The Scientific Frauds Behind the False Vaccine-Autism Claim

With the production and distribution of the film Vaxxed and its successor Vaxxed 2, plus the notorious anti-vaccination/conspiracy video Plandemic, it has again become fashionable in some anti-vaccination circles to maintain that vaccines are medically ill-advised, provide little benefit given their risks, and are possibly pushed by a big government–Big Pharma cabal for the primary …

I write this article as a long-term investigator into psychology, health-related behavior, and claims of the paranormal. The article concerns an orchestrated saga of intellectual dishonesty by Professor Hans J. Eysenck, late of King’s College London, and two of his acolytes: medical sociologist and therapist Ronald Grossarth-Maticek and the late Cambridge University psychologist Carl L. …

Most patients—and even many medical doctors and scientists—have not grasped how important it is to use rigorous science to evaluate claims for medical treatments. All too often people decide to try a treatment that is irrational, hasn’t been tested, or has been tested and shown not to work. Why do they make those bad decisions? …

In a series of episodes aired on her show in 2007, Oprah Winfrey talked about the then-new sensational New Age phenomenon known as The Secret, a movie by Australian film producer Rhonda Byrne, who later wrote a book of the same title that, due to Winfrey’s enthusiastic endorsement, became an international bestseller. The Secret maintains …

A highlight of Albert Einstein’s work was the theory of special relativity, which greatly modified the classical mechanics of Isaac Newton. Einstein’s work is considered one of the pillars of modern physics, but some scientists rejected Einstein’s work for decades. Their refusal to accept Einstein’s work has been well documented, including in the book Hundred …

What would it take? What would it take? What would it take? This is what some religious conservatives wanted to ask British biologist J.B.S. Haldane. What would it take to make him admit that evolution was wrong? Haldane was one of the most colorful scientists of the early twentieth century. He made important discoveries that …

The aftermath of George Floyd’s cruel death made it clear that many Americans are largely unaware of the history of racial lynchings in their own country. From this ignorance came the corrosive insensitivity displayed by numerous white television pundits, journalists, radio hosts, and podcasters who commented endlessly on the details of Floyd’s death and the …

To honor the great philosopher of science and CSI Fellow Mario Bunge, who died February 24, 2020 (see SI, July/August 2020), we here republish one of his classic articles from Skeptical Inquirer, explaining the type of skepticism all good scientists and skeptics use. We first published it in our Summer 1992 issue, but it is …

Vaccines are back in the news big time in this dreadful year of 2020. The coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated how vital vaccines are. Without a vaccine for COVID-19, we have all been in peril this year. The world needs a vaccine badly—a safe and effective one—so that we can all get back to normal living. …

Conspiracy theories are common, especially during times of stress and social upheaval. So far in 2020, America has seen a confluence of stressors, including the COVID-19 pandemic and race riots across the country. As of this writing, there’s no clear end in sight for either. The Center for Inquiry, publisher of Skeptical Inquirer with the …

“BAM!” was the one-word message a friend sent me, accompanying a link to the July 23, 2020, New York Times article titled “No Longer in Shadows, Pentagon’s U.F.O. Unit Will Make Some Findings Public” (Blumenthal and Kean 2020). The implication from my friend (a life-long UFO fan) was that this was a significant step on …

False rumors of roving bands of abductors using plastic zip ties to identify their victims have been circulating on social media since around 2018 and recently surged in popularity. The warnings, often appearing on Facebook, Twitter, NextDoor, and WhatsApp, warn people about plastic zip ties being found on their vehicles, doorknobs, fences, mailboxes, and elsewhere. …

In amazing sea voyages seven centuries ago, Polynesians discovered and settled the island country they called Aotearoa—today’s New Zealand. Their descendants became the Maori people, with a distinct culture that was less nomadic, more dependent on garden food (such as gourds and sweet potatoes), and largely directed by utu (“reciprocity”), whether as gift-giving or by …

Atlantis is seen by many as the lost civilization par excellence, the “mother” of all civilizations. It is a pity that, despite much searching of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean for the mysterious island described by Plato, nothing convincing has ever been found. Neither unknown submerged archaeological remains nor sunken continents have been …

We are seeing a lot of pushback on government restrictions imposed to limit the spread of COVID-19. Many people refuse to wear masks or practice social distancing. Some claim that the disease has been conquered, pointing to improvement in survival rates, and manage to ignore the increasing number of new infections and hospitalizations. Some continue …

Q: I understand that an early crop circle seems to be depicted in a famous seventeenth-century woodcut. What can you tell me about that? —C. Blennerhassett A: Crop circles first appeared in the English countryside about fifty years ago. The designs—simple circles at first that grew in size and complexity over time—were mostly formed in …

Coronavirus Crisis Toward the end of his special report on the coronavirus crisis (“Coronavirus Crisis: Chaos, Counting, and Confronting Our Biases,” July/August 2020), Benjamin Radford, in mentioning the public’s blaming the media for misinformation, drops in the qualifier “—and often deservedly so—.” This phrase is fatally imprecise. Does this qualifier include all media (e.g., the …

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 …

On Friday, March 13, 2020, I invited a few friends over before we all went into lockdown. We did not stay six feet apart—the norm of social distancing had not yet been fully absorbed—but in a nod to good hygiene we washed, used disinfectant, and avoided shaking hands or hugging. That evening of food and …

Last October, I wrote about my experiences with the nascent skepticism movement in Brazil. In August of 2019, I traveled to São Paulo to speak at a number of events organized by the newly formed Instituto Questão de Ciência (IQC; Question of Science Institute), and I was introduced to a remarkably energetic group of science …