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The East Coast has its Bermuda Triangle, where curious phenomena occur in a vortex of mystery.
We have the Bemused Triangle, where curious phenomena get scientifically sliced and diced, titrated and microtomed, to determine whether what emerges at the other end is anything but baloney.
The Bemused Triangle is anchored at Caltech. From there, it takes a scalene turn to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, then zigs over to its apex, an Altadena garage where three people and a dog named Darwin publish a magazine that stands against silly science, pseudo-science and humbug.
The magazine is named Skeptic. Every three months, 25,000 people buy it. Its editorial board includes Carl Sagan, entertainer Steve Allen and psychologist Carol Tavris. Every month, its Skeptics Society packs a Caltech auditorium with lecture topics like "Quantum Quackery" and "Afrocentrism, Racism and Other Myths."
Publishing Skeptic magazine here is akin to setting up an NRA booth at a gun control convention. Virtually every -ism and -ology and -osophy that could find rent space out here flourished. Southern California was "a circus without a tent," wrote historian Carey McWilliams--ground zero for crackpots, necromancers and quacks who, like the local geraniums, "grow...