Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time

Started to reread this. But the author asserts rather than proves, especially annoying in a book that purports to teach that one needs reliable proof to believe something. On page 27 one finds the following sentence. "Shouldn't we know by now that the laws of science prove that ghosts cannot exist?" I followed up by reading every other reference to ghosts in the index. On 28-29 the author compares ghosts to mental abstractions such as the law of gravity. I didn't find this especially convincing since it only addressed the false proposition that the law of gravity didn't exist before Newton named it. Page 33 continues this false dichotomy with an assertion that ghosts have never been confirmed to any extent. But to make this statement show more one should explain what would constitute confirmation. For example, if I am trying to prove that Vitamin D is essential to mammalian life, I need to assert something like "the rate of illness in the experimental group will be significantly higher than that in the control group." Or, if I am trying to establish that an endangered species has made a comeback, I could specify what evidence: den sites, evidence of feeding, excrement, actual sightings or photographs from trail cameras, dead specimens in the excrement or stomach contents of prey animals, I would expect to find. On page 55 the author notes that mundane explanations for odd noises should be ruled out before concluding that the noises are evidence of ghosts. Well, I don't know of any reputable paranormal investigator who doesn't do just that. Is there a highway or train track nearby that would explain noises or lights? is there an ill-fitting window to explain cold spots? is there a likelihood of a person faking evidence? But what, pray tell, is the scientific law that rules out the existence of unknown types of energy or substances? If we grant that radio waves existed before we developed radios what makes it _impossible_ for ghosts to exist in the absence of an ectoplasmeter? I suppose there may be such a law, but the author expects us to take it on faith. Ironic. show less

I wonder if Michael Shermer’s book should have been titled “Why Do People Believe Weird Things” because it is more an exploration than an exposition. Well-researched and documented, the extensive bibliography alone is worth a look. There is no one answer for all in these pages, because the range of weird beliefs encompasses the gamut of paranormal, alien abduction, religion, etc., each of which must be addressed in a different way. It is important to understand two things about Shermer’s approach in this book: he defines a “weird thing” as “(1) a claim unaccepted by most people in that particular field of study, (2) a claim that is either logically impossible or highly unlikely, and/or (3) a claim for which the evidence is show more largely anecdotal and uncorroborated”, and he pointedly writes in several places that he is not trying to belittle the person or beliefs, but trying to understand. Shermer is an accomplished skeptic, but more important than that, he is a scientist and science historian and brings that research background to the matter at hand.

I am always amazed at Shermer’s prodigious reading capacity and diagnostic skills. Shermer distills tremendous amounts of information into usable bites. In one chapter, he describes preparing for a debate with Duane Gish (of creationist movement fame) by reading all of Gish’s published material as well as re-reading the entire Bible. I don’t know that I could stomach more than one of Gish’s books. It is interesting to note Dawkins and Gould both would have tried to dissuade Shermer from agreeing to the debate, not because they were afraid he’d lose, but they refuse to put non-science on the same stage as science. By debating, they feel that at least one someone in the audience would take away from the event the idea that creationists and IDers actually had a right to sit at the table of science. Shermer debated many of the "weird" in the late 80s and early 90s; I'm not sure if he still does.

The book opens with a discussion of the importance of science and skepticism and provides a list of 25 reasons {why we may be wrong about things}. Subsequent sections and chapters address specific “weird” beliefs. [list]. The Holocaust denial discussion is a good example of how to refute that which most of us feel shouldn’t need refutation. History is a particularly challenging body of knowledge, for rarely, if ever, is it recorded without prejudice. Still, rational reasoning can be applied. He explains the principle arguments posed by the deniers, and spends an entire chapter illustrating convergence of data to support the commonly understood accounting of the events of the Holocaust.

Another good section addresses the most common creationist/IDer counter-arguments to evolution and the fallacies… While neither exhaustive nor particularly detailed, it nonetheless does give cocktail party talking points.

Shermer’s original conclusion as to why people believe weird things was in itself unsatisfying to me. He gives four broad reasons, and the one that makes the most sense, yet is the least defensible is “because they want to”. In the second edition of the book (the one I read), Shermer adds a chapter on why smart people believe weird things. I don’t think he really answers that question. He does explain that smart people are better at defending the beliefs they arrived at in a non-standard fashion. Further, smart people view their own beliefs as being based in logic and reason, yet they attribute the same beliefs in others to emotion. Telling. It is amusing to see and hear pedigreed scientists decry the pseudosciences and yet not see their own errors.

Shermer continues his study in two follow on books: How We Belive and The Science of Good and Evil. show less

Why People Believe Weird Things probably should have been titled Weird Stuff People Believe, and Why They Are Wrong. On the other hand, the subtitle of the book, Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time, pretty much sums up what the book describes. Through the book Michael Shermer systematically debunks pseudoscience and superstition while making what seems to be a mostly unsuccessful attempt to explain why people are so persistently attached to beliefs such as holocaust denial and creationism that are simply demonstrably wrong as a matter of fact.

In his forward to the book, Stephen Jay Gould explains the need for skepticism, and the dangers of accepting pseudoscience as fact, drawing a connection between Michael show more Shermer's efforts and Carl Sagan's similar body of work. With that preliminary out of the way, Shermer begins the hard work of trying to unravel what it is about superstitious nonsense that draws fervent believers. Shermer opens by discussing his own credulous acceptance of various "weird things" that he indulged in to bolster his efforts at competitive cycling, detailing his various efforts to gain a competitive advantage. At one point, he and a group of cyclists sent several samples of a single person's blood for "cryptoxic blood testing", and in response received as many different diagnoses as they had sent samples. Finally, Shermer was working with a nutritionist who told him massive doses of megavitamins would help him win, and placed him on a regimen. The pills nauseated Shermer, so he began simply spitting them out when his nutritionist wasn't looking. At that point, Shermer realized that perhaps taking all claims at face value wasn't a particularly good idea.

Shermer uses the next section to sketch out what skepticism is, and how it relates to science. He then turns to defining pseudoscience and pseudohistory, explaining how each one respectively differs from real science and real history. A particularly notable example concerns attempts by an actual historian to point out the fallacies engaged in by a proponent of an Afrocentric pseudohistory that culminates in her dean telling her that "everyone has a different equally valid view of history", and that it didn't matter that what the Afrocentrist was claiming was physically impossible. Pseudoscience and pseudohistory start with their conclusions and seek out supporting evidence, real science and history start with the evidence and draw conclusions from that, no matter how uncomfortable or painful those conclusions may be.

Following on his description of what science is, and how it differs from pseudoscience, Shermer provides twenty-five fallacies describing how people fool themselves. Three are problems with scientific thinking, and which a careful scientist (and an honest skeptic) has to be on guard against. Eleven are common fallacies that are used by pseudoscientists and pseudohistorians to bolster their unreliable claims. Seven are common logical fallacies, and the remaining three are psychological problems with human cognition. In each case, Shermer explains what the fallacy is, how to identify it when it is used, how it affects human perception, and describes how to avoid falling victim to it, both in one's own thinking and when evaluating claims made by others. This chapter, more than any other, does the job of explaining "why people believe weird things". Or more accurately, how people fool themselves and others into believing weird things.

At this point the book shifts to specific examples of the weird things that people believe, and the reasons their beliefs are simply unfounded. One by one Shermer takes on E.S.P., near death experiences, cryonics, alien abduction stories (including a near surgical dismantling of the "alien autopsy" video), witch crazes both in the medieval period and the modern day, including an analysis of how accusation webs perpetuate and an examination of the "recovered memory" phenomenon, and the bizarre personality cult that has sprung up around Ayn Rand. Shermer then devotes a substantial portion of the book to debunking creationism and holocaust denial, in the process pointing out the parallels between the two systems of pseudo-belief. Along the way he dissects twenty-five common creationist arguments, most of which are still used by shills for creationism despite these arguments having been discredited years ago. As debunking holocaust deniers is Shermer's specialty, he spends an entire chapter of the book comprehensively demolishing their claims and demonstrating exactly how their claims of being unfairly persecuted as anti-Semites simply don't hold up to scrutiny. As detailed in the book, they are anti-Semites, and their claims that the holocaust was fabricated are simply unsupportable.

Although Why People Believe Weird Things is only somewhat successful at its stated objective of explaining why people continue to adhere to superstition and pseudoscience despite all the evidence to the contrary, it is a brilliant deconstruction of the various confused and illogical positions espoused by those people. Each of the pseudo-beliefs addressed in the book are thoroughly and completely debunked with ruthless efficiency. If one is not so much concerned with why people believe silly things, but is instead interested in why they are wrong to do so, this is a brilliant book. Even if one's primary interest is "why" this is still a worthwhile book, and well worth reading.

This review has also been posted to my blog Dreaming About Other Worlds. show less

I think, perhaps, that this book was not quite what I thought it was going to be. What I wanted - and this is no fault of the author's - was a book debunking specific "weird things". While I got a decent amount of that in the (fascinating) chapter on Holocaust deniers, by and large it was more about the psychological and emotional reasons people believe things that don't make any sense. Which is fine, as far as that goes, but it seemed to keep returning to the same few theories each time. I guess you could say he was making his case with additional evidence, but I got a sort of "okay, I got it, move on" feeling about the whole thing. In short, it's an interesting read but probably something you'd more enjoy reading a chapter here and show more there rather than straight through, show less

Brings up important ideas about epistemology, does a good job of describing methodologies that can tackle pseudoscience in a persuasive fashion. It does not give me a lot of optimism about the ordinary person's ability to follow such a program. We rely on other experts to evaluate pseudoscience. When our experts and leaders are motivate to reason to support pseudoscience, we are stuck again with lots of people being willing to believe weird things.

Technically, the book shows its history of being a bunch of long magazine articles, it has below average cohesion, some chapters were much stronger than others, some had odd overlap.

One flaw I found in this book and the entire genre is that they tackle ideas that are way out there- like a cat show more pushing small objects off the edge of a table. It is very satisfying, but what is amazing is that people believe bunk, not that it can be debunked to a more objective observer, sometimes easily. So people at the end of the book can feel good about themselves because they don't believe in aliens or fictional alternative histories, yet have unexamined beliefs about more mundane things like their seeming centrist political opinions and we cling to these ideas with the ferocity of a ufologists belief in UFOs. show less

I remember when I first realized that people believed weird things—religions, superstitions, questionable medicinal remedies, astrology, etc.—I was astonished to say the least. What causes this magical thinking? Why is it so pervasive? And perhaps most troubling of all, what weird things did I believe but didn't realize it? Michael Shermer's aptly titled Why People Believe Weird Things is a skeptical, and yet kind, exploration of this subject.

Shermer's writing is scientific while still being succinct. The book I'm reviewing is slightly out of date though I can see there's an updated edition. I recommend either because a healthy skepticism is timeless. One chapter in particular is especially useful: "How Thing Goes Wrong: Twenty-five show more Fallacies That Lead Us to Believe Weird Things." It's a critical thinking 101 class summed up in less than twenty pages. show less

Michael Shermer is probably best known as Scientific American's resident sceptic - a man who has what seems the wickedly enjoyable job of going around finding fault with other people's beliefs - a sort of modern day court jester without (presumably - I've never seen him) the funny costume and bells. In this classic, originally published in 1997 but reviewed in a new UK edition, he gives a powerful argument for taking the sceptical viewpoint.

Although along the same lines as Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World, this book works alongside Sagan's masterpiece, rather than competing with it. It focuses more on why we believe strange things, and also very usefully expands out from the paranormal and pseudoscience to include pseudohistory, a show more topic I hadn't even realized existed.

Shermer is something of a convert to scepticism, so has a convert's fervour, but none of the unpleasant aggressiveness of the likes of Randi and Dawkins. Instead he gently shows us how strange beliefs come into being, and why they have such a strong hold. Inevitably strong on the paranormal and UFOs, he is particularly good when looking at the likes of modern accusations of satanic rituals, and the remarkable cult of Ayn Rand. The section on creationism is a little weaker, partly because it isn't quite up-to-date enough, and also because there has been so much material going into this in more depth (see, for example, Scientists Confront...)

In some ways I was most impressed by the next section on pseudohistory, in part, I suspect, because of not having really thought about this as a concept before. The chapters on holocaust denial were fascinating, and perhaps even more surprising was the self-deception of the 'all ideas originated in Africa' movement (again new to me).

The only reason that this book doesn't get 5 stars is that I found the last section before getting to the summaries, on a scientific idea that its originator says gives a mechanism for a form of eternal life, irritating. It just isn't the same sort of problem as the other topics covered in the book. Here someone is speculating wildly based on extrapolating scientific theories to the extreme - but that's a very different game to having an unshakable belief in concepts with no support in evidence, and I think Shermer does himself and the reader a disservice by confusing the two. However, the book doesn't entirely end on this mistake, as there are a couple of short chapters pulling together the whys and wherefores of belief in weird things, so this small glitch doesn't destroy the flow, and certainly shouldn't detract from the fact that overall this is a book, alongside Sagan's, that ought to be on every thinking person's shelf. show less