Everyday life is full of small behaviors we treat as moral choices, scientific truths, or acts of civic virtue—often without ...

Recently, we raised the question of how political journalists should deal with candidates for president who mouth the quackery of climate change denial. But the problem of how to write about ...

We live in an era where information is more accessible than ever before. Paradoxically, this hasn’t made us wiser—it’s made us more vulnerable to misinformation. Pseudoscience, once confined to the ...

That U.S. House candidate Paul Nehlen is an anti-Semite is not surprising. That the Wisconsin Republican, trounced by House Speaker Paul Ryan in 2016, was outed by puffing the retired psychologist ...

Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promoted another fringe theory about autism – linking it to circumcision or to pain medication given for the procedure.

During my first term of full-time teaching in 1977, I used astrology as a case study in my course in the philosophy of science. The goal was to guide the students through the differences between ...

Failed predictions are a key feature of pseudoscience, and much of my writing has documented instances of credentialed academies making bold, confident declarations, only to act like they never happen ...

Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...

Have you ever taken a personality test seriously? Or maybe you’ve wondered if you could freeze yourself in liquid nitrogen to help revitalize your body postmortem? Human tendencies to believe in such ...

Zac Efron doesn’t say much except “Dude” and “Wow” in his Netflix docu-series Down to Earth. It’s a mostly innocuous show. If you’re the type of person who’s into the actor’s buff, scruffy bro-dude ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that “any ...