The Skeptic's Bookshop

One of the common threads through racism, medical quackery and pseudoscience is the abuse of statistics. Sometimes this is deliberate, sometimes it is just an indication of the ignorance of the speaker, but always it is a means of confusing or deceiving the listener. This guide to the absurdities of some mathematical claims helps to level the playing field.

Australia's best science magazine.

One of the unifying principles of 'alternative medicine' is the horror of chemicals. Not things, of course, like ricin and botulism toxin which are natural and therefore not chemicals, or cyanide which is not a chemical when it come from apricot seeds. The only problem with the chemical-free vacuum of space is the radiation.

This is possibly the best science-related television series ever made, and demonstrated to a generation that the magnificence and beauty of reality exceeded anything that the supernatural and fantasy could offer. Anyone who saw it knows that there are billions and billions of reasons for wanting to see it again.

The book of the television series.

Science is not test tubes, atom bombs and pollution, it is a way of thinking that separates superstition from knowledge. It is a way of deciding what is real and what is fantasy. Many of the sites listed in The Millenium Project are here because this distinction is not detected or recognised.

A common tenet of both 'alternative medicine' and loony environmentalism is that you can't have too much of a good thing or too little of a bad thing. Of course, if you believe in homeopathy you would believe in anything, but in real life it is possible to have harmless concentrations of dangerous things.

This book was first published in 1841 and told about panics and hysterias of the past. Updating the book to today would just require the addition of a chapter on the Internet stock craze, an update to the witchcraft chapter to include mention of recovered memory syndrome, satanic ritual abuse and alien abductions, and a new chapter about Y2K madness.

This is an extremely depressing and sad book, because it was written more than 50 years ago and it reads like it was written yesterday. Who would have thought that idiocies like scientology, chiropractic, homeopathy, perpetual motion machines, belief in flying saucers, and the nonsense about Atlantis and the pyramids would survive into the twenty-first century? The book is subtitled 'A study in human gullibility'. Tragic.

Half the people in the world go to sleep hungry and what food they can get is inadequate and poor, yet people keep telling us that our food is dangerous and we should not do things that could produce safe, nutritious food for people who need it.

I am constantly amazed by the things that people will believe in. This book is a classic exposure of nonsense, much of which has somehow survived into the twenty-first century.

This is the definitive book on cold reading. It explains everything there is to know about this limitless technique! How can you apparently tell complete strangers about names, dates and events that mean something to them? This book, the most authoritative ever written on cold reading, explains it all! Learn how to do the trick even better than John Edward does it.

Contains all issues of the Skeptic from 1981-2003 on a single CD-ROM with all original magazine covers, articles and illustrations reproduced with astonishing clarity. Also included is the full text of the books Creationism: An Australian Perspective and Skeptical which were published in the mid-1980s. The CD has over 5,000 searchable pages and 10 hours of skeptical talks.

The Great Water Divining DVD is a fascinating look into the world of water divining in Australia over the last 23 years. It is packed with observations and insights from diviners and skeptics alike. See James Randi make one of his finest appeals to reason and the skeptical point of view. See all sorts of diviners using all sorts of divining rods in hopes of winning the tests. Total Running Time: 120 minutes

The Great Water Divining Video is a fascinating look into the world of water divining in Australia over the last 23 years. It is packed with observations and insights from diviners and skeptics alike. See James Randi make one of his finest appeals to reason and the skeptical point of view. See all sorts of diviners using all sorts of divining rods in hopes of winning the tests. Total Running Time: 120 minutes

There is a famous painting by Goya called 'The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters'. It is what this site is about and what Gross and Levitt's book is about. It has taken centuries to refine science as a means of discovering and knowing the truth, yet science, reason and rationality are under attack by second-rate minds who want to put us and reason back to sleep.

Shermer makes the distinction between belief, non-belief and unbelief, and describes his own transition from one state to another. Religion and science have different roles in society, and this book looks at the boundaries and overlaps which are legitimate for each.

Much nonsense is talked about what goes on inside the mind and what it means to remember things and events. This book collects some essays from experts who can brush aside that nonsense and explain what it is about memories that we can trust and what we can't.

Gould has been criticised for being a bit cruel and nasty (and even a bit inaccurate) in his criticisms of people who didn't know the things we know today, but it is a useful book to show how science can change as more is learned about something. There is no doubt that science is influenced by the culture of the time, but the difference between science and non-science or pseudoscience is that the real thing can break away from culture when the facts demand it.

An entire industry has grown up around the absurd idea that children can be subjected to atrocities like sexual abuse and cannibalism and not remember any of this until some 'therapist' reconstructs the memories for them. This book exposes this nonsense for what it is - a vicious attack on children and families by people prepared to knowingly lie to support a crazy ideology.

A landmark effort that involved thousands of teachers, scientists, science educators, and other experts across the country, these standards echo the principle that learning science is an inquiry-based process, that science in schools should reflect the intellectual traditions of contemporary science, and that all Americans have a role in improving science education. This document is invaluable to education policy-makers, school system administrators, teacher educators, individual teachers, and concerned parents.

There is a difference between science and pseudoscience, between reality and fantasy. This book shows you how to tell the difference.

Featuring close to 400 definitions, arguments, and essays on topics ranging from acupuncture to zombies, The Skeptic’s Dictionary is a lively, commonsense trove of detailed information on all things supernatural, occult, paranormal, and pseudoscientific. It covers such categories as alternative medicine; cryptozoology; extraterrestrials and UFOs; frauds and hoaxes; junk science; logic and perception; New Age energy; and the psychic. For the open-minded seeker, the soft or hardened skeptic, and the believing doubter, this book offers a remarkable range of information that puts to the test the best arguments of true believers.

Published in 1911, free from Project Gutenberg

Evolution is one of those fundamental theories in science, like relativity, heliocentricity, gravity, blood circulation, atomic structure and quantum mechanics of which it can realistically be said that the idea introduced a paradigm shift in scientific thinking. Modern science would be primitive and crippled without it. This book provides excellent ammunition for the fight against those who would replace evolution with superstition.

The title of this book might suggest that it is anti-science, but in fact the author posits that science is a natural part of human existence (and even that of some animals) because it is about how organisms explain and interact with the world around them. The author has produced a very good summary of the philosophical path through Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend, and there is commentary about the relationship between religion and science which mightn't please Richard Dawkins but which provides a credible explanation for the ubiquity of religion across societies (and which allows for religion to be abandoned when better knowledge comes along).

Believers in superstition and magic often accuse scientists, atheists and other rational thinkers of denying or even destroying mystery and beauty. Dawkins points out in this book that there is so much wonder and excitement in truth and reality that it is unnecessary to make up explanations.

The scientific method is the best thing we have come up with to find out about how the universe works. This book is about the misuse of science and how it differs from science done badly. Both are bad, but at least bad science can be corrected. Mad science is more difficult to overcome.

I am continually amazed by the sorts of things that people can believe without any evidence to support the belief, and often in spite of comprehensive evidence against the belief. Faith is a wonderful thing, but it can't make facts disappear.