The Nobel Disease: When Intelligent Scientists Go Weird

No scientific award is more coveted than the Nobel Prize. In the eyes of the public, this prize, especially in the three traditional science categories of chemistry, physics, and physiology or medicine, is virtually synonymous with scientific brilliance. At the same time, the stories of the more than 600 Nobelists in the hard sciences pose …

Science denial and misinformation are having a bit of a moment. In recent years, the terms post-truth and fake news have been named word of the year by various dictionaries. Flat-earthers achieved newfound exposure—though not necessarily support—with a 2018 Netflix documentary, and the current U.S. president is a climate change denier and anti-vaxxer. These developments …

Following the September 1966 premiere of the original series Star Trek, which creator Gene Roddenberry called “the first true SF series ever made on television” (Solow and Justman 1996, 301), the show garnered the attention of none other than Isaac Asimov. Asimov wrote a review of Star Trek for TV Guide in which he (as …

Of the countless “unexplained mysteries” I read as a teenager, one in particular stands out as especially spooky: the restless coffins in a burial vault in Barbados. It is a classic scary story, along the lines of King Tut’s curse or the Devil’s Footprints found in an English snowfall. These were to me interesting but …

This is the third and final installment of a three-part series that shares the sidebars from the book Pseudoscience in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy (edited by Stephen Hupp, Cambridge University Press, 2019). Contributors for this installment include a film director, a paranormal investigator, a family physician, a podcast producer, a social psychologist, and two graduate …

In the first few months of 2020, a new and deadly disease killed and quarantined thousands, panicked millions, and made international news. The new virus, dubbed COVID-19 or 2019-nCoV, is a type of coronavirus; two of the best known and most deadly are SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome, first identified in 2003) and MERS (Middle East …

Zak Bagans, the star of popular “reality” ghost hunting show Ghost Adventures and owner of a Las Vegas haunted house featuring allegedly cursed objects, was revealed in January to have plagiarized his new book. Researcher Kenny Biddle discovered the plagiarism when reviewing Ghost Hunting for Dummies, credited solely to Bagans. Biddle discovered extensive plagiarism from …

A long, long time ago when I was a young staff member at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., I found myself sitting at a small office table opposite Nobel laureate physicist William Shockley. Normally, this would be an exciting moment—he was coinventor of the transistor. But it was not. It was awkward. …

The reports from friends in Amherst, New York, in early June 2019 were unsettling. Prometheus Books, the courageous independent publisher of noteworthy books on skepticism, humanism, philosophy, science, and religion founded by philosopher Paul Kurtz, was “shutting down.” Retiring employees were not being replaced. The office doors at its headquarters on John Glenn Drive in …

Dr. Stephen Barrett’s famed Quackwatch.org website is now a part of the Center for Inquiry (CFI). For many years, Quackwatch.org and its related websites have been an indispensable and trusted resource in the fight to expose the fraud of health-related pseudoscience and fake medicine. Quackwatch houses an exhaustive array of information, advice, and news for consumers, activists, …

Despite the beliefs of many people, scientists have yet to find any compelling evidence for life beyond Earth. But that doesn’t mean we’re alone. If our world is the only place where biology exists, then life isn’t a frequent product of natural processes; it’s a miracle. The support for this daring statement is simple. In …

I last wrote about the “War of the Weasels,” the ongoing creationist attacks on evolutionary (genetic) algorithms, in the May/June 2010 issue of Skeptical Inquirer (Thomas 2010). Genetic algorithms (GAs) are computerized simulations of evolution and are used to study evolutionary processes and also to solve difficult engineering or math problems. Intelligent design (ID) creationists …

China’s Forbidden City is a 178-acre ancient palace complex in the heart of Beijing. Constructed in the early fifteenth century, it is not only a national treasure but also a UNESCO World Heritage site (since 1987)—fittingly so, because it is the largest such palace site in the world. Double walled and ringed with a wide …

Kinesiology is the scientific study of movement. Applied kinesiology is a bogus muscle-testing technique most commonly used by chiropractors but also by some other health care practitioners. It is neither scientific nor valid but instead based on a delusion. One commenter said, “It is denounced as an absurd and dishonest parlour trick by anyone else …

In a new column focused on “The Examined Life,” Matthew Nisbet investigates the twisted messages about human happiness and flourishing that dominate popular culture, offering readers a skeptical dose of anti-self-help advice. A few years ago, I moved with my wife and son to an upper-middle-class community north of Boston. As I walked around town, …

This is the first of a two-part series on the effect of superstitious belief on the real estate market. The second installment will appear in a future Behavior & Belief column. I recently discovered a disturbing fact: my home office is in the northwest corner of my house, which is very bad. Furthermore, I often …

Q: In researching reports of Mothman, I’ve found many references to the beast having glowing red eyes. Is that real?  —O. Elfenkamper A: Mothman is the name bestowed upon one or more mysterious flying creatures first reported in the small West Virginia town of Point Pleasant starting with several prominent sightings in November 1966 and …

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 …

Climate Tribalism? Matthew Nisbet asserts that “today’s ubiquitous branding of Republicans as the party of ‘denial’ greatly exaggerates the intensity of opposition to climate and clean energy solutions among those on the center right. …”  (“Against Climate Change Tribalism: We Gamble with the Future by Dehumanizing Our Opponents,” January/February 2020). This statement is irrelevant even …