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JAMES RANDI's Particular the Skeptical Inquirer Ancient Antarctica Maps? Claims vs. Evidence 220 210 200 190 180 170 160 ISO 140 Faith Healers Exposed / Folk Remedies Fringe Dentistry / Air, Ions and Electricity Pseudoscience About the Past / Ghostbusting Woodbridge UFO / Boulder Conference Vol. XI No. 1/Fall 1986 $5.00 Published by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal Skeptical Inquirer THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER is the official journal of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Editor Kendrick Frazicr. Editorial Board James E. Alcock, Martin Gardner, Ray Myman, Philip J. Klass, Paul Kurtz, James Randi. Consulting Editors Isaac Asimov, William Sims Bainbridge. John R. Cole, Kenneth 1. Feder. C. E. M. Hansel. E. C. Krupp, Andrew Neher, James E. Oberg, Robert Sheaffer. Steven N. Shore. Managing Editor Doris Hawley Doyle. Public Relations Andrea Szalanski (director), Barry Karr. Production Editor Betsy Offermann. Business Manager Mary Rose Hays. Systems Programmer Richard Seymour. Data-Base Manager laurel Geise Smith. Typesetting Paul E. Loynes. Audio Technician Vance Vigrass. Staff Beth Gehrman, Ruthann Page, Alfreda Pidgeon. Laurie Van Amburgh. Cartoonist Rob Pudim. The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal Paul Kurtz, Chairman; philosopher. State University of New York at Buffalo. Lee Nisbet, Special Projects Director. Fellows of the Committee James E. Alcock, psychologist, York Univ., Toronto; Eduardo Amaldi, physicist. University of Rome. Italy. Isaac Asimov, biochemist, author; Irving Biederman, psychologist, SUNY at Buffalo; Brand Blanshard, philosopher, Yale; Mario Bunge, philosopher, McGill University; Bette Chambers, AHA.; John R. Cole, anthropologist. Institute for the Study of Human Issues; F. H. C. Crick, biophysicist. Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla. Calif.; L. Sprague de Camp, author, engineer; Bernard Dixon, science writer, consultant; Paul Edwards, philos­ opher. Editor. Encyclopedia of Philosophy; Antony Flew, philosopher. Reading Univ., U.K.; Andrew Fraknoi, astronomer, executive officer. Astronomical Society of the Pacific; editor of Mercury; Kendrick Frazier, science writer. Editor, THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER; Yves Galifret, Exec. Secretary. L'Union Ralionaliste; Martin Gardner, author, critic; Murray Cell-Mann, professor of physics, California Institute of Technology: Henry Gordon, magician, columnist, broadcaster, Toronto; Stephen Jay Gould, Museum of Comparative Zoology. Harvard Univ.; C. E. M Hansel, psychologist, Univ. of Wales; Sidney Hook, prof, emeritus of philosophy, NYU; Ray Hyman, psychologist. Univ. of Oregon; Leon Jaroff, sciences editor. Time; Lawrence Jerome, science writer, engineer; Philip J. Klass, science writer, engineer; Marvin Kohl, philosopher, SUNY College at Fredonia; Edwin C. Krupp, astronomer, director. Griffith Observatory; Lawrence Kusche, science writer; Paul MacCready, scientist/engineer. AeroViron- menl. Inc., Monrovia, Calif.; David Marks, psychologist, Univ. of Otago. Dunedin; Willaim V. Mayer, biologist University of Colorado, Boulder; David Morrison, professor of astronomy. University of Hawaii; Dorothy Nelkin, sociologist, Cornell University. Lee Nisbet, philosopher, Medaille College; James E. Oberg, science writer; Mark Plummer, solicitor, Melbourne, Australia; W. V. Quine, philosopher, Harvard Univ.; James Randi, magician, author; Carl Sagan, astronomer, Cornell Univ.; Evry Schatzman, President, French Physics Association; Thomas A. Sebeok, anthropologist, linguist, Indiana University; Robert Sheaffer, science writer; B. F. Skinner, psychologist. Harvard Univ.; Dick Smith, film producer, publisher, Terrey Hills, N.S.W.. Australia; Robert Steiner, magician, author. El Cerrito, California; Stephen Toulmin, professor of social thought and philosophy. Univ. of Chicago. Marvin Zelen, statistician. Harvard Univ.; Marvin Zimmerman, philosopher. SUNY at Buffalo. (Affiliations given for identification only.) Manuscripts, letters, books for review, and editorial inquiries should be addressed to Kendrick Frazier, Editor. Tilt SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. 3025 Palo Alto Dr., N.E.. Albuquerque, NM 87111. Subscriptions, change of address, and advertising should be addressed to: THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. Box 229. Buffalo. NY 14215-0229. Old address as well as new are necessary for change of subscriber's address, with six weeks advance notice. Inquiries from the media and the public about the work of the Committee should be made to Paul Kurtz, Chairman. CSICOP. Box 229. Buffalo. NY 14215-0229. Tel.: (716) 834-3222. Articles, reports, reviews, and letters published in THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER represent the views and work of individual authors. Their publication docs not necessarily constitute an endorsement by CSICOP or its members unless so staled. Copyright *I986 by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, 3151 Bailey Ave. Buffalo. NY 14215-0229. Subscription Rates: Individuals, libraries, and institutions. $20.00 a year; back issues, $5.00 each (vol. I, no. I through vol. 2, no. 2. $7.50 each). Postmaster: THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER is published quarterly. Spring. Summer. Fall, and Winter. Printed in the U.S.A. Second-class postage paid al Buffalo. New York, and additional mailing offices. Send changes of address to THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. BOX 229. Buffalo. NY 14215-0229. the Skeptical Inquirer Journal of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal Vol. XI. No. 1 ISSN 0194-6730 Fall 1986 2 The Path Ahead: Opportunities, Challenges, and an Expanded View by Kendrick Frazier SPECIAL REPORT 28 Exposing the Faith-Healers by Robert A. Steiner ARTICLES 32 War Antarctica Mapped by the Ancients by David C. Jolly 44 Folk Remedies and Human Belief-Systems by Frank Reuter 51 Dentistry and Pseudosclence by John E. Dodes 56 Atmospheric Electricity, Ions, and Pseudosclence by Hans Dolezalek 61 Noah's Arte and Ancient Astronauts: Pseudoscientific Beliefs About the Past Among a Sample of College Students by Francis B. Harrold and Raymond A. Eve 77 The Woodbridge UFO Incident by Ian Ridpath 84 How to Bust a Ghost Two Quick Bui Effective Cures by Robert A. Baker NEWS AND COMMENT 8 CSICOP 1986 Conference/ Confessions of a Magician / CSICOP Awards / Psychic's $1-Million Headaches / Britain's Magic Circle / Archaeology Symposium / J. Allen Hynek / MacArthur Award to Randi NOTES OF A PSI-WATCHER 21 The Unorthodox Conjectures of Tommy Gold by Martin Gardner PSYCHIC VIBRATIONS 25 Eerie tales of Halley's Comet and stress horoscopes 91 PAST/PRESENT Maimonides Dream-Telepathy Experiments by Ray Hyman BOOK REVIEWS 93 Kendrick Frazier, ed., Science Confronts the Paranormal (J. W. Grove) 97 Paul Kurtz, ed. A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology (Susan Blackmore) 102 SOME RECENT BOOKS 102 ARTICLES OF NOTE 104 FROM OUR READERS ON THE COVER: Illustration from EOS, American Geophysical Union. The Path Ahead: Opportunities, Challenges, and an Expanded View ITH THIS ISSUE we begin our second decade. We are proud to note this milestone. Still, we consider the WSKEPTICAL INQUIRER a youthful publication, its potential not fully tapped, challenges and opportunities ahead. We have grown with each issue, but we are still a small publication by mass-media standards. This is as much an advantage as a handicap. Our special (that is, evaluative) approach to a fairly specific set of subjects—pseudoscience, fringe science, and the allegedly paranormal, plus the social, educational, and scientific issues surrounding these public fascinations—gives us a unique niche in periodical publishing. You, our readers, are our first and primary audience. Through you our reach broadens and multiplies. Teachers and scholars use the arti­ cles in classrooms and research. News media report the investigations and convey the scientific viewpoint. The many new local and inter­ national groups—some of them amazingly active and effective—draw upon studies we publish and do their own investigations. Many of you share articles with friends and acquaintances. So, despite our still rela­ tively small size, we have become fairly well known. We have made an impact. Yet there is so much more to do. ***** We have written before in these occasional columns of the need to chart trends in the paranormal and fringe sciences. Steven Dutch's article "Four Decades of Fringe Literature" in our Summer issue illuminated this well. The number of books published on the occult, astrology, UFOs, psychics, and other fringe topics rose from the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Since 1981 there has been a sharp plunge. From this dramatic decline one might wrongly think fringe science has virtually gone away. We certainly no longer see the international best-selling books of fringe science, such as Velikovsky's historic-era worlds-in- collision, von Daniken's ancient-astronaut scenarios, and the Bermuda Triangle books of the mid-1970s. There has been a dropoff in interest in some of these subjects. But other fringe topics have taken their places, and they don't depend on books. Look what we have now. "Psychics" and their claims are at least as visible, popular, and 2 THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. 11 accepted, even by the educated public, as ever. Psychics have little need for books. They promulgate their wares through word of mouth, local radio talk-shows, the now-ubiquitous "psychic fairs," and the often fawning attention of newspaper and magazine feature writers. Astrology has similar leverage. Astrologers need not rely on books
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