Skeptical Inquirer

09/16/2025

Ben Radford writes: "Doctors do not “force” any patient to do anything. Instead, they are expected and obligated to provide the best care they can to their patients based on the best medical evidence, including, for example, that vaccines have been proven safe and effective."

It’s no secret that public health has come under fire in recent years, and especially so under the auspices of President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Hea ...

09/15/2025

Barry Karr on Peter Popoff: “I have no words strong enough in my vocabulary to describe my feelings.”

That bluntness carried The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry through lawsuits, conferences, and four decades of keeping skepticism stitched together.

A proper legacy: https://skepticalinquirer.org/2025/08/barry-karr-strengthened-the-skeptical-community-by-bringing-people-together/

09/15/2025

Within the Bigfoot subculture, only a few names are associated with producing evidence that’s considered a gold standard—first and foremost Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin for their 1967 film. But one name stands out as being possibly the most prolific in terms of evidence produced: Paul Freeman.

Within the Bigfoot subculture, only a few names are associated with producing evidence that’s considered a gold standard—first and foremost Roger Patterson ...

09/15/2025

In his latest Spanish-language “¡Paparruchas!” column for Skeptical Inquirer, Luis Alfonso Gámez writes about “the first fake news story of global reach”: astronomer John Herschel’s 1835 claim he had discovered evidence of life on the moon (as well as Edgar Allan Poe’s investigation and debunking of the story)

Para Edgar Allan Poe, «fue el engaño más brillante» (Harrison 1965, 259). El diario neoyorquino The Sun cuenta en agosto de 1835 que, gracias a un nuevo tip ...

09/15/2025

"The shoddy work and questionable conclusions of that report were so extensive that an analysis of it required over 450 pages to detail all of its shortcomings."

Meanwhile, Congress is trying to keep serious scientists from weighing in.

09/12/2025

Register today for the free livestream on Thursday, September 18!

Science has advanced enormously in the past 500 years, guided by experimental tests of theory and practice. In that same time, science teaching and education—guided primarily by tradition and dogma—has remained largely medieval. Carl Wieman will discuss research from university classrooms that r...

09/12/2025

In an official Instagram statement posted on Thursday (04/09), the group criticised the festival, held on the Biomedical Campus, for including sessions of the controversial practices of Reiki and Reflexology. It defined these as “pseudoscientific practice with no evidence base”.

Students Against Pseudoscience wrote in the statement that they “are deeply concerned about the decision of the Campus to host such an event”.

Students Against Psuedoscience claim Cambridge Biomedical Campus endorses pseudoscience through its association with the annual Cambridge Wellness Festival

09/10/2025

"How does someone become an anti-vaxxer or come to believe that chemotherapy is more dangerous than cancer? It can begin with what seems like a harmless health tip: Cut seed oils or artificial food dyes from your diet. From there, the road can get treacherous."

How does MAHA turn some health-conscious people against all health care? We found out.

09/09/2025

Tune in TONIGHT at 7pm ET for the world premiere of Kenny Biddle's new episode of "Ghosts in the Machine" featuring his investigation of the Smurl Family Haunting.

In this episode of Ghosts in the Machine, we take a DEEP dive into the original story of the Smurl Family Haunting. In 1986, a duplex in the small town of We...

09/09/2025

Breakthroughs don’t come from nowhere. CRISPR gene editing started with scientists asking how bacteria defend themselves against viruses. Gleevec, the leukemia pill that turned a fatal disease into a manageable one, began with research into a single mutated enzyme.

Both were funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Both changed lives. Now, with a proposed 44% cut, we’re telling scientists and patients that this kind of work doesn’t matter.

Read Dr. Wilson's Debunk the Funk Videos’s piece on why that’s a mistake:

Breakthroughs in medicine that transform patients’ lives for the better depend on adequately funding basic research, the kind of research that aims to under ...

09/09/2025

Rob Palmer (aka "The Well-Known Skeptic") interviews Dave McKeegan, a YouTuber who uses his popular channel to debunk flat-earth claims, space program denialism, and other conspiracies.

In this video interview, I talk with YouTuber Dave McKeegan about his conspiracy debunking work, including his participation in “The Final Experiment” in Antarctica, designed to demonstrate the illegitimacy of flat-earth beliefs.

09/09/2025

"This politicization of science, which has made the acceptance of established scientific truths, backed by rational inquiry, dependent on one's political stance, marks a dangerous step backward for a country where many of the vaccines that are now under attack were, in fact, originally developed."
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2025/09/08/the-anti-vax-offensive-is-poisoning-american-democracy_6745147_23.html #

EDITORIAL. The politicization of science currently at play in the United States marks a dangerous step backward for a country where many of the vaccines that are now under attack were, in fact, originally developed.