Kendrick Frazier (1942–2022)

My first encounter with Skeptical Inquirer magazine was in a college library in the 1990s, and I initially assumed it was some kind of delightfully nerdy parody of the notoriously non-skeptical National Enquirer. It's not, though. It's a perfectly serious publication (although not one without an occasional sense of humor) dedicated to fringe and paranormal subjects from a skeptical, scientific point of view.

This first of their "best of" collections features articles on a number of such show more subjects, some talking in general about pseudoscience and pseudoscientific beliefs, some addressing scientific flaws in pseudoscientists' arguments, others featuring authors who've run small experiments or crunched some statistics to test whether, say, dowsers can detect running water in properly controlled trials, or if there are more births during a full moon, or more professional athletes born under a particular astrological sun sign. (Spoiler: no.) Some of the articles are pretty dry, some a bit livelier. A few of them I've got some issues with. But in general it's always nice to see people out there trying to approach this stuff in a sensible and scientific fashion.

Which is something Skeptical Inquirer has been doing for quite a long time. This particular volume was published in 1981, so the pieces in it are mostly from the 1970s. As such, they reflect the pseudoscientific topics that were in fashion at the time: biorhythms, the Bermuda Triangle, a deep mainstream fascination with ESP, a whole section on Immanuel Velikovsky. Of course, other topics represented here, such as astrology and UFOs, are just as culturally relevant as ever. Still, I wouldn't exactly recommend this volume as a first foray into works of scientific skepticism, unless you have a very specific fascination with paranormal culture and beliefs in the 70s. I do think everyone should have at least some exposure to this kind of thinking, though. show less

A very interesting, easily readable book with many illustrations, focusing on the ancestral Puebloans of Chaco Canyon. It details the state of the research that has been carried out in Chaco Canyon and gives insight into many fascinating aspects of the ancient culture: from the mysterious road systems to signalling across distances and astronomic alignment of the Great Houses and other settlements.

As a layperson I found it a very good read. It gave me a better view on the People of Chaco - show more so it fulfills the expectations! I also liked the report of the first expeditions discovering Chaco - very interesting to get a glimpse of that. The only drawback in a way were the last two or three chapters, because the author there presents various viewpoints on the issues already presented in the book - so that confused me and made me wonder whether what I had read was 'accepted knowledge' or just one of the viewpoints among archeologists. But I would definitely recommend to read this book before you visit the canyon - then you see much more! show less

This is the story of the archaeological study of Chaco Canyon, from in 1849 to the 1999. The unique architecture and village layout of Chaco Canyon flourished from the 10th to 12th centuries, approximately. Although archaeologists initially assumed the the style was limited to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, it was eventually determined to extend over a much larger region that includes modern day Arizona, Utah, Colorado as well as New Mexico. In spite of 150 years of studies, archaeologists show more still do not have a good understanding of what community life was like, nor what caused the unique “Chaco” features to rise and decline. Even modern Hopi, Zuni and Pueblo Indians have not been able to fully explain the phenomenon, although both they and the archaeologists believe that some of the Chaco people are some of their ancestors. This is a very good book. The informal writing style is more readable than is sometimes the case with scientific books. show less

My reactions to reading this in 1992.

An interesting book on a variety of topics.

I’m not that interested in paranormal mental powers, but I did find the debunking of a “psychic” detective interesting. As I suspected, when two original documented facts are examined, the psychic abilities pretty much vanish in the light of reality.

I enjoyed James Randi’s Project Alpha in which he gave parapsychologists plenty of rope to hang themselves. As with most things in life, the articles show more showing the statistical fallacies of most parapsychology studies reveal that details count.

My main interest is in cryptozoology, fringe archaeology, and pseudosciences and there was plenty on their history and practice: the possibly genetic basis of palmistry (a number of genetic defects with behavioral implications do manifest themselves in palm and fingers -- but not like palmistry says), a detailed look at the Shroud of Turin and alleged photographs of the Loch Ness monster’s flipper, wacko archaelogy which postulates Phoenicians-Libyans with all kinds of feats like establishing naval academies in California and exploring Polynesia, the nonevidence for a lunar influence on homocide, a method of recreating the Nazca drawings (sans space brother supervision), bizarre Creationist claims (condensing canopies of water yielding Noah’s flood), and Philip Klass’ explanation of the forensic limits of hypnosis in UFO cases. show less