The Skeptic

The Skeptic podcast, bringing you the best of the magazine’s expert analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and claims of the paranormal since its relaunch as online news source in September 2020.

Despite decades of coordinated global efforts, malaria is still a massive health crisis.

For the past few years Indian social media and the internet as a whole has been filled with advertisements for ‘Astrotalk’, an astrology app that claims to make accurate predictions of marriage dates and employment status of troubled individuals using as…

This story was first published to the website of the New Zealand Skeptics, and is reprinted here with permission.

The Skeptic podcast, bringing you the best of the magazine’s expert analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and claims of the paranormal since its relaunch as online news source in September 2020.

Content Warning: This article deals with tragic accidents that resulted in human and animal loss of life.

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 7, Issue 5, from 1993.

I found myself baffled by a recent article by psychologist Jennice Vilhauer Ph.D, in which she says: “When skepticism becomes a commitment to the belief that a phenomenon is unlikely, nonexistent, or already fully explained within existing models, it is no

Martin Lewis at TV BAFTA red carpet May 2026 (Wikimedia) Martin Lewis, the consumer protection specialist, broadcaster, and anti-scam campaigner, has today been named the 2026 recipient of the Ockham Award for Skeptical Activism by The Skeptic magazine.

Toby Young is the founder and editor of the Daily Sceptic – an online outlet which started life during the pandemic as “Lockdown Sceptics”, where its writers campaigned against public health measures like the wearing of facemasks and social distancing, wh…

The Skeptic podcast, bringing you the best of the magazine’s expert analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and claims of the paranormal since its relaunch as online news source in September 2020. n this episode: “It’s in our DNA”: the clichés that o…

Malcolm Nicolson got the story by accident.

We all make snap judgments about people based on trivial and frankly completely unwarranted things, and one of these is people’s names.

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 7, Issue 5, from 1993.

While skepticism obviously has a close relationship with science, it would be a mistake to see it as merely a subset of science – the skeptical toolset is pivotal to other academic disciplines, which are fundamentally skeptical in nature.

The Skeptic podcast, bringing you the best of the magazine’s expert analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and claims of the paranormal since its relaunch as online news source in September 2020.

Denialism is no stranger to health policy: President George W.

This story was first published to the website of the New Zealand Skeptics, and is reprinted here with permission.

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 7, Issue 5, from 1993.

The Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW) urges the Zamfara state government in Nigeria to release and compensate Mr Samalia Bala.

The Skeptic podcast, bringing you the best of the magazine’s expert analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and claims of the paranormal since its relaunch as online news source in September 2020.

In the aftermath of the death of Jason Arday, there has been considerable reporting on the network of white supremacists who support the views of the people who, apparently motivated by racial animus, made a spectacle of claims that Arday had improperly u…

You’re at the grocery store, and you want some chocolate.

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 7, Issue 5, from 1993.

A regular reader of The Skeptic might well be wondering in what possible way plate tectonics can be compared to homeopathy.

The Skeptic podcast, bringing you the best of the magazine’s expert analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and claims of the paranormal since its relaunch as online news source in September 2020.

Nathan Cofnas, the self-professed “race realist” who made international headlines when he accused Cambridge academic Jason Arday of plagiarism, has defended his “hereditarianism” position as scientific.

This story was first published to the website of the New Zealand Skeptics, and is reprinted here with permission.

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 7, Issue 5, from 1993.

How do you know when someone is lying to you?

The Skeptic podcast, bringing you the best of the magazine’s expert analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and claims of the paranormal since its relaunch as online news source in September 2020.

When Nathan Cofnas, the pro-eugenics philosopher who launched what his institution described as a crusade to purge academia of those who disagreed with his ‘race-realist views’, sought funding to bring his unsuccessful case against the University of Cambr…