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Customer Reviews of Skeptic

Now, onto the positive.

This quarterly journal is very professionally done. It's thick, has a cover that'll cause it to last for years. And that's good to me. I stack up magazines like this and make them an important part of my library.

Some of the articles tend to be a little cumbersome. However there is balance. Indeed, a buddy of mine fluctuates between skepticism and adoration of Carl Jung and Whitley Strieber. (!) So he prefers this to the aforementioned periodical; he feels less a pie-in-the-face from "Skeptic." I recall a few issues ago a discussion in "Skeptic" about the popular book "The Skeptical Environmentalist." Probably 16 pages of that book were in the magazine. Then a few scholars were allowed to respond from their different perspectives. Good. I don't have time to read the book so that balance gave me the analysis I needed if I should argue either way.

In another issue there was discussion of the Yanomami and related tribal people in the Amazon forest. I shared that with a PC anthropologist who's worked down there. I couldn't help but be amused by her take on what I suspect was a far more "objective" (i.e., skeptical) view than hers in the magazine.

Each issue has a number of fabulous book reviews. One I treasure was from one of the authors of "A Higher Superstion," another superb text I long ago purchased from Amazon.com.

One of my favorites, James Randi, also has regular columns in here.

Another skeptical acquaintance challenged editor Mike Shermer's objectives. Apparently Shermer--who's written several fine books available from Amazon.com--got his doctorate in history and found himself unemployed. He created The Skeptics Society to remedy that problem. Well, so what? You might say the same of Bill Gates who makes a lot more than Shermer.

Overall, I like the society, and this periodical. One very minor comment: each issue has "Junior Skeptic" in the back. It's actually a fine, fine publication aimed at the younger among us. One issue was dedicated to the issue of those who claim we didn't really go the the moon. Another was on one of the perennial favorites of many of us when were younger: the Bermuda Triangle. I wish the magazine would produce a separate "Junior Skeptic" and market it to, say, junior high school science classes. I feel they'd make money off it--a whole new market--AND encourage the scientific processes so challenged today by anywhere from "creation science" advocates, Afro-centric "scholars," and all sorts of UFO advocates, astrologers and countless others of dubious merit.

So there. Only four stars from someone who reads this--shall I way religiously? It's good. So read it, and note the analysis techniques endorsed by its editors and writers.

a great magazine for preaching to the choir
Its been said that the essence of the scientific method is testing. On this I agree. I also agree with the scientific method, since this makes sense. What I dont agree with are magazines like skeptic that appear to identify the scientific method with what skeptics believe. In other words if a skeptic believes something it must be scientific. That's the impression I got from reading this magazine. Since science is essentially testing, lets test some of the claims this magazine makes. One article I read claimed that quantam mechanics "proves" that the universe is a random occurence. This is not really a new theory, Lucretius wrote a book on it thousands of years ago called 'On the nature of the universe." Some of the more extreme views of quantam mechanics even say that the universe came from nothing! Of course that's all a random occurence. What the author of this article fails to see is that if everything is a random occurence, then so is the scientific method and what it finds. Truth then must be random, and since it is then you never know when its going to change. Scientists and skeptics might have better luck at the casino. What stunned me is that the author of this article wrote it with a straight face. So much for objectivity. If random theory is true(and the author seems to swear by it), scientific method is garbage. Einstein may have indeed been right that God does not play dice (random theory) with the universe. He then links random theory with another illogical and self refuting doctrine:evolution. Here we have a belief that from non living matter came life! That is you have the absurd come true; you can get something from nothing! Incredible. Doubters may reply;"Science has proven such things by observation and experiment." The problem here is that observation and experiment is no substitute for logic. Scientific method and all rational thought is built on logic. If observation and experiment contradict logic, it cannot be logic that is at fault. If it were science must abandon its logical foundations. In fact they have appeared to do so with random theory and evolution. This is why when I read this magazine its actually very funny. I gave it two stars because some of the articles are good, but the rest is good for comedy relief.

Single Minded
"Skeptic" is the quarterly house publication of the Skeptic Society, and that in turn is mainly the work of Michael Shermer, a one-man Skeptic industry. Shermer is chairman of the society as well as editor and publisher of the magazine; that's both good and bad. Good, as it's always nice to have a founder who can set direction for an organization, and bad, because "Skeptic" can be as narrow minded in its approach to inquiry as any of its targets. Indeed, the magazine might best be titled "Michael Shermer's Skepticism".

At its best "Skeptic" offers short essays that illustrate some area of interest. The latest issue in my hand has a few such examples.

One is a piece on a school board's decision to tech creationism alongside evolution, and the reaction of the teachers involved. There's also a piece by Shermer himself on how he learned to be a "psychic" in one week for a documentary. The piece isn't terribly informative, nor does it offer anything new for the typical Skeptic reader but it's well done and provides some useful examples.

Much of the content rehashes old ground, though. A piece on the conspriacy theories surround the HAARP project mainly quotes text from HAARP's web site. An article on Roswell rehashes the well-known chronology for the upteenth time, and is of interest mainly because it's written by someone who was involved with Project Mogul.

And much of the issue is devoted to narrow, polemical articles and reviews that are poorly argued. The attitude seems to be "we're preaching to the choir here, so there's no need to be too detailed." There are a few articles on time travel- one by Shermer himself- that argue time travel is impossible. Problem is that the arguments given are either naive, easily refuted or just plain fallacious. Shermer himself relies on the appeal-to-authority argument- Thorne and Hawking say it's not possible, ergo it's not possible.

My general feeling about "Skeptic", and the society, is that there's far less here than meets the eye. There's probably as much or more information of interest to the skeptical (but open minder) reader to be gleaned by simply doing the occasional web search.