Don’t tell Michael Shermer about your quirky new medical cure or folk legend – he probably won’t believe you. He’s the founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine, which he created in 1992 to help people think more critically about pseudoscience and superstitions – everything from Holocaust denial to a belief in Bigfoot. In his new book, Shermer says we’re hardwired to form strong beliefs, even when those beliefs don’t make much sense. From July 2011.

 

Michael Shermer, author of "The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies: How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths"

Dr. Jack Kevorkian – the public face of physician-assisted suicide – died in early June, 2011. He said he helped about 130 people end their lives with homemade machines he called the “Mercitron” and “Thanatron.” A bioethicist explains the pros and cons of one of the most controversial practices in both religion and medicine. From June 2011.

 

Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania

When Merrily Laytner learned that her ovarian cancer left her with only a few months to live, she chose the option of a physician-assisted suicide – or as she preferred to call it, death with dignity. She passed away Oct. 24, 2010, though in the end she chose not to take the prescription that would end her life. Her husband, Rabbi Anson Laytner, talks about the most difficult decision he and his wife ever had to make. From June 2011.

 

Pictured: Anson and Merrily Laytner in February 2010.

 

Rabbi Anson Laytner, hospice chaplain at Kline Galland Home