Skeptical Inquirer magazine, March 2006

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Volume 30, Number 2
March/April 2006

• Buy this back issue
• Critical Thinking What Is It Good for?
• Argentina Mysteries
• In Search of Dracula
• Alien Abduction Analysis

Articles

Hoaxers, Hackers, and Policymakers

How Junk Science Persuaded the FBI to Divert Terrorism Funding to Fight Hackers

Hoaxers warned of an imminent and deadly electronic Pearl Harbor, so the FBI diverted resources and attention away from terrorism and toward fighting hackers. This may have contributed to the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Critical Thinking

What Is It Good for? (In Fact, What Is It?)

Nearly everyone is in favor of critical thinking. This is evidence that the term is in danger of becoming meaningless. Skeptics should spearhead the effort to clarify what critical thinking is-and what it is not. The stakes are high.

HOWARD GABENNESCH

The Big Bird, the Big Lie, God, and Science

A young man claims to have amazing distant-healing powers, but a skeptical look at the facts raises serious questions.

Jill Neimark

The Memory Wars

Parts 2 and 3

Most of the cases against priests for sexual abuse against young parishioners are supported by full confessions or independent evidence of guilt, but that is not true of claims of revived memories said to be repressed until uncovered decades later by suggestive therapy or by a triggering event. Unless corroborated, these should probably be considered fantasies.

MARTIN GARDNER

Research Review

Commentary on John P.A. Ioannidis's 'Why Most Published Research Findings are False'

Ray Hyman

Columns

Editorial

Court Decision in Dover Case a Victory for Good Science

News and Comment

• In Landmark Dover Decision, Judge Rules ID Is Not Science, Teaching It Is Unconstitutional
• Quoteworthy
• Rare Woodpecker, Presumed Extinct, Found in Arkansas
• Evolution Science's Top Story of the Year
• Art Bell's Show Broadcasts Sylvia Browne Failure about Mine Tragedy
• Skepchicks Raise Profile of Female Skeptics
• It's a Natural Selection: Evolution Amber Ale
• Ludmil A. Chotkowski, M.D., 1916-2005, Challenged Chiropractic
• Kansas Professor Relieved of His Chair Over Comments Critical of Intelligent Design
• New Center for Inquiry Research Building Completed
• Carla Baron Psychic Detective Update
• We Find That ID Is Not Science': Excerpts from the Dover Federal Court Ruling on Intelligent Design
• Bad Reporter Cartoon

Investigative Files

Argentina Mysteries

Joe Nickell

Thinking About Science

Is Evolutionary Psychology a Pseudoscience?

Massimo Pigliucci

Notes on a Strange World

In Search of Dracula

Massimo Polidoro

Psychic Vibrations

Loon Season in Canada

Robert Sheaffer

The Skeptical Inquiree

'Natural' Childbirth

Benjamin Radford

Science Best Sellers

New Books

Forum

The Wrong Question

Ralph Estling

Follow-Up

Research Scandals: A Letter to the President of Columbia University

Bruce Flamm

Letters to the Editor

Book Reviews

Abducted:

How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens

By Susan A. Clancy

TERENCE M. HINES

The Republican War on Science

By Chris Mooney

PETER LAMAL

Blink

By Malcolm Gladwell

WESLEY CECIL

Destructive Trends in Mental Health:

The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm

Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicholas A. Cummings

BRUCE HARTSELL

Darwin and Evolution for Kids:

His Life and Ideas with 21 Activities

By Kristan Lawson

GREG MARTINEZ