The Skeptic

In the weeks since the death of sociologist Jason Arday, a number of things have become clear. Firstly, it is undeniable that, to whatever degree his work was tainted by plagiarism, the relentless coverage of his story was wholly disproportionate. Of the many academics to have been accused of plagiarism, I’m unaware of any who have been the subject of over 200 media articles in the week after they had already stepped down from their position.

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 7, Issue 4, from 1993. Among the 60,000 images returned by the 1976 Viking mission to Mars, several show what appears to be a gigantic, three-dimensional human face on the plains of the Cydonia Mensae region of Mars (see Photograph 1). The ‘face’ measures 2.5 x 2.0 kilometres, and about 400 metres high.

This story was first published to the website of the New Zealand Skeptics, and is reprinted here with permission. The hyperloop, one of Elon Musk’s grand ideas, was slated back in 2013 as a way to beat traffic in heavily congested areas, with the first planned route being from Los Angeles to San Francisco. This plan was documented in the 2013 document Hyperloop Alpha, which is still available on the Tesla website and was written by Musk and some of the engineers he employed.

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. On this episode: Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts, or to support the show, take out a small voluntary donation at patreon.com/theskeptic.

When it comes to the historical figures who laid the foundations for the pseudoscience we see today, few can lay claim to having lived as varied and fascinating a life as Helena Blavatsky. Admittedly that’s because, for large parts of her life, most of what we know comes from her own uncorroborated accounts written later in her life and, while Helena was many things, an accurate and honest autobiographer is not one of them.

On the 25th of May, Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas – some 42,000 words arguing that artificial intelligence must be “disarmed” before it hollows out human dignity, widens inequality, and consigns the world’s workers to what he called “forced inactivity.” He unveiled it at the Vatican standing beside a co-founder of Anthropic, one of the firms building the very thing he was warning everyone about. Within 24 hours, The Verge ran with a headline fit for a Philip K.

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. On this episode: Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts, or to support the show, take out a small voluntary donation at patreon.com/theskeptic.

This article contains references to domestic violence, child abuse, rape, sexual assault and suicide. “Men’s liberation movement” is the kind of phrase that makes you reflexively tighten your sphincter. “Who or what”, I hear you ask, “do men need to be liberated from?” The answer is, as it so often is, other men. Why then, in the nearly 50 years since the first men began collaborating with second- and third-wave feminists, has a men’s lib movement failed to cement itself?

In 1965 soul singer Otis Redding recorded his third album, “Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul”. On that album was his second breakout single. This song reached the top five in 1965’s Black Singles Chart (the 60s were really racist) and even crept over to the ‘regular’ music chart, where it would peak at 35. In 1967 the song was covered for a debut album by Aretha Franklin. That song was called “Respect”, and you know it. It is very likely you know this song as Franklin’s and not Redding’s.

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 7, Issue 4, from 1993. Note: the article reflects the views of the author as published by the magazine at the time. It is preserved here for posterity, but is followed by an update giving contemporary context for some of Galton’s views and his modern legacy. What does the name Sir Francis Galton mean to you? An eminent Victorian scientist well-known for his contributions to statistics, anthropology and meteorology, perhaps.