Susan Jacoby: Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism
Excellent overview of the prominent role that freethinkers (atheists, agnostics, and deists) played in America's past, including the founding of our country, the abolition of slavery, and giving women the vote. (*****)
Sam Harris: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
One of the most frightening books I've ever read. Among numerous other topics, Harris argues that it is almost inevitable that atomic weapons will fall into the hands of religious radicals -- if not terrorist, then perhaps a nation with religious radicals in charge. (****)
Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion
Highly recommended. Despite what you might have heard, Richard Dawkins does not spew venom in this book. Flames do not shoot out when you open it, nor does bile drip from the pages. Far from being an hysterical, rabid diatribe against religion, it is a quite measured, logical explanation of the evidence against God and why religion should not be treated with such reverence. (*****)
Daniel C. Dennett: Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
I highly recommend this book for anyone who is about to embark on studying religion and atheism. Why do people enjoy music? Why do we like to socialize? Why do we sometimes become violent? Science has attempted to answer each of these questions. Dennett proposes that science attempt to answer another: Why are people religious? Even if one of the religions is true, that still means that billions of people believe religions that are not true. Why? What is it about our evolutionary past that makes us willing to believe? (*****)
Jared Diamond: Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Why wasn't Europe invaded by ships carrying gun-wielding Native Americans or Africans, rather than the other way around? This is an excellent explanation of why some societies became quite advanced, while others remained primitive. (*****)
Richard P. Feynman: "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character
Very entertaining and thought-provoking collection of anecdates from the life of perhaps the best-known physicist of the 20th century. (****)
At some point comments quit working. I'm not 100% sure of what sequence of events caused that to happen, but in any case they seem to be fixed now. If you've been itching to heap praise upon me for my stunning insights, feel free to post a comment.
Oh, you can also post if you disagree with me.
Happy Groundhog Day, everyone! And welcome to the new incarnation of Skeptic News! If you've visited us in the past, you'll see that things have obviously changed.
Skeptic News first when online back in July 1998 as a Slashdot-style news site. We did quite well, but by July 2003 I was burned out, so the site went dormant. At the time, I was thinking of writing some software that would automatically generate links to skeptic-related articles, similar to the way Google News works. However, I just didn't have the time to write the software.
Now, a year and a half later, I'm reviving the site, this time as a blog. Please check back frequently as I get things rolling, and please leave some feedback to let me know how I'm doing.
If you happen to have somehow discovered this site already, you won't find much to look at yet. I'm toying with the idea of resurrecting Skeptic News as a blog rather than as a Slashdot-style news site. We'll see how this goes.
At the moment I'm just exploring the TypePad blog service, learning how to use it, and working on customizing the appearance. Stay tuned!
Five years ago today, on July 26, 1998, the Skeptic News went online. Happy birthday to us! (You can read the earliest stuff by selecting Early Archives from the left-side navbar.) I've enjoyed providing this service for the last five years, and I've seen many interesting stories come my way during that time.
However, I think it's time to take things in a different direction. I've had some ideas about what I'd like to do with the site, but it will take some time to implement them -- and to "recharge my batteries". So I'm going to be shutting things down for an extended period while I prepare something new. The existing stuff will remain online for a time, and I'll probably maintain an archive of older articles when the site comes back in a new form.
It will be several months before the site returns. If you'd like to receive an email notification of when that happens, you can join the Skeptic News Announcements email list. This is an extremely low-volume read-only email list hosted at Topica.com.
Until then, thanks very much for everyone's support over the last five years! I've enjoyed it and hope that you'll find the new Skeptic News to be more useful than ever.
Wally Hartshorn
Greetings, fellow skeptics! No, your computer didn't suddenly lose the web address of the Skeptic News. We're running using new software, which should make keeping the site updated much easier! This should mean more regular updates. In order to really take advantage of all of the new features, you should create a login ID and password. This will allow you to customize the types of news items that you see, as well as discuss each news item with other visitors to the Skeptic News. It will take a few days for us to figure out all of the new features of the software and work out any kinks, so please bear with us and report any problems you encounter.
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Carl Sagan: Demon-Haunted World
(*****)
Martin Gardner: Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (Popular Science)
Another classic for new skeptics, this one focusing more on pseudoscience than on the paranormal. (****)
James Randi: Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions
This is a classic for those wanting an introduction to some of the basic topics tackled by skeptics. (*****)
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