June 2, 2023. In 2019, Janalee Morris, then-president of the Atheist Society of Calgary, recently rebranded as The Rocky Mountain Atheists, approached me about organizing a “kick-ass conference.”. It would be held in 2020 and be branded The Western Canadian Reason Conference, or WeCanReason. Our goals were to provide learning opportunities ...Joe Nickell, PhD, is senior research fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) and “Investigative Files” columnist for Skeptical Inquirer. A former stage magician, private investigator, and teacher, he is author of numerous books, including Inquest on the Shroud of Turin (1983), Pen, Ink and Evidence (1990), Unsolved History (1992 ...Skeptical Inquirer is a quarterly publication that explores the boundaries of science, pseudoscience, and critical thinking. Read articles on topics such as bullshit, science …Leo Kanner (1894–1981), the first person to identify autism as a childhood disorder. (Source: Wikimedia) In 1930, Austrian psychiatrist Leo Kanner opened the first psychiatric clinic devoted solely to children at Johns Hopkins University, and in 1943 he first identified the disorder of autism, borrowing one of Beuler’s “A’s” (Adler et ...James “The Amazing” Randi is a magician, investigator of psychic claims, author (Flim-Flam!, The Faith Healers, The Mask of Nostradamus, The Magic of Uri Geller), and the president of the James Randi Educational Foundation. He was a founding fellow of CSICOP. This article is based on a special presentation on investigating psychics he gave ...The original article in Skeptical Inquirer Winter 1986–87 had a relaxed cover picture by artist Ron Chironna and this introduction by Editor Kendrick Frazier: “We begin publication in this issue of Geoffrey Dean’s two-part ‘Does Astrology Need to Be True?’ a comprehensive investigation of the claims of serious astrology as defined by ‘serious’ … The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry ( CSI ), formerly known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal ( CSICOP ), is a program within the U.S. non-profit organization Center for Inquiry (CFI), which seeks to "promote scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial ... People who have very high levels of conspiracy thinking tend to think that everything is the product of a shadowy conspiracy. The people on the low end tend to be resistant to conspiracy theories. Denialism works in a similar way. Some people have an antagonistic relationship with authoritative sources of information. Editor’s note: Psychologist and CSI Fellow Elizabeth Loftus is one of the world’s leading experts on human memory. She has long been outspoken in her criticisms of the controversial claims about repressed memories and innovative in her research showing how false memories can easily be created. She is Distinguished Professor of …Bjorn Lomborg. Bjørn Lomborg, PhD, is an adjunct professor in the Copenhagen Business School and organizer of the Copenhagen Consensus, a conference of top economists who come together to prioritize the best solutions for the world’s greatest challenges. He is author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and, most recently, Cool It!January/February 2024. Volume 48, No. 1. Feature Article. Is Bigfoot Dead? Benjamin Radford. Twenty years ago, in this magazine I wrote an overview of the evidence for … Kendrick Frazier was at the center of the modern skeptical movement from the beginning. Through the pages of Skeptical Inquirer, he shared his own wisdom, amplified the voices of notable science communicators, and introduced many new voices—one of which was mine in 2017 when he published my first magazine article. Without Ken, and without my … In an article in the Skeptical Inquirer (Nickell 2014) and in the book American Hauntings (Bartholomew and Nickell 2015, 57–77), I analyzed the Perrons’ claims of demonic activity and showed that they were consistent with the effects of strong winds, misperceptions, schoolgirl pranks, vivid dreams, simple suggestion, role-playing, and other …We were privileged to publish an article in the Skeptical Inquirer last year (Sharps et al. 2013) concerning the psychological factors that made it possible for modern human beings, even with modern access to scientific information, to believe in this type of baseless nonsense. We found that disturbingly high numbers of university students ...Skeptical Inquirer Volume 38, No. 5. September / October 2014. Josh Zepps. Carl Sagan Collection. We present a condensed version of an earlier interview about Ann Druyan’s experience with the first and the new Cosmos series by Josh Zepps for our Center for Inquiry’s Point of Inquiry podcast. This article is available for free to all. Skeptical Inquirer is the official journal of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. On a bimonthly basis, Skeptical Inquirer publishes critical scientific evaluations of paranormal and fringe-science claims and informed discussion of all relevant issues. According to Editor Kendrick Frazier: "Skeptical Inquirer is an unusual hybrid, part semi ... Homeopaths believe effectiveness increases the more you dilute the putatively active ingredient. They measure dilution on a logarithmic so-called C-scale. 30C—which is recommended as a good, effective dose—corresponds to a dilution of one part in 10 -60. The late James Randi calculated that this is equivalent to one molecule of the active ... A new film, dedicated to CSI Fellow and Skeptical Inquirer columnist Harriet “SkepDoc” Hall, describes the rise of the anti-vaccination movement from long before COVID-19 to the present day. The film’s executive producer is Academy Award–winning documentarian Mark Jonathan Harris, and the film is produced by Laura Davis and directed and ...The President is one of countless people who have come to believe that there is a “97% consensus” on anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Since it is inconceivable that any climate scientist today could have no opinion on the subject, if 97 percent accept AGW it follows that 3 percent reject it. To those outside of science, 3 percent may ...As Fellows of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry we expect professional medical organizations accurately communicate the real risks and benefits of technologies. ... Skeptical Inquirer Magazine. PO Box 703 Amherst, NY 14226 800-634-1610 or (716) 636-1425. Center for Inquiry – Headquarters. PO Box 741 Amherst, NY 14226June 2, 2023. In 2019, Janalee Morris, then-president of the Atheist Society of Calgary, recently rebranded as The Rocky Mountain Atheists, approached me about organizing a “kick-ass conference.”. It would be held in 2020 and be branded The Western Canadian Reason Conference, or WeCanReason. Our goals were to provide learning opportunities ...August 22, 2022. Nick Tiller. Kinesiology tape, also known as Kinesio Tape, KT Tape, or just K-Tape, is made from 100 percent cotton fiber and “specialized elastic cores” that stretch in length but not width, allowing it to move and flex with muscles and joints. The Skeptic’s Guide to Sports Science.Logo of the Skeptical Inquirer. CSI publishes the magazine Skeptical Inquirer, which was founded by Truzzi, under the name The Zetetic. The journal was under Truzzi's editorship for the first year, until August 1977. The magazine was retitled to Skeptical Inquirer with Kendrick Frazier, former editor of Science News, serving as its editor. In ...I know Skeptical Inquirer has largely remained aloof from partisan controversies, but it seems to me that what’s going on in the country these days needs a good, heathy dose …WASHINGTON (AP) — Conservative Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical Wednesday that state abortion bans after their sweeping ruling overturning …Scullion also presents artifacts apparently produced by lens flare as evidence of ghosts, referring to them as orbs. Scullion ignores the fact that in many of the images a line can be drawn (with a ruler) from the “orbs” straight back to an overexposed light source (such as a porch light or street lamp). Another clue attributing the ...On June 21, 2019, a new couple purchased a fourteen-room farmhouse on eight and a half acres in Harrisville, Rhode Island, for approximately $439,000 (Mroch 2019). Normally such an event wouldn’t be a big deal—much less make news—but this was not an ordinary house. This was the infamous residence known to the world as “The Conjuring ...Harriet A. Hall was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 2, 1945, and died on January 11, 2023, in Puyallup, Washington. Richard Saunders just replayed on his podcast The Skeptic Zone a 2007 interview he had done with Harriet Hall when they were both on a JREF cruise to Alaska. It was Harriet’s first ever podcast interview and relistening to it …Lee first unveiled his plans last fall to allow families to access public money for private schooling, regardless of income. At the time, he was surrounded by the state’s …The Skeptical Inquirer author seems to have entirely hallucinated it out of thin air. He also seems to assume that we were endorsing panpsychism, while our essay …Converting the ‘Skeptics’. Karen Stollznow, a linguist, author, and skeptical investigator, wrote about Caputo’s exaggerated displays of emotion: There is rarely a scene where she isn’t in tears or claiming empathetic abilities, such as, “I could feel your tears running down my cheek.”. In one episode she announces that the spirit ... The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry ( CSI ), formerly known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal ( CSICOP ), is a program within the U.S. non-profit organization Center for Inquiry (CFI), which seeks to "promote scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial ... After that, the addition of the false etymology created an aura of scholarship about the article (to be fair, procedures for creating and adding to Wikipedia articles have tightened since then; see “Skepticism One Wikipage at a Time: Talking with Wikiskeptic Susan Gerbic-Forsyth” in the March/April 2012 Skeptical Inquirer).Pinker, a longtime Committee for Skeptical Inquiry Fellow, is the author of eight books, including How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The. Language Instinct, and most recently The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined. The interview focuses on the premise of his. latest book: that we now live in the least violent and most ...The second day got more scientific, examining various efforts to rigorously search for anomalous phenomena. Various approaches were described, including an update on the Galileo Project (which I discussed in the November/December 2021 Skeptical Inquirer).Joe Nickell, PhD, is senior research fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) and “Investigative Files” columnist for Skeptical Inquirer. A former stage magician, private investigator, and teacher, he is author of numerous books, including Inquest on the Shroud of Turin (1983), Pen, Ink and Evidence (1990), Unsolved History (1992 ...A new film, dedicated to CSI Fellow and Skeptical Inquirer columnist Harriet “SkepDoc” Hall, describes the rise of the anti-vaccination movement from long before COVID-19 to the present day. The film’s executive producer is Academy Award–winning documentarian Mark Jonathan Harris, and the film is produced by Laura Davis and directed and ...April 21, 2024 at 9:00 PM PDT. Listen. 3:02. Volkswagen AG faces an uphill battle to convince investors it can turn around its business in China. After being …Feb 28, 2023 · Founded in Washington, D.C., by G. Marion Pettie, the Finders were described as a school that “operates on the principle that life is a series of games. To play the games, a person must follow the rules by acting a certain way in every situation” (Bentley 1987). The actual date of the group’s founding seems to be a matter of dispute ... As Fellows of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry we expect professional medical organizations accurately communicate the real risks and benefits of technologies. ... Skeptical Inquirer Magazine. PO Box 703 Amherst, NY 14226 800-634-1610 or (716) 636-1425. Center for Inquiry – Headquarters. PO Box 741 Amherst, NY 14226Skeptical Inquirer Presents. Skeptical Inquirer Presents is a series of live online presentations from leading experts in science, skepticism, medicine, media, activism, and advocacy, all devoted to the cause of advancing science over pseudoscience, media literacy over conspiracy theories, and critical thinking over magical thinking. ...Dictionaries, encyclopedias, Google, textbooks, Skeptical Inquirer—these are all static texts that someone wrote to convey individual concepts. The text is written once for a …Feb 8, 2023 · Skeptical Inquirer Magazine. PO Box 703 Amherst, NY 14226 800-634-1610 or (716) 636-1425. Center for Inquiry – Headquarters. PO Box 741 Amherst, NY 14226 I know Skeptical Inquirer has largely remained aloof from partisan controversies, but it seems to me that what’s going on in the country these days needs a good, heathy dose …Mark Edward did a cold-reading demonstration event at CSICon in 2017; the workshop was all skeptics, and you needed a separate ticket to attend. We obtained a list with about fifty names of people who would be at the workshop. ... Skeptical Inquirer Magazine. PO Box 703 Amherst, NY 14226 800-634-1610 or (716) 636-1425. Center for …In QM, there is no transmission of energy between the separated particles; it is only that they are “entangled.”. In short, parapsychology cannot be true unless the rest of science isn’t. Moreover, if psi effects were real, they would have already fatally disrupted the rest of the body of science.November / December 2015. Forty years have passed since my book The Bermuda Triangle Mystery—Solved was published in 1975. The most important chapter is “Flight 19,” the account of the five Navy Avenger torpedo bombers and a Martin Mariner PBM that disappeared on December 5, 1945. Flight 19 was on an overwater navigation-training … Harriet Hall, MD, a retired Air Force physician and flight surgeon, writes and educates about pseudoscientific and so-called alternative medicine. She is a contributing editor and frequent contributor to the Skeptical Inquirer and contributes to the blog Science-Based Medicine. She is author of Women Aren’t Supposed to Fly: Memoirs of a Female Flight Surgeon and coauthor of the 2012 textbook ... Harriet Hall, MD, a retired Air Force physician and flight surgeon, writes and educates about pseudoscientific and so-called alternative medicine. She is a contributing editor and frequent contributor to the Skeptical Inquirer and contributes to the blog Science-Based Medicine. She is author of Women Aren’t Supposed to Fly: Memoirs of a Female Flight Surgeon …Jan 23, 2023 · in Skeptical Inquirer magazine, including her “Reality Is the Best Medicine” columns published since the September/October 2018 issue skepticalinquirer.org , where her monthly SkepDoc’s Corner columns have been published since September 2016, including some that were translated into Spanish by Alejandro Borgo of the Center for Inquiry ... One of my best friends is a skeptic. And yet for years he has been trying to convince me not to use the S-word. You see, every time he talks to someone about the activities of our local group, New York City Skeptics, tries to promote the Skeptical Inquirer, or our former podcast Rationally Speaking, he runs into the same problem: people are immediately …Available for preorder, psychology professor Richard Wiseman’s latest book aims to help children “learn how to perform lots of seemingly impossible feats, including how to defy … Kendrick Frazier was at the center of the modern skeptical movement from the beginning. Through the pages of Skeptical Inquirer, he shared his own wisdom, amplified the voices of notable science communicators, and introduced many new voices—one of which was mine in 2017 when he published my first magazine article. Without Ken, and without my … The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry ( CSI ), formerly known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal ( CSICOP ), is a program within the U.S. non-profit organization Center for Inquiry (CFI), which seeks to "promote scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial ... Joe Nickell, PhD, is senior research fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) and “Investigative Files” columnist for Skeptical Inquirer. A former stage magician, private investigator, and teacher, he is author of numerous books, including Inquest on the Shroud of Turin (1983), Pen, Ink and Evidence (1990), Unsolved History (1992 ...The documentary, financed with the help of the Y-12 uranium enrichment facility, begins with yet another telling of Robinson’s version of the story, with actor Bruce Born reading the part of John Hendrix. Whatever credibility the Hendrix story has rests on details of the location of the city and the railroad.Skeptical Inquirer. Annual Digital Subscription $16.99 billed annually. $2.83 / issue. BUY NOW. “The Time Warp: Skepticism Revisited—from the Future” is the first of an … Skeptical Inquirer Magazine. PO Box 703 Amherst, NY 14226 800-634-1610 or (716) 636-1425. Center for Inquiry – Headquarters. PO Box 741 Amherst, NY 14226 (716) 636 ... In September 2021, the head of the Biden panel overseeing Havana Syndrome, Pamela Spratlen, was forced to resign after she refused to rule out mass psychogenic illness as a possible cause (Lederman and Breslauer 2021). This was a clear signal that the government’s investigation was being driven by politics instead of science.Talk 4: The Great Australian Psychic Prediction Project by Rob Palmer, retired aerospace engineer, Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) team member, Skeptical Inquirer columnist As mentioned above, this year was the third time in a row I had the privilege of being a speaker at the Sunday Morning Papers session.The direction of all eight of these errors is consistent in tending to indicate a temporal association. It is unlikely that these were simply accidental copying errors. It indicates that the authors falsified the temporal associations between MMR vaccine administration and development of behavioral symptoms. Fraud 3.—A post on Wikipedia complaining about material from a Kyle Polich Skeptical Inquirer article used to critique the Missing 411 claims. I have a love-hate relationship with conspiracy theories. I find it endlessly fascinating to explore the non-reality-based evidence used to support the nuanced, well-thought-out, ...Editor’s note: Psychologist and CSI Fellow Elizabeth Loftus is one of the world’s leading experts on human memory. She has long been outspoken in her criticisms of the controversial claims about repressed memories and innovative in her research showing how false memories can easily be created. She is Distinguished Professor of …The Skeptic published a preliminary report, Not for Prophet, about the GAPPP in March 2021. This was written by one of the project’s participants, Adrienne Hill, and it describes both the creation and the work of the team assembled to score the massive number of predictions. It is available here.The documentary, financed with the help of the Y-12 uranium enrichment facility, begins with yet another telling of Robinson’s version of the story, with actor Bruce Born reading the part of John Hendrix. Whatever credibility the Hendrix story has rests on details of the location of the city and the railroad.His work can be found on davidtolkacz.com. As a skeptic, he is interested in moral panics and the history of religion and the state. See more articles. Special Articles. Other Articles from Special Articles. The Case of the Disappearing Ghost Story ... Skeptical Inquirer Magazine. PO Box 703 Amherst, NY 14226 800-634-1610 or (716) 636-1425 ...Jan 27, 2023 · January 27, 2023. Susan Gerbic and Harriet Hall at CSICon 2016. Harriet A. Hall was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 2, 1945, and died on January 11, 2023, in Puyallup, Washington. Richard Saunders just replayed on his podcast The Skeptic Zone a 2007 interview he had done with Harriet Hall when they were both on a JREF cruise to Alaska. Harriet ‘SkepDoc’ Hall (1945–2023) Stuart Vyse. On January 12, as this issue of the magazine was being finalized, we received word that Harriet Hall, MD—the “SkepDoc” and longtime author of the “Reality Is the Best Medicine” column for Skeptical Inquirer—had died. Hall was an astonishingly prolific writer, a sought-after ..."Skeptical Inquirer is a bimonthly American magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) with the subtitle: The Magazine for Science and Reason. In 2016 …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 of cloth bearing an imprint of Jesus’s dead body. Church historian Andrea Nicolotti’s tome on the ...Skeptical Inquirer, 1(1):58-68, Fall. Story, Ronald D. 1977 Von Däniken’s golden gods, Skeptical Inquirer, 2(1):22-35, Fall/Winter. p50. James Lett. James Lett is a Professor of Anthropology, Department of Social Sciences, Indian River Community College.Skeptical Inquirer, 1(1):58-68, Fall. Story, Ronald D. 1977 Von Däniken’s golden gods, Skeptical Inquirer, 2(1):22-35, Fall/Winter. p50. James Lett. James Lett is a Professor of Anthropology, Department of Social Sciences, Indian River Community College.Feb 28, 2023 · Founded in Washington, D.C., by G. Marion Pettie, the Finders were described as a school that “operates on the principle that life is a series of games. To play the games, a person must follow the rules by acting a certain way in every situation” (Bentley 1987). The actual date of the group’s founding seems to be a matter of dispute ... "Skeptical Inquirer is a bimonthly American magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) with the subtitle: The Magazine for Science and Reason. In 2016 …Peter Popoff says he’s a healer and a prophet of God. His former employee says he’s something quite different. A sixty-eight-year old German American minister, Popoff’s biggest claim to fame is that in 1986, he was taken down by arch skeptic James Randi on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show.Randi, along with a private investigator, …Benjamin Radford, M.Ed., is a scientific paranormal investigator, a research fellow at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, deputy editor of the Skeptical Inquirer, and author, co-author, contributor, or editor of twenty books and over a thousand articles on skepticism, critical thinking, and science literacy. His newest book is America the ...A scientific concept is one derived from converging evidence; critical thinking demonstrates that type of convergence (evidence from various theoretical underpinnings and research). Critical thinking is a concept-complex (it involves various concepts, connections, and interactions). To reiterate, critical thinking is synonymous with …His first SI column, “Thinking about Science,” ran for twelve years from 2002 to 2015. This new column will explore skepticism from the viewpoint of the philosophy of science. —The Editors. The term pseudoscience has been the object of a renewed interest by philosophers of science in recent years. This is not just because the so-called ... From: Volume 41, No. 6. November / December 2017. The seventieth anniversary of the so-called Roswell Incident came and went this past summer with a refreshing lack of fuss. One might even hope to think the passions it evokes among believers that a flying saucer crashed on a ranch in south-central New Mexico back in July 1947 have, over time ... From: Volume 46, No. 3. May/June 2022. “Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon—it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.”1. This famous quote is by Scott D. Weitzenhoffer, who wrote it as an Amazon.com review for Eugenie Scott’s ...For more about the Mill Creek tracks, see my article in the Skeptical Inquirer, Spring 1989, pp. 264-272. Richard Noll, a longtime Bigfoot enthusiast, loaned Crowley his copy of the Onion Mountain print and allowed Crowley to make a copy of it. Crowley supplied me with a copy of the e-mail exchange made in November 2005.
To understand why environmentalism has been so vulnerable to fringe influences, we need to travel back to the 1920s and the dawn of modern environmental awareness. In some ways, our planet was much healthier. The global population had yet to reach two billion. Atmospheric carbon dioxide was around 300 ppm, compared to 410 ppm today.. Scorpio.nights.3.
Skeptical Inquirer Magazine. PO Box 703 Amherst, NY 14226 800-634-1610 or (716) 636-1425. Center for Inquiry – Headquarters. PO Box 741 Amherst, NY 14226 (716) 636 ... People who have very high levels of conspiracy thinking tend to think that everything is the product of a shadowy conspiracy. The people on the low end tend to be resistant to conspiracy theories. Denialism works in a similar way. Some people have an antagonistic relationship with authoritative sources of information. To understand why environmentalism has been so vulnerable to fringe influences, we need to travel back to the 1920s and the dawn of modern environmental awareness. In some ways, our planet was much healthier. The global population had yet to reach two billion. Atmospheric carbon dioxide was around 300 ppm, compared to 410 ppm today.Harriet A. Hall was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 2, 1945, and died on January 11, 2023, in Puyallup, Washington. Richard Saunders just replayed on his podcast The Skeptic Zone a 2007 interview he had done with Harriet Hall when they were both on a JREF cruise to Alaska. It was Harriet’s first ever podcast interview and relistening to it …A Netflix Original Film. 2021. Directed by Adam McKay. Starring Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio. 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.Figure 1. Trends in belief in angels and the devil among U.S. adults (Source: Gallup Polls Newport 2016). According to the most recent Gallup poll, 61 percent of Americans believe in the devil (Newport 2016), which …Evolutionary psychology, the study of the evolutionary roots of human behavior, is a bogus field based on false assumptions. The biologist P.Z. Myers joined several other critics of this field (once called sociobiology) when he asserted that: “The fundamental premises of evo psych [evolutionary psychology] are false.”.Rob became a skeptical activist when he joined the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia team in 2016, and began writing for skepticalinquirer.org in 2018. Rob can be contacted at [email protected] Like Rob's Facebook page to get notified when his articles are published. See more articles.Letters – Vol. 46, no. 4. Afloat in Misinformation As a former teacher of undergraduate and graduate students, I appreciate Melanie Trecek-King’s excellent articles in Skeptical inquirer (“Teach Skills, Not Facts,” January/February 2022, and “A Life Preserver for Staying Afloat in a Sea of Misinformation,” March/April 2022).On this voyage, we travel to Fall/Winter 1976 to examine the original Skeptical Inquirer (Vol. 1, no. 1). Some cultural context to summon your late 1976 zeitgeist: “Disco Duck” became a number 1 hit (October 16). Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford in the United States presidential election (November 2). Classic horror film Carrie brought ... Skeptical Inquirer, Amherst, New York. 148,282 likes · 344 talking about this. I know of no greater antidote to pseudoscience than the contents of Skeptical Inquirer magazine. Neil deGrasse Tyson A scientific concept is one derived from converging evidence; critical thinking demonstrates that type of convergence (evidence from various theoretical underpinnings and research). Critical thinking is a concept-complex (it involves various concepts, connections, and interactions). To reiterate, critical thinking is synonymous with … People who have very high levels of conspiracy thinking tend to think that everything is the product of a shadowy conspiracy. The people on the low end tend to be resistant to conspiracy theories. Denialism works in a similar way. Some people have an antagonistic relationship with authoritative sources of information. That joke came to my mind when I read three short tributes to biologist E.O. Wilson in Skeptical Inquirer (May/June 2022). Wilson passed away on December 26, 2021, at age ninety-two. The tributes are by evolutionary biologist and science popularizer Richard Dawkins, evolutionary developmental biologist Sean B. Carroll, and cognitive linguist ... John C. Sherwood of Pennsylvania, a reporter and editor for Gannett Co. newspapers for twenty-eight years, has written interactive mysteries and books on magic. Contact him at [email protected] or MysteryVisits.com..