Category: Review

In the final chapter of her book Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea, Christine Garwood estimated “there are probably no more than a few thousand flat-earth believers alive in the world today and fewer still who would be willing publicly to declare their conviction.” That was in 2007. Fifteen years later, flat-earth conventions …

The Guardian has referred to Dr. Jen Gunter, author of the bestselling The Vagina Bible, as “the world’s most famous—and outspoken—gynecologist.” In her follow-up book, Gunter lives up to that appellation. The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health with Facts and Feminism is just that—a manifesto that declares “what the patriarchy thinks of menopause is irrelevant. …

It’s common knowledge that Prince Charles is a persistent and outspoken champion of alternative medicine, but the full story has never been told—until now. Edzard Ernst reveals all the shocking details in this unauthorized biography. The shocks come from Charles’s own words, which Ernst quotes extensively. It is ironic that Charles’s supporters were responsible for …

Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley isn’t just a film experience; it’s a tutorial in the practices and techniques of the psychic marketplace we live in and a dark reflection of the world we have come to accept as normal. We can no longer deny lying has become a successful business practice, and del Toro has …

William of Occam is a hero of the skeptical movement, and the importance of Occam’s razor to skeptical analysis is well known to readers of this magazine. But just who William of Occam actually was and what he actually said is less well known. Johnjoe McFadden’s book not only provides a biography of William but …

Hollywood has always had trouble with science. To its credit, the American Film Institute (AFI) recognized the problem and ran a series of Catalyst Workshops to help scientists learn the art of storytelling and translate their work into film. In 2009, AFI asked applicants to write essays including sections describing movies they think portray science …

Charles, the Alternative Prince: An Unauthorized Biography. By Edzard Ernst. Exeter, United Kingdom: Imprint Academic (Societas), 2022. ISBN 978-1788360708. 210 pp. Softcover, $29.90; kindle, $15.99. The title of the latest book by Edzard Ernst is somewhat misleading. Though certainly unauthorized, this is not a standard biography. Rather, it is a searing, ruthlessly efficient account of …

Hollywood has always had trouble with science. To its credit, the American Film Institute (AFI) recognized the problem and ran a series of Catalyst Workshops to help scientists learn the art of storytelling and translate their work into film. In 2009, AFI asked applicants to write essays including sections describing movies they think portray science …

John of God: The Crimes of a Spiritual Healer is a Netflix true crime documentary series from Brazilian filmmakers Mauricio Dias and Tatiana Villela about the titular scoundrel (real name João Teixeira de Faria). Known for decades in South America, João de Deus (John of God) was a prolific medium who claimed to channel the …

There’s been some strange paradigm shifts among the educated classes of the Western world lately concerning gender. For one thing, in some circles, people are asked to state their gender and give their preferred pronouns. Controversies exist about bathroom assignment. Specialized therapists, speakers, and publications have emerged to encourage the wider public to develop greater …

Once when asked about her name, Madonna replied, “I sometimes think I was born to live up to my name.” Although the life of a pop star and an investigative journalist are worlds apart, there are few who fit this quote as well as Mike Rothschild. In the conspiracy community, no surname is as detested …

True crime shows are not for everyone, but if you are a fan of the genre and a student of critical thinking, this docuseries is for you. It is dark, gritty, loaded with unexpected turns and twists, and is a fascinating historical window into British society in the 1970s. In focusing on one of the …

A historian of science at Princeton University specializing in modern physics, Michael D. Gordin is also the author of The Pseudoscience Wars (2012), a book devoted to—in the words of its subtitle—Immanuel Velikovsky and the birth of the modern fringe. (David Morrison reviewed The Pseudoscience Wars in the March/April 2013 SI.) But, as the title …

Michael J. Behe is a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. With the publication twenty-five years ago of Darwin’s Black Box, Behe began to advance an argument against Darwin’s theory that evolutionary traits said to alter a species by natural selection typically consist of multiple component parts, resulting from separate genetic mutations …

I would normally ignore a book by a non-climate scientist promising “the truth about climate science that you aren’t getting elsewhere,” because such language is a red flag. But I’ve known the author of Unsettled, Steven Koonin, since I took his quantum mechanics course as a PhD student at Caltech in the 1970s. He’s smart …

Readers of Stuart Vyse’s engaging, enlightening, and fair-minded Behavior & Belief columns in Skeptical Inquirer magazine and at Skeptical Inquirer Online won’t be surprised that his Superstition: A Very Short Introduction makes another significant contribution to promoting skeptical inquiry. The book is part of Oxford University Press’s Very Short Introductions series of more than 600 …

Broadly speaking, there are three categories of the unknown: stuff we don’t know but should, stuff we don’t know but may know eventually, and stuff we will (almost certainly) never know. Topics examined in Big—If True: Adventures in Oddity by Benjamin Radford somehow fall within those three categories—even though most of them could safely be …

Has the world seemed a bit extra irrational, a bit extra crazy, the past few years? If you feel that way, you are not alone. Russell Muirhead, a professor of politics and democracy at Dartmouth, and Nancy L. Rosenblum, a professor of ethics in politics and government at Harvard, clearly have also felt this way. …

As a film fan, I have been delighted to be able to see film festivals even during the pandemic. It was in that capacity that a short documentary film titled Unspoken caught my eye. It’s about Emma Zurcher-Long, a girl with autism. The film screened at the Slamdance Film Festival earlier this year. Executive produced …

Fake Medicine: Exposing the Wellness Crazes, Cons and Quacks Costing Us Our Health. By Brad McKay. Hachette Australia, 2021, ISBN 978-0-7336-4686-7, 290 pp. You can buy this book on Booktopia or Amazon. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I heard that Dr. Brad McKay had published his first book, Fake Medicine: Exposing the Wellness …

Science journalist Sarah Scoles’s book can be divided into three sections. The first covers the background of the story that military pilots had taken videos of flying saucers in 2004, videos that became known as the Tic Toc videos. Then there is a short section on the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), which blends nicely into …

Reports coming out of Cuba in 2016 were bizarre, mysterious, and alarming: American diplomats in Havana were under attack by a terrifying and powerful—yet invisible—enemy. Victims complained of headaches, dizziness, nausea, and fatigue; some suffered debilitating memory and concentration problems, while others reported hearing loss and tinnitus. The only clue about its origin was that …

Last summer, the PBS Frontline documentary United States of Conspiracy aired. This excellent program described important changes in our nation that led to the unpredicted, poll-defying election of a media personality with no political or public service experience, a long string of allegations of fraud, at best lackluster business accomplishments, and little respect or interest …

I found the title of The Skeptic’s Guide to Sports Science: Confronting Myths of the Health and Fitness Industry a bit misleading. I was expecting to find a list of sports myths debunked by scientific evidence, but what I found was much better. It does debunk several sports-related myths, but the majority of the book …

Okay, the first question the reader should be asking is “Why is a book on poker being reviewed in Skeptical Inquirer?” Followed by “Why is it being reviewed by a psychologist?” And then “What does he know about poker?” Let me answer in reverse order. I’ve been a poker player all my life. I’ve cashed …

Deej. 2017. 72 min. Directed by Robert Rooy. Executive Producers: Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan.   High school and college classrooms around the United States were offered a free virtual screening of the movie Deej for Disability Awareness Month in October 2020. The film was marketed as a Peabody Award–winning, Emmy-nominated film on autism, adoption, …

Feng Shui: Teaching about Science and Pseudoscience. By Michael R. Matthews. Berlin, Germany: Springer. 2019. ISBN 978-3-030-18821-4. 340 pp. Hardcover, $119.99.   If you think of feng shui (which translates literally as “wind water”) as nothing more than a silly furniture-arranging gimmick gussied up with bogus Eastern trappings, you’ll be surprised, as I was, that …

Love Is Blind (television series). Netflix. Chris Coelen, creator and executive producer. First airdate February 13, 2020.   Love Is Blind is the latest hit in reality television. The show is wildly entertaining, but this new twist on reality-show dating markets itself as a science experiment. This could kill people. Love Is Blind takes good-looking …

Strange but True: 10 of the World’s Greatest Mysteries Explained. By Kathryn Hulick. Illustrated by Gordy Wright. Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, Quarto Publishing, Minneapolis, MN, 2019. ISBN 978-1-78603-784-8. 127 pp. Hardcover, $22.99.   Kathryn Hulick’s Strange but True: 10 of the World’s Greatest Mysteries Explained is a refreshing addition to the strange-mysteries genre—all the more …

The First Minds: Caterpillars, ‘Karyotes & Consciousness. By Arthur S. Reber. Oxford University Press, 2018, ISBN-13: 978-0-190-85415-7, 296 pp. Hardcover, $35.   Imagine we’re robot scientists who have been observing the universe since its origin with the big bang. After eight or nine billion years or so, a remarkable new phenomenon arose: life. We’d have …

Taking Conspiracy Theories Seriously. Matthew R.X. Dentith, Rowman & Littlefield International, 2018. ISBN: 9781786608284. 251 pp. Softcover, $34.95.   On June 6, 2016, the newspaper Le Monde published a collective opinion piece criticizing the French government for not being effective in combating “conspiracy theories.” The piece conveyed the impression that any narrative touching upon a …

The Shroud of Turin: The History and Legends of the World’s Most Famous Relic. By Andrea Nicolotti. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2020. 523 pp. Hardcover, $59.95.   The remarkable thing about the Shroud of Turin is that it started out as merely a painting but ended up being treated as a relic—namely a piece …

Falling Flat: A Refutation of Flat-Earth Claims. Danny R. Faulkner. Master Books, Green Forest, Arkansas, 2019. ISBN 978-1-68344-206-6. 385 pp. Softcover, $16.99. A fifth of the way into the twenty-first century, it is hard to believe that flat-earthers are still around. Faced with assertions of flat-earth belief by figures from the athletic and entertainment worlds, …

Placebos for Pets? The Truth about Alternative Medicine in Animals. By Brennen McKenzie, VMD, MSc. Ockham Publishing, 2019, ISBN: 978-1-9212701-36-0. 481 pp., Softcover, $17.99.   Alternative medicine is accepted by many humans, but we may forget that it is also imposed on their pets. Veterinarian Brennen McKenzie has done cats and dogs everywhere a great …

Science of the Supernatural: Dare to Discover the Truth. Daniel S. Levy. National Geographic Partners. 2019. ISBN 978-5478-4942-0. 97 pp. Book-azine, $14.99. The good name of the National Geographic Society (NGS) is unfortunately being misused, as Skeptical Inquirer has reluctantly noted on recent occasions. As discussed in our special issue “Health Wars” (September/October 2019), NGS …

The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can’t Be Computed. By Christof Koch. MIT Press, 2019, ISBN: 978-0-262-04281-9. 257 pp. Hardcover, $27.95 In 2003, billionaire Paul Allen—best known for not being Bill Gates—founded the Allen Institute for Brain Science, which has done, and continues to do, important work. In 2011, Christof Koch, …

Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes. By Nathan H. Lents. Boston, MA: Mariner Books, 2019. ISBN 9781328589262. 233 pp. Softcover, $15.99. In Human Errors, Nathan H. Lents, a professor of biology at John Jay College, CUNY (and a speaker at CSICon 2019), has demonstrated that the human body …

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. By Caroline Criado Perez. New York: Abrams Press. 411 pp. Hardcover, $27.00   Unlike many popular books on gender differences and conflicts, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men refreshingly ignores brains, personalities, and stereotypes. Instead, Caroline Criado Perez shows why sexism …

The Warfare between Science and Religion: The Idea That Wouldn’t Die. Jeff Hardin, Ronald L. Numbers, and Ronald A. Binzley, editors. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018. ISBN 9781421426181. 368 pp. Softcover, $39.95.   In the introduction to The Warfare between Science and Religion, its thesis is clearly laid out: “There has never been a systemic …

The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience. By Lee McIntyre. MIT Press, 2019. ISBN 9780266039833. 296 pp., $27.95.   Science is under attack. The evidence for global warming is overwhelming, but many reject the evidence in favor of ideology and just believe what they want to believe. Vaccine-preventable diseases are rebounding due to rejection …