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By Root 505 0

magazine’s board members: Richard Abanes, David Alexander, the late Steve Allen, Arthur Benjamin, Roger Bingham, Napoleon Chagnon, K. C. Cole, Jared Diamond, Clayton J. Drees, Mark Edward, George Fischbeck, Greg Forbes, the late Stephen Jay Gould, John Gribbin, Steve Harris, William Jarvis, Lawrence Krauss, Gerald Larue, William McComas, John Mosley, Richard Olson, Donald Prothero, James Randi, Vincent Sarich, Eugenie Scott, Nancy Segal, Elie Shneour, Jay Stuart Snelson, Julia Sweeney, Frank Sulloway, Carol Tavris, and Stuart Vyse.

Thanks for institutional support for the Skeptics Society at the California Institute of Technology go to David Baltimore, Susan Davis, Chris Harcourt, and Kip Thome. Larry Mantle, Ilsa Setziol, Jackie Oclaray, Julia Posie, and Linda Othenin-Girard at KPCC 89.3 FM radio in Pasadena have been good friends and valuable supporters of promoting science and critical thinking on the air. Thanks to Linda Urban at Vroman’s bookstore in Pasadena for her support; Robert Zeps and John Moores have been especially supportive of both the Skeptics Society as well as the skeptical movement in America. Finally, special thanks go to those who help at every level of our organization: Stephen Asma, Jaime Botero, Jason Bowes, Jean Paul Buquet, Adam Caldwell, Bonnie Callahan, Tim Callahan, Cliff Caplan, Randy Cassingham, Shoshana Cohen, John Coulter, Brad Davies, Janet Dreyer, Bob Friedhoffer, Michael Gilmore, Tyson Gilmore, Andrew Harter, Diane Knudtson, Joe Lee.

I would also like to acknowledge John Rennie and Mariette DiChristina at Scientific American for providing skepticism a monthly voice that reaches so many people. I look forward each month to writing my column more than just about anything else I do in my working life.

Finally, I thank my daughter, Devin, for bringing so much joy just by being herself and my wife, Kim, with whom I have now shared life for nearly two decades.

Index

Entries in italics refer to figures, tables and illustrations.

Abduction (Mack), 147

“abrupt appearance theory,” 177

Ache peoples, 128

Adams, John, 121

adaptationism-nonadaptationism theme, 258, 260–63, 265

Adler, Mortimer J., 211

Africa, human origin in, xxix–xxx, 192, 206

aging, 49, 52

“agnostic,” 20, 23, 31, 34

agricultural revolution, 162, 168–72, 205, 212

AIDS, xxviii, 49, 192

Aka (African pygmies), 127–28

Alcock, John, 243, 251

Alexander, Caroline, 112–14, 121–22

Alexander, David, 229, 230, 234

Ali, Muhammad, 204

alien abductions, 143, 145–46

Allen, Richard, 209

alternative medicine, xxxiii, 105–6

Alzheimer’s disease, 49, 50

Amin, Idi, 200, 205

Anderson, Marian, 210

Andrus, Jerry, xvi

Angell, Marcia, xxiv, xxv

angiogenesis, 103

anomalies, 182–83

Antietam/Sharpsburg, Battle of, xxxv, 156–57

anthropology wars, 69–90

antichaos, 141–42

antidepressant drugs, 129

anti-Semitism, 160–61

apatheism, 29

“apertology,” 204

Apollo flights, 48, 223

Appert, Francois, 222

Archimedes, 214

Arendt, Hannah, 210

Aristotle, xii, 214, 219, 220, 223

Arkansas Act 590 (1981), 175

Armstrong, Lance, 98–99, 105–6

artificial selection (breeding), 192

Ascent of Man, The (Bronowski), 241

Asimov, Isaac, 64, 214, 219, 231

Astounding Science Fiction (Campbell), 59

astrology, 3, 4, 5, 14–15

“atheist,” 19–21, 23, 28, 34

atherosclerosis, 49

athletes, xxxiii, 91–100, 250

Atilla the Hun, 204

“attribution bias,” xxii

Augustine, Saint, 219

Auschwitz, 157–59, 160

Austen, Jane, 217

Australian Aborigines, 170–71

australopithecines, 167

avalanches, 140, 141

Ayala, Francisco, 176

Babbage, Charles, 222, 223

Back to the Future (film), 43

Bacon, Francis, xii–xiii, xxv, xxx, 208, 214, 221, 223

Bacon, Roger, 221

bacteria, 46, 186–88, 192–93

Bak, Per, 140, 141, 143

Bannister, Roger, 203

Bardeen, John, 223

Bardwell, James, 192–93

Barnum reading, 6–8, 15

baseball, 96–98, 248–50

“Bathybius and Eozoon” (Gould), 259–60

Becquerel, Antoine Henri, 222

Beechey,