Home : Skeptical Inquirer magazine

Volume 27, Number 3
May/June 2003

• Buy this back issue
• More Hazards: Hypnosis, Airplanes, and Strongly Held Beliefs
• Follow Up: How Not To Review Mediumship Research
• Follow Up: Hyman’s Reply to Schwartz’s 'How Not To Review Mediumship Research’

Articles

The Luck Factor

A ten-year scientific study into the nature of luck has revealed that, to a large extent, people make their own good and bad fortune. The results also show that it is possible to enhance the amount of luck that people encounter in their lives.

Richard Wiseman

More Hazards: Hypnosis, Airplanes, and Strongly Held Beliefs

After a single-case history was reported in the psychological literature, I made an unsuccessful attempt to obtain any documents of the case. However, the adventure provided lessons about why some therapists hold so firmly to certain psychological theories and disdain the critical research.

Loren Pankratz

'Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder' and 'Premenstrual Syndrome' Myths

Neither Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) nor Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) is a medical or mental disorder or illness. Premenstrual changes are a normal part of life. Belief in PMS/PMDD is a result of conditioning, not biological processes, and best treated as such.

Stephen Ray Flora and Melissa Sellers

A Patently False Patent Myth--Still!

Did a patent official really once resign because he thought nothing was left to invent? Once such myths start they take on a life of their own.

Samuel Sass

Wired to the Kitchen Sink
Studying Weird Claims for Fun and Profit

An evaluation of Dr. John Upledger's craniosacral therapy illustrates an exercise proposed for skeptics to develop critical thinking and a better understanding of human psychology.

Harriet A. Hall

Special Report

The 'Miracle Poet' Case

Japanese Media Fooled by the Doman Method and Facilitated Communication

Sadahiko Nakajima

Columns

Editor's Note

News and Comment

• NASA Solar Observatory Shows How to Make a UFO
• Psychics Fail Toronto Skeptics' $1,000 Challenge
• Inorganic Oil: Much Ado about Nothing?
• PBS Evolution Series Wins NASW Science-in-Society Award
• Penn & Teller Series Exposes Paranormal B.S. and Gains Audience
• Journal Editors Criticize MDMA Study as Nonscientific, Unethical
• New Center for Inquiry-Metro New York Office Opens
• Magnetotherapy-- For Better Wine?
• Skeptical Gadfly Marcello Truzzi (1935-2003)

Investigative Files
Dowsing Mysterious Sites

Joe Nickell

Thinking About Science
'Elementary, Dear Watson'

Massimo Pigliucci

Psychic Vibrations
Special Forces Battle Giant Scorpions in Iraq

Robert Sheaffer

Notes on a Strange World
I Remember Doing the Time Warp

Massimo Polidoro

Skeptical Humor
Skeptic Pitied

The Onion

Science Best Sellers

New Books

Follow Up

• How Not To Review Mediumship Research

  Gary E. Schwartz

• Hyman Replies to Schwartz

  Ray Hyman

Letters to the Editor

Reviews

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

Steven Pinker

Austin Dacey

The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense

Michael Shermer

Peter Lamal

A New Kind of Science

Stephen Wolfram

Anutosh Moitra

The Museum of Hoaxes: A Collection of Pranks, Stunts, Deceptions, and Other Wonderful Stories Contrived for the Public from the Middle Ages to the New Millennium

Alex Boese

Benjamin Radford

'Einstein' Exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History

Jerry Kurlandski