Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0471272426, Paperback)
A wealth of evidence for doubters and disbelievers
"Whether it's the latest shark cartilage scam, or some new 'repressed memory' idiocy that besets you, I suggest you carry a copy of this dictionary at all times, or at least have it within reach as first aid for psychic attacks. We need all the help we can get."
-James Randi, President, James Randi Educational Foundation, randi.org
"From alternative medicine, aliens, and psychics to the farthest shores of science and beyond, Robert Carroll presents a fascinating look at some of humanity's most strange and wonderful ideas. Refreshing and witty, both believers and unbelievers will find this compendium complete and captivating. Buy this book and feed your head!"
-Clifford Pickover, author of The Stars of Heaven and Dreaming the Future
"A refreshing compendium of clear thinking, a welcome and potent antidote to the reams of books on the supernatural and pseudoscientific."
-John Allen Paulos, author of Innumeracy and A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper
"This book covers an amazing range of topics and can protect many people from being scammed."
-Stephen Barrett, M.D., quackwatch.org
Featuring close to 400 definitions, arguments, and essays on topics ranging from acupuncture to zombies, The Skeptic's Dictionary is a lively, commonsense trove of detailed information on all things supernatural, occult, paranormal, and pseudoscientific. It covers such categories as alternative medicine; cryptozoology; extraterrestrials and UFOs; frauds and hoaxes; junk science; logic and perception; New Age energy; and the psychic. For the open-minded seeker, the soft or hardened skeptic, and the believing doubter, this book offers a remarkable range of information that puts to the test the best arguments of true believers.
Wikipedia in English (34)
This resource gives you loads of background facts to back up the claims and assertions it makes (unlike most of the kinds of woo it examines) and as such rises above most popular books which cover far less subject matter far more sensationally.
You will learn about the way thinking can go wrong with common logical fallacies and ways that people fool themselves, all covered in a very general sense, but then lots of details of the many fads, cults, cons, quacks, conspiracy theories and charismatic nut jobs which have more or less succeeded in the world are piled up for your digestion. You may start by sitting like me thinking how clever you are for not falling for them, until you come across things which you either have been taken in by, or, if you are honest, may well have flirted with if you encountered them in the wild. The whole read then becomes even more rewarding as you do now realise that you are arming yourself against woo for the future (bearing in mind you now know you are a poor human idiot like everyone else) and not just laughing at the poor human idiots who have fallen for it before.
I particularly loved the occasional bit of desiccated humour which is lightly sprinkled throughout.
A unique reference for anyone who prefers to live in the real world and plans on not being duped by woo. (