|
|
Whistle Stopper - Skeptic
|
List Price: $23.80
Our Price: $30.00
Your Save: $ ( % )
Availability: Usually ships in 2 to 4 months
Manufacturer: Skeptics Society
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Binding: Magazine
First Issue Lead Time: 12-16
Format: Magazine Subscription
Issues Per Year: 4
Label: Skeptics Society
Magazine Type: Trade magazine
Manufacturer: Skeptics Society
Number Of Issues: 4
Publisher: Skeptics Society
Studio: Skeptics Society
Subscription Length: 365
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent for a magazine, but could be better
Comment: Nothing is perfect. For every article that blows my mind, there is almost always another article that I find close-minded or too technical (or mathematical) to understand. It's nice to dream that skeptics are less subjective, or that they are more open-minded than faith based individuals. They find faith to be almost deplorable at times, but their faith in their skepticism and empiricism is really not so different. I'll still continue to subscribe, because there's always interesting articles that few magazines (if any) would write about nowadays.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Has you thinking
Comment: I've been reading Skeptic for about 5 years now and really enjoy this periodical. While some of the topics are classic (e.g. evolution versus ID), it also introduces new ideas which keep it fresh. Skeptic covers a broad degree of questionable claims and the different authors certainly have their own style of writing making it a entertaining reading experience.
Things that could be improved are the fact some of the articles are difficult to follow or harp on and on regarding some minor stance. Also, occasionally the articles are written in a very patronizing or one-sided style which as an educated audience I find annoying.
However, there is plenty of content so I'm still getting my moneys worth when I skip the tedious articles and read the ones I'm interested in.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not perfect but better than most magazines on the "paranormal"...
Comment: Like one of the prior posters I too would like to see a separate "Junior Skeptic" magazine for kids. Yes, the editors sometime make mistakes and the contributors have there own biases. Unlike many other magazines though, Skeptic tries to publicly declare when they have failed to properly investigate a claim sited as factual (as opposed to a contributor stating their opinion). An example is what recently happened when a group called "PEER" falsely claimed that the Park Service was under orders by the Bush administration to teach a creationist version of events for the formation of the Grand Canyon. When the story was revealed as a lie, Michael Shermer made a public admission of the error and a retraction.
A couple of earlier posters though have made statements which I believe to be unfair to the magazine and their scores for it, so please forgive the following rant....
First is FruityAsANutcake, I'm afraid that his (or her) own lack of objectivity on has influenced his opinion regarding the Roswell story since the point was apparently missed entirely. The point about the Air Force test dummies at Roswell was that the ORIGINAL reports made no mention of bodies at all (none, zero, nada) and that the stories of alien bodies didn't appear until AFTER the use of test dummies by the Air Force. This makes such claims more likely to be a result of stories getting mixed up and inflated than any form of reliable witness testimony. So I'm afraid that the skeptics are quite well aware of the time line involved. Rather it is Fruity and others that accept the Roswell story as factual that are confused about the time line since they rely on information from those who have a clear bias in favor of misrepresenting events (money being one of the chief motives).
Anyone with a remotely objective viewpoint on the Roswell crash claims can clearly see how full of holes it is, and how the stories keep changing and becoming more fantastic with each retelling. As to the crash causing a ditch...well where is the proof of that? Strange how that is still lacking any credible evidence after all these years. If you need more proof of how absurd the claims of the "Roswell crash" are...just look at the original photos of the "crash wreckage". It's hard to see how anyone can seriously believe that such material was from a interstellar spacecraft (of course some believers will just say that the original photos aren't the "real wreckage" without any credible proof that there was any other wreckage at the site).
Also, in point of fact Skeptic Magazine has been critical of the Bush administration and many of it's policies while trying to avoid siding with one party, or another. It is those that believe the purveyors of the supernatural, aliens, etc. that want people to suspend their disbelief and to have faith in claims lacking both evidence and logic.
As to Louis...I believe that it is incorrect the assert that the magazine claims to have proven that the universe arose from randomness. The magazine invites many people to express their opinions on such subjects and encourages debates. Also, a problem with his argument is that even is the universe arose from random forces initially, it does not therefore follow that everything else afterwards is random. Events following a random initiating event can still follow a logical chain of cause and effect afterwards. Therefore scientific methodology would not be automatically invalidated by such an observation, even if you ignore the other competing scientific theories of how the universe formed.
Next Louis' comments conflating evolution with abiogenesis are also incorrect, a common mistake among many in the general public. In point of fact Evolution and Abiogenesis are two separate theories.
Abiogenesis is one theory about how how life was started, and no..it does not assert that whole organisms came from nothing. Rather it asserts that simple self-replicating molecules came from non-self-replicating matter, and that those self-replicating molecules formed more complex structures that eventually became what we call "life". By the way, scientists have succeeded in creating some self-replicating molecules (although nothing that might be analogous to pre-living replicating structures as far as I know...yet). Another competing theory is "panspermia", although it isn't nearly as well accepted scientifically.
Evolution on the other hand is about how life changes over time... regardless of how it was started in the first place.
To be fair to Louis though, the two are often presented at the same time when discussing a complete naturalistic explanation for how life got to it's current state.
I'm afraid Louis, that it is the other systems that are trying to compete with evolution (such as "Intelligent Design") that are lacking. I.D. and creationism, for example, doesn't even rise to the level of a hypothesis. All of the current competing beliefs are based on logical fallacies (primarily "Argument from Ignorance") and are lacking in both logic and evidence. Until someone can offer better scientifically/logically valid theories, the current theories on how the Universe and life started will continue to be accepted by the vast majority of the scientific community (while simultaneously being further tested by the same scientists that accept the theories).
Of course any scientist that can offer a scientifically valid theory to compete with evolution will encounter the challenges that all theories must go through to be accepted (just as evolution was initially challenged by scientists). If successful though, he/she will become famous and rewrite the science books worldwide.
Customer Rating:
Summary: not as bad as Skeptical Inquirer, but still bad
Comment: First off, let me say that I'm skeptical of the skeptics. I find that their explanations for things usually take as much a stretch of the imagination as most believer's explanations for things.
Recently Skeptic Megazine did a Roswell expose issue. If I remember correctly, they drudged out the theory that what people saw were crash test dummies not alien bodies. Also keep in mind that these skeptics love an easy solution to things, so of course they'll believe what the air force report tells them. But according to the air force report itself, the dummies weren't used until the 1950's. The only problem is that the roswell incident occured in July 1947-- the military, and thus Skeptic Magazine, assumes people are too dumb to remember the correct date. Furthermore, the rancher who discovered the debris said there was a gouge in the ground. Surely ballons wouldn't create a gouge in the dirt!
What's next? Is Skeptic Magazine going to try to have us all believe that there are Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq? All we have to do is have faith in Bush and the military? Give me a break. If the military says it's true, then it must be. Duh!
This magazine is nothing but a joke. They don't do any real investigating. They just invite people to write boring editorials that look scientific.
Customer Rating:
Summary: An age of mythology is on decline
Comment: Contrary to the popular belief that everything must have 2 opposing viewponts, Skeptic doesn't succomb to that notion. And it's absolutely right in doing so. The fact is, a true scientific methodology doesn't involve 2 opposing viewpoints, and while sometimes scientists come up with diffirent conclusions, only one truth is available.
Skeptic has no mercy for the belivers in non-sense, like UFO abuctions, faith healing, talking to the dead, and etc. Its goal is to debunk pseudoscience by skeptically and scientifically investigating the issues and drawing a logical conclusion.
The sarcastic, yet informative agenda of this magazine and its popular writers makes the reading both entertaining and informative. The cast of writers include James Randi, Michael Shermer and many other famous authors of some of the best selling books of its kind.
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
Strives to investigate and promote scientific methods, and disseminate information on science, magic, superstition, and skepticism and the history of these traditions. Also devoted to the history of revolutionary science and pseudoscience.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
