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Why People Believe Weird Things

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to show how smart people deceive themselves. Shermer explores the psychology of scholars and business men who give up their careers in their pursuit to broadcast their paranormal beliefs. In his last chapter, added to the revised version, Shermer explains why he believes that "intelligent people" can
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who can discover "unknowable" facts about strangers. The longest sections of the book take on the more-substantive issues of creationism and Holocaust denial." It was given 4 out of 5 stars by popularscience.co.uk, which said "In this classic, originally published in 1997 but reviewed in a new UK
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can learn from it, but more importantly, it's a book to give those who maybe aren't as skeptical as you, those who need some clear and reasonable arguments to gently push them in a more critical direction. Read this book yourself: buy it for someone whose mind you care about."
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reasons. Like the creationists, he asserted, many Holocaust deniers believe that the evidence sides with them. He describes meeting and arguing with the deniers and lays out their arguments then shows evidence to support his own statements.
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arguments in 25 separate claims, and attempts to debunk each one with his own evidence. He closes retelling how a constitutional ban on teaching creationism in public schools was
17: 352:, "Shermer's directly written book is the perfect handbook to thrust on anyone you know who has been lured into conforming paranoias that circulate amid the 604: 325:, "Shermer's episodic book covers a wide range of subjects, in a wide range of manners. He takes ritual jabs at such old debunker punching bags as 589: 564: 569: 280: 125: 594: 579: 574: 454: 584: 559: 184: 383: 147: 37: 231: 529: 330: 497: 409: 326: 599: 79: 276: 31:
Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time
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Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time
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Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time
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edition, he gives a powerful argument for taking the sceptical viewpoint". According to the
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and argues that many follow her philosophy unquestioningly, which he believes contradicts
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of humans). You'll also find cogent debunkings of strange phenomena such as
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thinking and how one comes to believe in things without evidence. He uses
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Part three begins with Shermer describing several debates he had with
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In the first section, Shermer discusses the ideas that he has towards
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wrote, "This is a book that deserves to be widely read. Skeptics and
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be more susceptible to believing in weird things than others.
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Index

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

Michael Shermer
Belief
Henry Holt and Company
ISBN
978-1567313598
OCLC
49874665
Dewey Decimal
LC Class
Teach Your Child Math and Mathemagics
Michael Shermer
Stephen Jay Gould
racism
Deism
New Age
mysticism
Fundamentalist Christian
Baptist
paranormal
Edgar Cayce
Ayn Rand
Objectivism
moral absolutism
free thinking
Duane Gish
creationist
narrowly upheld
Supreme Court of the United States

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