My Review Page

This page is a place for me to present my interpretations/rebuttals/reviews of stuff.  By "stuff" I generally mean books/magazine articles, but I also intend to mention TV shows and products being marketed.  As a scientist-in-training, I am especially upset by the current widespread use of pseudo-scientific claptrap here in the United States.  By replying to these items I disagree with, I feel that I'm making my opinions known, and hopefully offering a place where people can seek information.

Why am I doing this?  Well, I have several reasons, some of which are listed on my general why page (see my index to get to it).  Many of the things I'm replying to here are already reviewed by many other people.  Why would I waste time doing it again?  I don't believe that I should let others do all the fighting for me.  So if I see or read something that I don't agree with, I think it's my duty to respond myself, not count on somebody else to do it.  If others have already responded, that's fine, more people making a fuss is more likely to cause the problem to get fixed.

However, before you read anything I've written you should know about my beliefs (at least as they pertain to the reviews you're going to be reading).  I am an avowed skeptic.  This does not mean that I reject all claims of things I don't believe out of hand (I consider such a person a cynic, not a skeptic).  Rather, this means that I prefer to have evidence to support any claims of extraordinary phenomena.  This includes such things as astrology, psychic powers, talking to the dead, UFO's and "alternative" medicine.  Again, I do not reject these concepts simply because I don't like them (I'd like to believe in UFO's and life after death) but I do not see any conclusive support for such things.  I am also a graduate student in zoology, meaning that I take a pretty clear side in the ongoing debates between creationism and evolution.  As a zoologist, I side with Darwin and feel that while this theory isn't perfect, it's actually quite good.

From the above, you can be certain that my reviews of the sorts of topics listed above I'm probably going to be rather against them.  I like to believe that I can be objective, but I it's safe to say that complete objectivity isn't something that anyone can achieve.  I'll try to restrain myself to comments dealing with the substance of the different claims, instead of simply bashing the concept/individual being reviewed, but I cannot guarantee it.  In short, I may get annoyed at the things I'm reviewing, so I may lose my temper somewhat and resort to harsh language.  If this offends you, I'm sorry, but I won't tone myself down just because I might offend someone.  With that off my chest, look below for a list of current review topics.  Click one of the links to see the individual reviews.  I'm going to list items that I have read/am preparing to read but haven't reviewed yet, to let you know the kinds of things that will be available here in the future.  As always, if you have any comments/questions, feel free to email me.  Thanks...

If you've ever been to this page before, you know that this hasn't changed a bit in months and months.  Unfortunately, things at work/school have kept me too busy to do any updating on this lately.  In the time since I started these pages, I've read another dozen or so books that I should be adding here. One of the disadvantages of riding the bus to work each day is that I get time to do a lot of reading, but I don't get much time to write these reviews.  In the interest of getting these things done, I'm going to start getting these written more quickly.  However, I may put things up in bits and pieces, and finish them slowly over time.  Hopefully I'll be updating this fairly often in the future, feel free to come back often and see how it's changed...

To some extent, the following topics will overlap

Anti-evolutionism - These topics may consist of creationist arguments of one sort or another, or they may simply consist of arguments against Darwinian evolution, with no claim to deal with a creator.

Biology/Evolution - This will include sources that are explanations of different aspects of biology and evolution, and they will also contain defenses of Darwinian evolution against the types of attacks coming for sources in the first set of topics.

Biblical topics

Paranormal phenomena - Sources that expose/debunk such claims.

Paranormal phenomena - Sources that affirm/support such claims.

Anthologies of articles, dealing with multiple topics:

General Science/Science Education - General explanations of why science is important.

Critical Thinking

updated 5 Feb, 2000