American Mastodon on the Cover of Junior Skeptic 61

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American Mastodon on the Cover of Junior Skeptic 61

Daniel’s latest Junior Skeptic cover illustration for his story “Mammoth Mysteries Part Two,” bound inside Skeptic Vol. 21, No. 4). The image is a digital painting depicting an American Mastodon. The story continues Part One‘s intellectual history of the discovery of mammoths and mastodons and the startling truths these fossils revealed about extinction, evolution, and time. Daniel also discusses 19th century media hoaxes that claimed mammoths were still alive—and critically considers far-fetched cryptozoological claims that this might even be true today.

Read the table of contents for this story at Skeptic.com.

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Junior Skeptic 56 Cover

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Junior Skeptic 56 Cover

This digital painting by Daniel Loxton is the cover illustration for the current issue of Junior Skeptic (Daniel’s story “Bat-People On the Moon!,” bound inside Skeptic Vol. 20, No. 3). Telling the tale of the Great Moon Hoax of 1835, the story does indeed feature bat-people, beaver-people, blue unicorns, and other bizarre creatures that a famous media hoax once claimed to thrive upon the surface of the Moon.

Read the table of contents for this story at Skeptic.com, or subscribe to get this issue of Skeptic magazine in print or digital formats.

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Daniel Loxton Elected as a CSI Fellow

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The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI—formerly the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) has named Daniel Loxton as a new Fellow of the organization:

Ten distinguished scientists, scholars, educators, and investigators from five countries have been elected fellows of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), copublisher of the Skeptical Inquirer. CSI (formerly CSICOP) is one of the world’s leading organizations for the promotion of scientific thinking and the critical examination of extraordinary claims from a scientific point of view.

Fellows of CSI are selected for their “distinguished contributions to science and skepticism.” They are nominated and elected by CSI’s twelve-member Executive Council.

Other newly named Fellows include John Cook (of Skepticalscience.com), Julia Galef (president and cofounder of the Center for Applied Rationality), and historian of science Naomi Oreskes (co-author of Merchants of Doubt with Erik M. Conway).

Past Fellows include Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan, and Martin Gardner. Current Fellows include science educator and television host Bill Nye, astronomer Neil de Grasse Tyson, Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann, anthropologist Eugenie C. Scott, psychologist Ray Hyman, and Cosmos creator/writer Ann Druyan.