Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

[SkeptInq@aol.com]

 Skeptical Inquirer Electronic Digest 10-28-99

 Visit the CSICOP and Skeptical Inquirer Magazine website at
http://www.csicop.org. Receiving over 200,000 hits per year, the CSICOP site
was recently rated one of the top ten science sites by HOMEPC magazine.

 In this week's SI DIGEST:

 --PREVIEW: Skeptical Inquirer, Nov./Dec. 1999
 --WWW.CSICOP.ORG: Skeptics Debate 1999
 --WWW.CSICOP.ORG: Floating in a Fantasy World
 --WWW.EDGE.ORG:  The End of John Horgan?
 --FORBES ASAP: The Great Convergence

 PREVIEW--SKEPTICAL INQUIRER NOV./DEC. 1999

 Available on North American newstands in the next two weeks.

 SPECIAL REPORT
 Blooming 'Shroud' Claims
 Joe Nickell

 News of pollen and plant-image findings on the Shroud of Turin are based on
earlier, scientifically discredited research.

 ARTICLES

 The Universe and Carl Sagan
 Keay Davidson

 Few people ever extolled the wonders of science with more eloquence or were
as effective in defending reason and campaigning against pseudoscience as
Carl Sagan.
 An excerpt from a new biography.

 The Millennium Thought Contagion
 Aaron Lynch

 Thought contagions are beliefs that program for their own copying in humans
much as computer viruses do in computers.  Their self-spreading effect
explains the techno-apocalyptic ideas swirling around the Y2K bug.

 'Debunking the Debunkers'
 A Response to an Astrologer's Debunking of Skeptics
 I.W. Kelly

 The Physics Behind Four Amazing Demonstrations
 David G. Willey

 Here is the physics theory behind four dramatic demonstrations--walking on
broken glass, dipping one's fingers in molten lead, breaking a concrete block
over someone lying between beds of nails, and picking up an orange-hot piece
of silica tile.

 Another Lunar Effect Put to Rest
 Haven Sweet

 RESEARCH REVIEW
 New Analyses Raise Doubts About Replicability of ESP Findings
 Scott O. Lilienfeld

 INVESTIGATIVE FILES
 Curses: Foiled Again
 Joe Nickell

 NOTES OF A FRINGE WATCHER
 The Star of Bethlehem
 Martin Gardner

 WWW.CSICOP.ORG--SKEPTICS DEBATE 1999

 We've posted responses to our Skeptics Debate questions on the topics of
Genetically Modified Food, the End of Science, and Animal Intelligence and
Language.  We will continue to post selected responses on the web site as
they come in over the next few months.

 To learn more about the debate, and to read responses from across North
America, Europe, and Australia, go to:
 http://www.csicop.org/articles/19990830-debate/

 WWW.CSICOP.ORG: FLOATING IN A FANTASY WORLD

 Generation Xers have been raised in an era of unprecedented achievements,
yet many are rejecting science and embracing the paranormal

 Matt Nisbet
 BUFFALO NEWS, SUNDAY EDITION
 AUGUST 9, 1999
 SECTION: VIEWPOINTS, Pg. 1H

 "Mom warned me about strangers, but never about Reiki masters. One night
early this summer, packed in with a crowd of fellow 20-somethings on Chippewa
Street, I struck up a conversation with a bright, attractive member of
Generation X. To my surprise, when I asked about her career aspirations, she
told me she was training to be a master of Reiki, the Eastern mystical
practice of healing through the laying on of hands."

 For the full article, go to http://www.csicop.org/articles/19990809-genx/

 WWW.EDGE.ORG: THE END OF JOHN HORGAN?

 The End Of Horgan?

 Responses to John Horgan's talk "Why I Think Science Is Ending".
 Comments by George Johnson, Ernest B. Hook, Paul Davies, Lee Smolin, George
Dyson, Jaron Lanier, and Oliver Morton.

 To read the postings go to:
http://www.edge.org/discourse/index.cgi?OPTION=VIEW&THREAD=john-horgan/5-7-97/
theendofhorgan?

 FORBES ASAP: THE GREAT CONVERGENCE

 The October 4 issue of Forbes ASAP magazine has one of the better millenium
issues I've seen to date.  It includes essays by Richard Dawkins, Arthur C.
Clarke, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Wolfe, Jacob Needleman, and full roster of others.

 You can check it out at http://www.forbes.com/asap/99/1004/ .

 Some highlights available on the web (a great essay by Alvin Toffler and one
by E.O. Wilson that are included in the print edition are not on-line):

  INTRODUCTION
 "Think of our time as the final days of .the great Era of Scientific
Discovery and the advent of something new: the Age of Globalism. Our
challenge now, and for generations to come, is to make this Great Convergence
a success, not a collision."

 James Burke
 Now What?
 "Because the engine driving convergence this time is information technology,
we can expect an innovative surge unlike any that went before, fragmenting
knowledge into a large number of new disciplines, as the
one-plus-one-equals-three process goes into high gear. Thanks to the inertia
of social institutions, we also can expect to be almost totally unprepared
for these effects."


 Jacob Needleman
 Seeing the Light
 "Within us there are three sources of accessing reality-mind, emotion, and
body-and all three must converge and work for us to know the truth, will the
good, and act justly in the world."

 Michael J. Wolf
 Th-Th-That's All, Folks!
 "Thus, we see the morphing of the traditional business cycle into the
entertainment cycle of Hollywood. Entertainment then becomes the lingua
franca of all consumer commerce, and celebrity--whether it be in the form of
a famous movie star or a famous brand--the accepted universal currency.
Consumers have become audiences that want to enter the world of celebrity and
stardom, be it via Starbucks, StarTAC, or Star Trek. This pursuit of hits
naturally brings with it the creation of flops, in fact lots more flops than
hits. For every Amazon.com in the ascendant, there will be a dozen Borders
diving into the tank."

 Sir Arthur C. Clarke
 Becoming Hal
 "It all started a couple of thousand generations ago, when some genius-type
Flintstone realized that a forked branch could be used as a third limb,
relieving a leg that was temporarily disabled."

 The Convergence of Sciences
 A four-page poster
 All of the world's scientific disciplines have influenced what Forbes ASAP
has identified as the three topic areas that will help us understand all
things great and small-M Theory, genetic engineering, and the new earth
science.

 Tom Wolfe
 Digibabble, Fairy Dust, and the Human Anthill
 "The world had shrunk, shrink-wrapped in an electronic membrane. No person
on earth was more than six mouse clicks away from any other. The Digital Age
was fast rendering national boundaries and city limits and other old
geographical notions obsolete. Likewise, regional markets, labor pools, and
industries. The world was now unified...online."

 The Convergence of Religion
 A four-page poster
 Since 4000 B.C., six religious categories have influenced one another
dramatically and subtly, driven by historic events and particular discoveries.

 Kurt Vonnegut
 The Trouble with Reunions
 "When I was a graduate student in the anthropology department of the
University of Chicago immediately following the Second World War, the only
job opportunities on the departmental bulletin board were in the South
Pacific."

 Richard Dawkins
 Snake Oil and Holy Water
 "If God is a synonym for the deepest principles of physics, what word is
left for a hypothetical being who answers prayers, intervenes to save cancer
patients or helps evolution over difficult jumps, forgives sins or dies for
them?"

 Philip Clayton
 The Ultimate Hypothesis
 "The real interest of the religious dimension lies in its mystery, its
ability to move beyond any particular perspective toward a transcendent
horizon of meaning and value. This is not the stuff of which mathematical
physics is made."

 ____________________

 SI Electronic Digest is the biweekly e-mail news update of the Committee
 for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP.)

 Visit http://www.csicop.org/.

 Rated one of the Top Ten Science sites on the Web by HOMEPC magazine.

 The Digest is written and edited by Matthew Nisbet and Barry Karr. SI Digest
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 CSICOP publishes the bimonthly SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, The Magazine for
 Science and Reason.  The Nov/Dec. 1999 issue features articles on Carl
Sagan, the Physics behind amazing feats, famous curses, and the Star of
Bethlehem.

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