What is The Skeptic's Dictionary?

The Skeptic's Dictionary is a website and a book. Each features definitions, arguments, and essays on topics ranging from acupuncture to zombies, and provides a lively, commonsense trove of detailed information on things supernatural, paranormal, and pseudoscientific.

Dozens of topics in logic, perception, science, and philosophy are also covered to help explain the appeal and popularity of occult beliefs and to provide a guide for critical thinking.  » More about the SD & Reader comments on the SD

The Web site was created in 1994 - thanks to the Davis Community Network - and is still evolving. The book was published in 2003 by John Wiley & Sons, thanks in large part to literary agent Ted Weinstein and former Wiley editor Jeff Golick.

Acknowledgements

From Abracadabra to Zombies - 605 entries | View All

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See the most recent entries, updates, and reader comments. » What's New?

Sample the Skeptic's Dictionary

druid

The druids were the "wise men" of the Celts. Although dozens of books have been written about them, almost nothing is known about the druids. Their beliefs were esoteric and passed on orally. Their practices, for the most part, were not public. With no written tradition and no major temples where art might provide a key to some of the druids' activities, we must rely upon the words and speculations of foreign observers....>>more