News
Skepticism
August 15, 2022 by Paul Fidalgo
You go out in the world, armed with facts, and expect to change other people’s minds. But it turns out that minds are strangely resistant to changing. Why is that? Thursday, August 18, at 7:00 p.m. ET, on the next Skeptical Inquirer Presents live online event, award-winning writer and podcaster Tamar Haspel will join us …
Skepticism
August 1, 2022 by Paul Fidalgo
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by numbers. Data and statistics can be manipulated and manufactured to mislead, making numeracy critically important to a functioning society. Thursday, August 4, at 7:00 p.m. ET, on the next Skeptical Inquirer Presents live online event, mathematician John Allen Paulos will show how to make sense of the numbers and …
Skepticism
July 12, 2022 by Paul Fidalgo
Diplomats getting vertigo in Cuba, schoolgirls hiccuping in Massachusetts, kids getting sick from Lucky Charms, and nuns meowing (yes, meowing) in the Middle Ages. What’s behind these mysterious outbreaks that have baffled even medical experts? Thursday, July 21 at 7:00 p.m. ET, on the next Skeptical Inquirer Presents live online event, Robert Bartholomew will bring …
July 8, 2022 by Paul Fidalgo
The Center for Inquiry, joined by the Freedom From Religion Foundation and American Atheists, are asking Chief Justice John Roberts to begin a formal investigation on a report that a religious conservative activist from an advocacy organization that brings many cases before the U.S. Supreme Court has been privately praying with Justices inside the court …
Skepticism
June 29, 2022 by Paul Fidalgo
It seems like every time we feel like we know how it all started for Homo sapiens another new discovery rewrites our understanding of who we are and where we come from. Why do major paradigm shifts so regularly disrupt our understanding of human origins? On Thursday, July 7 at 7:00pm ET, on the next Skeptical Inquirer Presents …
June 27, 2022 by Paul Fidalgo
The Supreme Court today concluded a brutal week of assaults on the critical constitutional principle of the separation of church and state by issuing its ruling in the case of Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. The conservative majority on the Court ruled 6-3 that both the Free Exercise Clause and the Free Speech Clause of the …
June 24, 2022 by Paul Fidalgo
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6–3 ruling in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Whole Women’s Health Org, has overturned Roe v. Wade, stripping away women’s bodily autonomy and giving states the power to force women to give birth against their will. Even though this decision was largely expected, after a leak of an early draft …
Skepticism
June 13, 2022 by Paul Fidalgo
News and social media provide a steady diet of things to fear: COVID. COVID vaccinations. Immigrants. Kidnapping rings. Satanists. QAnon. Mass shootings. Suicidal airplane pilots. Baby formula. Killer cops. Violent video games. Mysterious sonic weapons. Critical Race Theory. Stranger danger. And on and on (and on). Some threats are real, some are exaggerated, and some …
What does it mean to be “woke”? Once a rallying cry to raise awareness of ingrained social injustices and discrimination, many now associate being “woke” with intolerance. Secular humanist values include equality for all and freedom of expression and inquiry. The latest issue of Free Inquiry asks: Does “wokism” fit into secular humanism? Longtime Free Inquiry columnist Shadia B. Drury attempts to …
CVS Lawsuit
Skepticism
Walmart Lawsuit
May 31, 2022 by Paul Fidalgo
Pseudoscience is everywhere in our society. Some of it can be (mostly) harmless fun, such as ghost hunters on TV or horoscopes in magazines. But one form of pseudoscience, so-called “alternative medicine,” hurts people by making false promises, wasting people’s money, and risking their health and safety. Why doesn’t someone do something about it? Thursday, …