JUL 1, 2002 - The Skeptic's Dictionary is a kind of mental gymnasium, a place to go to strengthen your cerebral muscles in rhetorical exercise. You know, the kind that can be foisted upon you by self-appointed skeptics and debunkers, who take it upon themselves to adjudicate the beliefs, theories and opinions of others. (If you think that kind of thing went out with the Inquisition - well, get real.) There isn't anyone who can't benefit from a refresher in critical thinking, so The Skeptic's Dictionary deserves some exploration. On the other hand, it's instructive to see how sparsely some skeptics investigate their targets. For example, see the abysmally ignorant critique of astrology at The Skeptic's Dictionary, which confuses signs and constellations to the point of making patently false statements: e.g., "In short, had you been born at the same time on the same day of the year 2,000 years ago, you would have been born under a different sign." Utterly wrong: allowing for leaps years and calendar changes, you'd have been born under the same sign, but under a different constellation. What the heck, straw man set-ups and misunderstandings aside, there's plenty here to get you thinking.
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