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Title: Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer ISBN: 0-8050-7089-3 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.54 (96 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Enjoyable and informative
Comment: Shermer's analysis of some of the stranger social phenomenon of our time is crisp. Many have said that he doesn't talk about why people believe wierd things (the title of the book, after all, slightly overblown as it is) but he does offer some general explanations of strange behavior. (The "feedback" system he describes, for example.) The really good thing about his book is how it shows that anyone, even the most rational of people, can fall into "cultish" or peculiar behavior. The chapter on Ayn Rand and how her philosophy of Objectivism, which is supposed to be all about rationality and individuality, turned into a cult centered on her is a fantastic read, and goes beyond the usual focusing on UFOs, Roswell, JFK assassination type of material. But, all of that's there too, in its bizarre glory. There's also an excellent chapter(s) on the phenomenon of Holocaust denial that, while utterly wrong on its face, isn't always just about anti-Semitism, as Shermer points out. He does a very good recap of how historical evidence is collected, and how that collection builds a preponderance of information, something that deniers usually don't get. Shermer's an historian, so historical aspects are a strength to his book, as you would expect.
Shermer sings the praises of rationality and skepticism, things I'm all in favor of, but he doesn't get as negative about irrational behavior as some other skeptics have. He claims that he himself, in the past, participated in a couple of bizarre fads and faddish behaviors, so he has an understanding for their appeal. A sense of mystery, alienation, deviancy, a bit of paranoia, societal reinforcement, all are ways that bizarre ideas proliferate, and we're all susceptable to them from time to time.
Rating: 5
Summary: Thank you, Michael Shermer
Comment: I found Shermer's book to be an excellent yet basic treatise about the nonsense that passes as truth in some circles . It's disturbing to find that there are people out there (even some who are otherwise well-educated) who believe that the Holocaust never happened or who toss aside science from 1850 forward in favor of creationism. And yet Shermer shows us that they not only exist but that they are trying to infect others with their "pseudoscience, superstition, and other confusions." I think one reason some of them are actually successful is that there are not enough people like Michael Shermer out there explaining the difference between science and pseudoscience. Finally, I appreciate the fact that Shermer points out that not all skeptics and believers in real science are atheists as the fundamentalist Christian right would have the American public believe.
Rating: 4
Summary: Critical thinking or alien propaganda?
Comment: A 1990 Gallup poll revealed that 52% of adult Americans believe in astrology, 42% believe in extrasensory perception, 22% believe aliens have visted the Earth, 41% believe that dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth simultaneously, 42% believe in communication with the dead, 35% believe in ghosts, and 67% have had a psychic experience (p. 26). Still others believe that Paul McCartney died and was replaced by a look-alike, that giant alligators inhabit the sewers of New York, that George Washington had wooden teeth, and that the Air Force kept the bodies of aliens in a secret warehouse following a New Mexico flying saucer crash. Michael Shermer wonders why these people believe such things.
Shermer became a born-again skeptic on August 6, 1983, while bicycling up Loveland Pass, Colorado, following an intense training program of magavitamins, colonics, iridology, Rolfing, and other alternative, New Age therapies (p. 15). For those unfamiliar with his work, Shermer is the editor in chief of Skeptic magazine, a frequent contributor to Scientific American, and author of HOW WE BELIEVE and THE SCIENCE OF GOOD AND EVIL. In his first book, WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS, he takes on subjects including Holocaust denial, psychics, creationism, alien abductions, Satanism, Afrocentrism, near-death experiences, recovered memories, Ayn Rand, and astrology. The result will either be interesting and entertaining for readers who share Shermer's love for critical thinking, or antagonizing for readers who instead identify with creationists, fundamentalists, New Age gurus or paranormal preachers.
Most of the material included here was originally published in Skeptic magazine, and the 2002 revised edition of Shermer's book includes a new Introduction as well as an additional chapter on why smart people believe weird things. Shermer not only writes from personal experience, inasmuch as he previously believed in fundamentalist Christianity, alien encounters, Ayn Rand's philosophy, and megavitamin therapy, but he also examines his subject matter using the tools of scientific reasoning. "Most believers in miracles, monsters, and mysteries are not hoaxers, flimflam artists, or lunatics," he observes; "most are normal people whose normal thinking has gone wrong in some way" (p. 45). People fall into "fuzzy" thinking for reasons of consolation, immediate gratification, simplicity, moral meaning, and wishful thinking. In Chapter Three, "How Thinking Goes Wrong," he carefully examines the kinds of logical fallacies that allow people to believe weird (scientifically unsubstantiated) "nonsense," and concludes that when it comes to recognizing other people's fallacious reasoning, Spinoza said it best: "I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them" (p 61).
G. Merritt
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Title: How We Believe : Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God (second edition) by Michael Shermer ISBN: 0805074791 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Science of Good and Evil : Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule by Michael Shermer ISBN: 0805075208 Publisher: Times Books Pub. Date: 02 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Demon-Haunted World by Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan ISBN: 0345409469 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 25 February, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions by James Randi, Isaac Asimov ISBN: 0879751983 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: October, 1988 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: The Skeptic's Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions by Robert Todd Carroll, Robert T. Carroll ISBN: 0471272426 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 15 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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