The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe
 

Skepticast #21: December 7th 2005 (Download MP3)



Topics:

Issue #1. News Items Intelligent Design and Weeping Icons

Issue #2. Guest: Guest: Wallace Sampson, MD



Issue #1. News Items



On the previous episode of the Skeptics Guide we reported that the University of Kansas was planning a course entitled: "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies." Well, the course has now been cancelled, putatively because the faculty member planning the course, Paul Mirecki, was accused of making anti-religious comments to students in an e-mail.

Read more here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10283676/

From the Sacremento Bee:
Weeping or not, Mary is a magnet: Believers see tears of blood in local statue, and even skeptics see the draw.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/religion/v-print/story/13943956p-14780445c.html



 

Issue #2. Guest: Wallace Sampson, MD

Dr. Sampson is an outspoken critic of unscientific, fringe, and bizarre health modalities. He is the editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine; http://www.sram.org/ (of which your host is an associate editor), on the board of directors of the National Council Against Health Fraud (http://www.ncahf.org/), and author of numerous articles and reviews dealing with a range of issues involving science and medicine. He is an oncologist by training and is a clinical professor emeritus of medicine at Stanford University.

Recent article by Dr. Sampson: http://quackfiles.blogspot.com/2005/03/alternative-universe-by-wallace.html