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

The Heaven's Gate Cult Suicide... Roswell UFOs... Bible Code Predictions... Princess Di Conspiracy Theories... With all the weird things that continue to happen, it's easy to see how Why People Believe Weird Things hit a big nerve with book buyers and the media and went on to become a national bestseller. Appearances on The Charlie Rose Show, Politically Incorrect, Leeza, Geraldo, Oprah, Unsolved Mysteries, and many other television and radio shows have helped author Michael Shermer develop a devoted following of skeptics eager to read and hear his opinions on the latest "pseudoscience, superstitions, and confusions".

With his no-holds-barred assault on popular myths and prejudices, Shermer debunks psychobabble and extraordinary, nonsensicial claims Some of the subjects in Why People Believe Weird Things include
-- Alien Abductions and UFOs — Discover how and why this mass hysteria of sightings and abductions is occurring at this time in history
-- Creationism and the Anti-Science Movement — Read a firsthand account of Shermer's debate with the world's leading creationist and his point by point rebuttal of anti-Darwinian arguments
-- Race and IQ — See why social policy should not be based on the implication that racial differences in IQ are primarily genetic and unchangeable
-- Repressed and False Memories — Find out the truth about "Recovered Memory Syndrome" and why this movement is a tragic chapter in the history of psychology
-- Holocaust Denial — Go inside the neo-Nazi revisionist movement as Shermer shows precisely how we know the Holocaust happened
-- ESP and Psychics — See how Shermer debunks psychics mentalism trick of "cold reading" by psychics usingpsychological principles and educated guesses

A compelling and often disturbing portrait of humankind's immense capacity for self-delusion. Why People Believe Weird Things sheds new light on why our society is more easily misled than ever.

In league with Carl Sagan, who touted the scientific method as baloney detector, and with foreword author Stephen Jay Gould (on "The Positive Power of Skepticism"), the Skeptics Society director draws on Skeptic magazine essays to deconstruct the pseudoscience of creationism, recovered memories, and UFOs as well as the pseudohistory spewed by Holocaust deniers. Cogita tute, think for yourself, despite a mind evolved to discern causal patterns lurking everywhere. Cloth edition reviewed July 1997. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews@booknews.com)