The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake is a 2018 book written by Steven Novella and co-authored by the rest of The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast hosts, ie. Bob Novella, Cara Santa Maria, Jay Novella and Evan Bernstein. The book is an all-encompassing guide to skeptical thinking. Richard Wiseman calls it "the perfect primer for anyone who wants to separate fact from fiction." ^[2]

The book became a USA Today bestseller. ^{[2] [3]}

In a 2017 interview, SGU team member Evan Bernstein announced in an interview for Skeptical Inquirer with Susan Gerbic that the team had collaborated on a book, and it was expected to be available in the fall of 2018. ^[4] The book, titled The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake, became available for pre-order in early 2018, and was released by Grand Central Publishing on October 2, 2018. ^{[1] [2]}

The Amazon.com pre-order advertisement included the following information: ^[2]

The book contains five sections.

Biggest section, covering almost half of the book. It is meant to be a selection of core concepts of scientific skepticism.

The topics discussed are:

• Neuropsychological Humility and Mechanisms of Deception
  • scientific skepticism,
  • memory fallibility and false memory syndrome,
  • fallibility of perception,
  • pareidolia,
  • hyperactive agency detection,
  • hypnagogia,
  • ideomotor effect.
• Metacognition
  • Dunning-Kruger effect,
  • motivated reasoning,
  • arguments and logical fallacies,
  • cognitive biases and heuristics,
  • confirmation bias,
  • appeal to antiquity,
  • appeal to nature,
  • fundamental attribution error,
  • anomaly hunting,
  • data mining,
  • coincidence.
• Science and pseudoscience
  • methodological naturalism and its critics,
  • postmodernism,
  • Occam's Razor,
  • pseudoscience of the Demarcation Problem,
  • denialism,
  • p-hacking and other research foibles,
  • conspiracy theories,
  • witch hunts,
  • placebo effects,
  • anecdote,
• Iconic Cautionary Tales from History
  • the " Clever Hans" effect,
  • the Hawthorne effect,
  • cold reading,
  • free energy,
  • quantum woo,
  • homunculus theory,
  • pyramid scheme.

This section contains "personal adventures" the author and coauthors had in using skeptical thinking. This section includes the following chapters:

• Motivated Reasoning About Genetically Modified Organisms (Steve Novella)
• Dennis Lee and Free Energy ( Perry DeAngelis, former host of SGU podcast)
• Holly-woo (Cara Santa Maria)
• The Singularity (Bob Novella)
• The Warrens and Ghost Hunting (Evan Bernstein)
• Loose Thinking About Loose Change (Jay Novella)

This section discusses common problems with journalism and shows examples of science journalism gone wrong. This section includes the following chapters:

• Fake News
• False Balance
• Science Journalism
• Enter the Matrix
• Microbiomania
• Reporting Epigenetics

Examples of harm, sometimes fatal, coming from pseudoscience. The section includes the following chapters:

• Death by Naturopathy
• Exorcism: Medieval Beliefs Yield Medieval Results
• Death by Denial
• Suffer the Children

Summary of skepticism and suggestions regarding applying scientific skepticism in reader's life. The section contains the chapter Being Skeptical, epilogue, acknowledgments and references.

The book received very positive reviews. Goodreads.com website mean rating was 4.88/5 (out of 422 ratings) as of January 2019. ^[5]

Publishers Weekly reviewed the book, stating: ^[6]

Neil deGrasse Tyson's review says: ^[7]

Bill Nye wrote: ^[8]

The book was also reviewed by Rob Palmer on CSICOP webpage. He wrote: ^[9]

Kirkus Reviews contained the following summary: ^[10]

Michael Mann, a professor in Penn State University, mentioned in the blurb the book's similarity to The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan: ^[11]