Skeptical Odysseys: Personal Accounts by the World’s Leading Paranormal Inquirers
by Paul Kurtz
Prometheus Books, $27, ISBN 1573928844
It’s almost impossible to summarise this brick of a book briefly. Each newly-written contribution reviews a specific field and/or gives an autobiographical account of the author’s journey into scepticism, and they are a galaxy indeed: James Alcock, Steve Allen, Susan Blackmore, Antony Flew, Ken Frazier, Martin Gardner, Philip Klass, Joe Nickell, Gary Posner, Kurtz himself, and 27 others, beginning with 25 years of CSICOP, passing on to sections on specifics – parapsychology, UFOs, astronomy and the space age, astrology, creationism, alternative medicine – going from there to scepticism around the world, personal reflections, and religion, and ending with Robert Baker on From Skepticism to Humanism. The book celebrates CSICOP’s 25th birthday and does so in fine style.
