Category: New And Notable
New and Notable Books– Vol. 46, no. 4
BETWEEN APE AND HUMAN: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid. Gregory Forth. The author, an Oxford-educated longtime professor of anthropology, examines the so-called “hobbit” discovery that excited both scholars and the public in 2003: In a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores, skeletons of a small-statured early human species were discovered …
New and Notable Books– Vol. 46, no. 3
THE CONJUROR’S CONUNDRUM: My Life in Magic and Skepticism. Jamy Ian Swiss. Swiss, a professional magician and longtime book reviewer for Genii magazine, has been active in the skeptical movement for nearly forty years. The title of his new book comes from the seeming paradox that many magicians (e.g., Houdini, James “The Amazing” Randi, Banachek, …
New and Notable Books – Vol. 46, no. 1
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 …
New and Notable Books – Vol. 45, no. 6
THE LEGENDS OF THE PYRAMIDS: Myths and Misconceptions about Ancient Egypt. Jason Colavito. Colavito researches the connections between science, pseudoscience, and speculative fiction. Ancient Egypt is perhaps the oldest and best example. He looks at “the way people imagined (and outright fabricated) Egyptian history from Alexander’s conquest in 322 BCE down to the present.” He …
New and Notable Books – Vol. 45, no. 4
BOOKS DO FURNISH A LIFE: Reading and Writing Science. Richard Dawkins. Edited by Gillian Somerscales. A fine collection of short writings by Dawkins, the noted zoologist and master of science communication. All are in some way connected with books (“the love of books,” Dawkins says) that have furnished his life in science. They include forewords, …
New & Notable Books — Vol. 45 No. 3
SCIENCE AND ANTHROPOLOGY IN A POST-TRUTH WORLD: A Critique of Unreason and Academic Nonsense. H. Sidky. Thanks to a combination of postmodernist academics who discount truth or reliable knowledge and a Trump presidency that fomented falsehoods and lies, Americans now live in a post-truth era characterized by fake news, weaponized lies, alternative facts, conspiracy theories, …
New And Notable
DEAR MARTIN / DEAR MARCELLO: Gardner and Truzzi on Skepticism. Edited by Dana Richards. This book is a major contribution to the history of modern skepticism. It will also be of considerable interest to the history and philosophy of science more generally. Martin Gardner comes back to life in the form of sparkling, never-before-seen correspondence …