelievers" really started to hit home with me, and become my own questions.

You Are Not Alone
If you have ever thought you are the only person in your community who doesn't believe in astrology or talking with the dead consider joining your local skeptic group. You can rant all you want about the ludicrousness of magnet therapy, and you will be met be understanding nods instead of the blank looks to which you are accustomed.