way of approaching life. He said that skeptics' meetups and conferences, as well as the positive feedback he received on his work, were his main motivations. Criticism Richard Milton After Carroll published a piece online labelling Richard Milton's writings on alternative science "Internet Bunk," Milton responded by accusing Carroll of being a "pseudo-skeptic" and said that Carroll had fabricated quotations and misrepresented his arguments. Carroll replied to these accusations in an addendum to his piece. Rupert Sheldrake Carroll wrote two Skeptic's Dictionary entries that criticize Rupert Sheldrake's ideas. The first criticized Sheldrake's N'kisi Project, a set of experiments meant to test the possibility of a telepathic link between N'kisi (a grey parrot) and its owner, Aimee Morgana. Carroll charged that when calculating the statistical significance of the parrot's responses, Sheldrake had omitted 60% of the data. Carroll also criticized Jane Goodall for her involvement in the Project. The second entry challenged Sheldrake's morphic resonance idea, in which Sheldrake proposed that, in addition to genetic influences, a "morphogenetic field" for each species evolves similarly to how the species' genes might evolve, that these fields organize the nervous system's activity and can act as a collective memory for the whole species, and that these fields get passed down into the species. Sheldrake replied to Carroll's criticism by defending his own arguments and accusing Carroll of committing several logical fallacies, including using false dilemmas and misrepresenting Sheldrake's position. He also criticized The Skeptic's Dictionary, writing that it would not survive had it been subject to independent peer reviews. Publications The Skeptic's Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2003, . "Unnatural Acts: Critical Thinking, Skepticism, and Science Exposed!", Los Angeles: James Randi Educational Foundation, 2011, . Becoming a Critical Thinker – A Guide for the New Millennium, 2nd ed., self-published, 2013. . The Common-sense Philosophy of Religion of Bishop Edward Stillingfleet 1635–1699, . (1974 doctoral dissertation, under the direction of Richard Popkin, University of California at San Diego). References External links The Skeptic's Dictionary 1945 births 2016 deaths 20th-century American philosophers American skeptics Critics of alternative medicine Critics of parapsychology Writers from Joliet, Illinois Writers from San Diego University of California, San Diego alumni Former Roman Catholics 21st-century American philosophers