Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

[SkeptInq@aol.com]

 Visit the CSICOP and Skeptical Inquirer Magazine website at
http://www.csicop.org. Receiving over 200,000 hits per year, the CSICOP site
was rated one of the top ten science sites by HOMEPC magazine.

 In this week's SI DIGEST:

 --Nickell Investigates Canada's Mysterious Maritimes
 --Articles Available at www.csicop.org from the Nov/Dec 1999 Skeptical
Inquirer
 --SALON.COM: False Memory Syndrome
 --THE SCIENTIST: Academic Health Centers Embrace CAM
 --NPR SCIENCE FRIDAY: Science Books of the Century


 NICKELL INVESTIGATES CANADA'S MYSTERIOUS MARITIMES

 For Immediate Release
 Contact 716-636-1425 X219

 World's Foremost Skeptical Investigator Explores Canada's Mysterious
Maritimes

 AMHERST, NY-- All those who hold dear Canadian legends of sea monsters,
gigantic amphibians, ghostly vessels, and frightening cathedrals, beware.
Renowned skeptical investigator Joe Nickell ventured north into Canada's
Maritime provinces this past summer, returning with tales of solved
mysteries. Nickell's case-by-case synopsis of his adventures appears in his
"Investigative Files" column in the Jan./Feb. 2000 issue of Skeptical
Inquirer, The Magazine for Science and Reason.

 To read the full release, go to
http://www.csicop.org/articles/19991222-maritime/  .

 ARTICLES AVAILABLE AT WWW.CSICOP.ORG FROM THE NOV/DEC. SKEPTICAL INQUIRER

 Several full text articles from the Nov/Dec 1999 issue of Skeptical Inquirer
are now available at www.csicop.org.

 --The Physics Behind Four Amazing Demonstrations
 Go to http://www.csicop.org/si/9911/willey.html

 --Research Review: New Analyses Raise Doubts About Replicability of ESP
Findings
 Go to http://www.csicop.org/si/9911/lilienfeld.html

 --Notes of a Fringe Watcher: The Star of Bethlehem
 Go to http://www.csicop.org/si/9911/gardner.html

 --Readers Forum on Science and Religion
 Go to http://www.csicop.org/si/9911/forum.html

 SALON.COM: FALSE MEMORY SYNDROME

 False memory syndrome
 As women bring lawsuits, therapists are having to pay for their mistakes.
 By Kevin Giordano

 For the full article, go to
http://www.salon.com/health/feature/1999/12/22/false_memory/print.html

 "...According to a new book by Joan Acocella, "Creating Hysteria: Women and
the Myth of Multiple Personality Disorder," 40,000 cases of MPD were reported
between 1985 and 1995. According to the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, 92
percent of the people who have it are female; 74 percent are between the ages
of 31 and 50; 31 percent have education beyond college; and 60 percent report
memory of abuse prior to age 4. In the past five years the number of reported
cases has declined, but malpractice suits continue to fill courtrooms and
women like Valerie Jenks are now telling their stories and seeking
compensation. Sums of $11 million and more are being paid to victims and,
most recently, mental-health practitioners are being prosecuted. In September
of this year, a Wisconsin jury awarded $862,000 to a victim of a
psychiatrist's incorrect recovered-memory and MPD diagnosis. Acocella argues
that the rise in recovered-memory treatment was aided by feminism and
child-protection groups as well as by the belief that, as she says,
'Childhood sexual abuse is very common, affecting about one-third of girls.'
Repressed memory syndrome (RMS) therapy is based on the idea that childhood
traumatic events often dictate emotional behavior in adulthood. As Elizabeth
Loftus, Ph. D., professor of psychology and adjunct professor of law at
University of Washington, puts it, 'Mental-health practitioners use
techniques to dig out allegedly buried trauma memories under the belief that
they must be ferreted out to heal the patient.' "

 THE SCIENTIST: ACADEMIC HEALTH CENTERS EMBRACE CAM

 Academic Health Centers Embrace Alternative Medicine
 Conference attendees consider implications of uniting complementary and
conventional therapies

 Eugene Russo
 The Scientist
 December 6, 1999

 For the full article go to:
http://www.the-scientist.library.upenn.edu/yr1999/dec/russo_p10_991206.html

 "Academic health centers are increasingly willing to embrace, rather than
rebuff, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies. Indeed, in
the last few years, "integrative" and "complementary" centers or programs
have sprung up at dozens of academic health centers, and the trend will
likely continue. But the frequency with which these newfound coalitions have
taken place by no means implies that the melding of "conventional" and
"alternative" medicines will be effortless. At a mid-November meeting in
Philadelphia sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine,
Penn's Center for Bioethics, and the National Institutes of Health Center for
Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 100 physicians, researchers, and
ethicists came together to discuss the implications of incorporating
complementary and alternative medicine into established academic health
centers."

 NPR SCIENCE FRIDAY: SCIENCE BOOKS OF THE CENTURY

 To listen to the program in RealAudio go to:
http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnpd01fm.cfm?PrgDate=12/17/1999&PrgID=5

 December 17, 1999

 HOUR TWO: Science Books

 GUESTS:
 PHILIP MORRISON
 Institute Professor Emeritus
 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 Cambridge, Massachusetts

 PHYLIS MORRISON
 Teacher
 Author, (with Philip Morrison) The Ring of Truth: An Inquiry Into...
 (Random House, 1987)
 Cambridge, Massachusetts

 Bettyann Holtzmann Kevles
 Science Writer
 Author, Naked to The Bone: Medical Imaging in the 20th Century
 (Perseus Books, 1996)
 Pasadena, California

 Silent Spring, The Double Helix, The Pale Blue Dot--just three of the titles
listed on American Scientist magazine's top 100 science books of the century.
In this hour, we'll take a look back at science writing in the 1900s. Plus, a
close-up look at the best books of 1999.

 _________________________

 SI Electronic Digest is the biweekly e-mail news update of the Committee for
the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP.)

 Visit http://www.csicop.org/.

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skeptics of the twentieth century, religious traditionalism and paranormal
belief, the second coming of jesus, and the pseudoscience of oxygen therapy.

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