Volume 14 Number 4, Winter 2001

Features

How Big is an Alien Big Cat?
An exploration of the notoriously elusive Alien Big Cats by David Hambling

Born That Way? A Brief Look at the Sexual Orientation Controversy
Barry F. Seidman advocates a scientific approach to understanding homosexuality

Post-Modernism and Parapsychology
Ron Roberts wonders if we are losing our sense of reality

Nostradamus Said What?
David Hambling takes a look at the predictions of Nostradamus in relation to the tragic events that took place in America on September 11th 2001

Humour

Sprite, by Donald Rooum, the ongoing saga of an ethereal being who has the misfortune to fall for a confirmed skeptic.
Cartoons by Tim Pearce and The Parking Lot is Full
Pictures from Hilary Evans’ Paranormal Picture Gallery

Book reviews

USEFUL PHILOSOPHY
Zeno and the Tortoise: How to Think Like a Philosopher by Nicholas Fearn

SOMETHING HAPPENS
Little Green Men, Meowing Nuns and Head Hunting Panics: A Study of Mass Psychogenic Illness and Mass Panic by Robert E Bartholomew McFarland and Company

LUCKY BAG
Parapsychology: The Science of Unusual Experience by R Roberts and D Groome (Editors)

DOWNHILL ALL THE WAY
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to New Millennium Predictions by the New Age Collective and Lisa Lenard

BYE BYE ME
The Shattered Self: The End of Natural Evolution by Pierre Baldi

WHY DO WE NEED THE BENT SPOONS, URI?
Confessions of a Rabbi and a Psychic by Shmuley Boteach and Uri Geller

A BRILLIANT MIND
Skepticism and Humanism: the New Paradigm by Paul Kurtz

DIG IT
Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear by Jan Bondeson

News and comment

Editorial

Kate Holden and Chris French

Skeptical Stats
A column based on the observation that sometimes statistics don’t lie - they’re just plain crazy...

Hits and Misses
The mobile effect
Urban legends
Hair today
In search of miracles
The shape of bags to come
Aborting crime
Timely Predictions

Skeptic at large . . .
Wendy M. Grossman

Philosopher’s Corner: Release the Genius Within
Julian Baggini

Rhyme and Reason: Religious Beliefs
Steven Donnelly

Letters from our readers
A Reply to Montague Keen by Chris French