Cross Examined: Putting Christianity on Trial. John W. Campbell. An amazingly thorough, well-organized, systematic, methodical dissection of Christianity from the viewpoint of a trial lawyer. If Richard Dawkins leads with the scientific arguments against religion in The God Delusion, Campbell equally applies reason, rationality, legal principles, and arguments to dissecting the case of apologists for the Christian god. He considers the best arguments for Christianity and the best against it, making a full-throated argument for atheism in the mode of a trial lawyer making a case. Prometheus Books, 2021, 600 pp., $39.95.

DAVID COPPERFIELD’S HISTORY OF MAGIC. David Copperfield, Richard Wiseman, and David Britland. Photographs by Homer Liwag. Some have called him the greatest living illusionist. He has been described as the most commercially successful magician in history. Here David Copperfield, two coauthors (one our esteemed psychologist/magician colleague CSI Fellow Richard Wiseman), and a photographer present a nicely illustrated (100 photos from Copperfield’s Museum of Magic), large-format history of magic, focusing on some of the grand figures of conjuring and their illusions, performances, and challenges to convention. A fitting companion to James Randi’s 1992 large-format book Conjuring (St. Martin’s Press). Simon & Schuster, 2021, 256 pp., $35.00.

Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters. Steven Pinker. “Rationality ought to be the lodestar for everything we think and do,” Pinker notes, but that’s hardly the case.  Yet Pinker, the optimistic cognitive scientist, can’t accept the cynical view that our mind is a basket of delusions. We’ve accomplished a great deal. We are not comfortable with technocratic or bureaucratic impulses, but when we are given problems close to our lived reality and in the ways in which we naturally encounter the world, we can do quite well. Pinker champions rationality in this book, as he championed enlightenment values in his previous one, but he also seeks to learn and explain the enigmas that are making us do so many irrational things lately. He contrasts rationality within an individual and within a community as well as between two modes of believing: the reality mindset and the mythology mindset. After an introductory chapter on “How Rational an Animal?” he considers, in subsequent chapters, rationality and irrationality; logic and critical thinking; probability and randomness; beliefs and evidence; risks and reward; hits and false alarms; self and others; correlation and causation; What’s wrong with people?; and Why rationality matters. Viking, 2021, 412 pp., $32.00.

SO-CALLED ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE (SCAM) FOR CANCER. Edzard Ernst. The prolific physician and medical researcher Ernst has already written a 2018 book titled SCAM: So-Called Alternative Medicine. Here he narrows that theme to focus specifically on SCAM treatments for cancer. His introductory chapter is itself a tour de force analysis. He begins with three basic facts: a high percentage of cancer patients use SCAM, misinformation about SCAM is rife, and misinformation endangers the lives of patients. He follows with a definition of SCAM and related terms, common (and misleading) assumptions about SCAM (e.g., that it is helpful, natural, and therefore safe), essential facts about cancer, a discussion of claimed “integrative” cancer care, ethical issues, and a lengthy discussion of what is reliable evidence. He then ends with a section on pseudoscience and pseudoscientists (including a list of twenty activities they use in SCAM). Subsequent chapters deal with plant-derived “natural” remedies, homeopathy, diets, acupuncture, massage, mind-body therapies, herbal remedies, supplements, and paranormal healing. A final chapter describes the risks of SCAM. It would be hard to find a better informed or clearer guide to the problems of using alternative medical treatments for cancer. Springer, 2021, 216 pp., $39.99 hardcover, $29.99 eBook.