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As a psychologist and former college professor, I'm always drawn to the CSICon talks about teaching, because so many of the skills needed to combat the onslaught of crazy stuff [...]

In summer 2021, not long after the first COV1D-19 vaccines became available, I made my first trip to Paris, France; when I returned home, I wrote 'French Science & Pseudoscience: [...]

Polls and surveys have found that about a quarter of Americans are superstitious (e.g., Moore 2000; Orth 2022). At the high end of the scale, there have occasionally been surveys [...]

Fpr many medical conditions, the preferred treatment is settled science. When you go in for a broken bone, you will get very similar care no matter which doctor you choose. [...]

Every now and again it's worth looking back at old unsupported ideas that we thought were dead and buried because, like zombies, they sometimes climb out of their graves and [...]

In January 2023, I received an email from an editor at the journal Frontiers in Marine Science inviting me to join the editorial board: 'Having looked at your research, we [...]

Some memorials and funerals are so well attended that they spill over into adjacent rooms. Extra chairs are brought out, and an audio or video feed extends the gathering beyond [...]

Among the hot-button issues of the current era is the nature of autism and the way people with this disorder should be treated. Due to the introduction of autism spectrum [...]

The story is the stuff of advertising legend. In 1957 at a movie theater in New Jersey, messages too brief to be consciously detected were flashed on the screen during [...]

Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I worked at a residential facility for children with severe autism. These kids had been rejected from many other schools because, if [...]

* In the fall and winter of 2001-2002, school children across the United States began to break out in a strange rash (Talbot 2002). Groups of children--overwhelmingly girls--in Pennsylvania, Oregon, [...]

Georgiana Houghton's only major showing of her drawings in her lifetime was not a success. It was an elaborate affair at the New British Gallery in London organized at her [...]

The article focuses on the Ouija board phenomenon, exploring its historical context and psychological underpinnings. Topics include the origins of the Ouija board during the Spiritualism movement, its marketing as a tool for communication with spirits, and the psychological research that explains its effects, likening it to facilitated communication.

Almost all of us know someone--maybe a relative, friend, or coworker--who is unvaccinated. In my case, it's a local craftsperson whose services I use on a regular basis. 'I'm just [...]

Thanks to the COVID-19 vaccines, I recently had the opportunity to visit Paris, France, for the first time. In addition to the usual art museums and tourist spots, I approached [...]

Imagine you are about to buy a new home, and the real estate agent says, 'I have some more information about the maintenance history of the house. Do you want [...]

Ignorant of your own ignorance. Frequently applied in a political context, the Dunning-Kruger (DK) effect has rapidly become a famous psychological concept. It describes a kind of double-whammy. If you [...]

As he drove from his home in North Carolina to Comet Ping Pong in the northwest neighborhood of Washington, D.C., Edgar Maddison Welch recorded a message for his two young [...]

One of the best theme parties I've ever attended was on May 21, 2011. The evangelical Christian broadcaster Harold Camping had garnered considerable publicity with a prediction that The Rapture [...]

Not long ago I was scrolling through Instagram when I saw a video of people in Perth, Australia, gathering in small crowds outdoors, no face coverings in sight. From my [...]

The article focuses on the movie "Anatomy of a Fall," discussing its plot and the impact of spoilers on audience enjoyment, questioning what truly constitutes a spoiler. It explores how prior knowledge of plot details, such as the movie's opening credits hinting at its website address and the central character's murder accusation, can either enhance or detract from the viewing experience, highlighting the complexities of audience reactions to spoilers.

My last column for SKEPTICAL INQUIRER landed me on a conservative Chicago-area talk radio program. I think something about the title, 'COVID-19 and the Tyranny of Now' (Vyse 2020), caught [...]

In January 2023, opponents of mask mandates found excellent support for their views when a large-scale study by the prestigious nonprofit Cochrane Library reported that 'The pooled results of RCTs [...]

The article explores the high-profile lawsuit filed by Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino against Harvard University and three fellow academics, demanding 25 million (U.S. Dollar) for alleged defamation and academic fraud. Topics discussed include the controversy over data manipulation in Gino's research, the role of the Data Colada group in uncovering these issues, and the potential impact of the lawsuit on academic freedom and research integrity.

Back on March 13, 2020, I invited a few friends over before we all went into lockdown. We did not stay six feet apart--the norm of social distancing had not [...]

In my May/June 2020 column, I described the influence of feng shui on the Chinese real estate market. Although it would be hard to match the pervasive presence of traditional [...]

Prologue Even before President Trump began calling it the 'Chinese virus,' the outbreak of sudden acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the disease it causes, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), set [...]