Part of “Pseudoscience A to Z”, a series of articles in the Skeptics Canada newsletter.
Naturopathy and its associated practices are well known to skeptics, and little description is needed here, but for those who are interested in an in-depth analysis, try www.naturowatch.org/general/beyerstein.html by the late Dr. Barry Beyerstein, a skeptic and biopsychologist at Simon Fraser University.
The New-Age ‘science’ of reading eyes doesn’t work—but there may be a speck of truth in it.
From OSSCI’s Special Interest Group on Alternative Medicine:
North Americans spend over $30 billion annually on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) – from acupuncture to therapeutic touch. More than one-third of adults now use at least one form of “alternative” health care each year (where “alternative” is loosely defined as those practices which aren’t generally taught in medical schools or offered at most hospitals).1
I had no premonition of any synchronicity coming on. There were no warning signs or vague impressions. Nothing portended any good fortune or impending joy. It was, after all, Friday the 13th, August, 2004. There was an OSSCI (Ontario Skeptics Society for Critical Inquiry) meeting taking place but in true skeptical fashion, the triskaidekaphobia factor was being ignored.
On September 12, 1996, four days after her 45th birthday, Ontario resident Lana Dale Lewis died after suffering a stroke.
Psychics and mediums over the last 150 years have moved well beyond the simple rappings and table shiftings to serious communication with the dead. Indeed, a number of so-called mediums have produced both art and writings, courtesy of their channels. I suppose one must applaud their “honesty” in not taking credit for the work of others, they nonetheless have almost uniformly benefited monetarily from the generous dictation of their spiritual guides. The following is a compilation of just a few of these. Note that the spiritual guides appear unwilling to warn their hosts of impending danger. Thus several have met untimely ends.
Part of “Pseudoscience A to Z”, a series of brief articles in the OSSCI newsletter about topics that have not been subjected to much critical thinking by their promoters.
Sometimes even our best efforts cannot debunk an extraordinary claim because we cannot obtain sufficiently compelling evidence to the contrary. Nonetheless, the investigation itself can be both instructive and enjoyable.
“Senate’s approval in principle has been negated.”
With these words in the Senate of York University on April 26th, 2001, the proposal for an affiliation with the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College (CMCC) expired without so much as a whimper. The six-year nightmare was over.