Description

Revised and Expanded Edition.

In this age of supposed scientific enlightenment, many people still believe in mind reading, past-life regression theory, New Age hokum, and alien abduction. A no-holds-barred assault on popular superstitions and prejudices, with more than 80,000 copies in print, Why People Believe Weird Things debunks these nonsensical claims and explores the very human reasons people find otherworldly phenomena, conspiracy theories, and cults so appealing. In an entirely new chapter, "Why Smart People Believe in Weird Things," Michael Shermer takes on science luminaries like physicist Frank Tippler and others, who hide their spiritual beliefs behind the trappings of science.

Shermer, science historian and true crusader, also reveals the more dangerous side of such illogical thinking, including Holocaust denial, the recovered-memory movement, the satanic ritual abuse scare, and other modern crazes. Why People Believe Strange Things is an eye-opening resource for the most gullible among us and those who want to protect them.

About the Author

Michael Shermer, Ph. D., is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com), the director of the Skeptics Society, the host of the Skeptics Lecture Series at the California Institute of Technology, and a contributing editor and monthly columnist for Scientific American. He is the author of How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science, Denying History and The Borderlands of Science.

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

"This sparkling book romps over the range of science and anti-science."
--Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel

"Splendid."
--Vanity Fair