In a frivolous-Friday mood, The Guardian offers links to both credulous and skeptical material on crop circles.… Read the rest

Michael Shermer in Scientific American says the siren song of pseudoscience can be too alluring to resist.… Read the rest

The new president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science says the gap between scientists and the public leads to a widespread distrust of rational inquiry.… Read the rest

Education professor propounds eccentric notion that teachers may know more than students.… Read the rest

‘Naipaul has always eschewed the rhetoric of marginality.’… Read the rest

Skeptic editor Michael Shermer explains the difference between science and pseudoscience, and explores the intermediate area where the jury is still out.… Read the rest

Margaret Talbot takes Carol Gilligan to task for her claim that there are radical differences between male and female minds.… Read the rest

Philosopher Simon Blackburn in despair at humanity’s capacity for self-deception.… Read the rest

A federal magistrate judge has ordered the US government to let scientists study the bones of Kennewick Man, an ancient skeleton discovered on the banks of the Columbia River.… Read the rest

Ian Buruma argues that it is time that people stopped hiding behind a sloppy relativism as a way to excuse the inexcusable.… Read the rest

Steven Pinker on the fears that lead to people embracing an erroneous conception of human nature.… Read the rest

The evolution of the scientific creationist.… Read the rest