BOOK REPORT: Why People Believe Weird Things

Some people are strange, and their beliefs are even weirder. This is proven through Michael Shermer’s book, Why People Believe Weird Things, in which he narrates and explicates his personal escapades into the world of ‘Pseudosciences”. As a skeptic, Shermer is able to explain both sides of a particular pseudoscience, as he questions its validity, partnered by participation, concluding with his opinion and factual evidence as to why that particular ‘science’ failed to do as it promised. Sherman has undergone a quite diverse array of pseudoscience practices in an effort to explain them to the common reader, events such as aliens and abductions, the mass denial of world-bending events,188/238 and cults of various sorts. 

In one of the most interesting chapters in the beginning of the book, Sherman experiences his own encounter with alien life, followed by the passing of lions, and sentient mailboxes. During the chapter, Sherman analyzes how people come to the conclusion that they have witnessed aliens by examining his own experience. Shermer details the events of his life days prior to the event, which included him partaking in a cycling event with his friends, and during the trip, he has practiced a pseudoscience which deemed a type of lemon-water diet healthy for active lifestyles. While under a week’s worth of effects, Sherman collapses and begins to hallucinate heavily, :cracks in the road make meaningful designs, and mailboxes looked like people. I saw giraffes and lions. I waved to mailboxes.” (89). After he had recovered some days later he realized that instead of actually bearing witness to these strange occurrences, he had in reality contracted “White Line Fever”, which is an incredibly hallucinogenic fever.  

Sherman argues that people with similar stories of aliens and arbitrary experiences may have suffered some form of illness that modified their perception. In addition, Shermer understands that the past memories of the individuals may influence their perceived interaction. When Shermer met his ‘invaders’, he noticed that they were identical to his friends, but he was highly suspicious of them, saying that the aliens had done their research. Sherman admits to having recently watched a film by the name of The Invaders, in which the aliens research and take the form of a human being, only being discovered as such through their lack of an opposable pinkie-finger. Sherman relates the film and this phenomena to himself, as was reported as acusing his friends of being the race of aliens, convinced that my entire support crew were aliens from another planet and that they were going to kill me… So clever were these aliens that they even looked, dressed, and spoke like my crew.” (89) With this, Shermer was able to, accidentally, become involved with aliens and experience a form of abduction. However, when sober, Shermer was able to apply science and deduction to ascertain the cause of the ‘abduction’, figuring out that it was a simple hallucinogenic accident.

The middle of the book contains overarching themes based around groups of people with strange goals that ostracize them from average society. These people are defined as cults. Shermer introduces cults with a segment on witchcraft, and the effect the idea of witches played in developing a type of feedback loop. This feedback loop is a perpetual paradox that keeps outdated ideologies, such as drowning the accused witch, alive. Not all cults are particularly devilish and murderous as crazed villagers though. Some of the cults Shermer examines are modern people who have organized a cult-like following. During the eight chapter, Shermer describes a modern author as a cult-like leader. His reasoning is through her work, and what it is meant to symbolize as well as the immediate following generated from her writing. The symbolism in her most divine work, Atlas Shrugged, is shown through the collapse of society. She embellished the idea of anti-government and anti-establishment ideologies in the story, which then, inspires the young minds of the next generation. The young audience aspires to be like the main hero, one who brought about the end of a world to then begin a new one. 

Sherman understands why people eventually follow others in a devout manner. He reflects over an interview Rand had participated and analyzes what she says about her philosophy and summarizes it, “One should think for oneself and never allow any authority to dictate the truth, especially for the authority of government, religion, and other such groups.” (116). With this statement, Sherman then begs to question why cults attempt to follow this form of philosophy, but contradict themselves and fall into a group that follows a leader and tells them what to do. This is reflected through Rand’s own cult following, as they do just that, hypocritically of their own philosophy. 

In one of the final chapters, Michael Shermer begins to discuss a controversial subject. The Holocaust and the people who deny its existence. This is tied, in a vague sense, to lectures we have observed in class. Particularly the lectures on Mass Delusions. This is because the last half of the book centers on the delusions of people in large groups, particularly a group that claims the Holocaust is false and never even occurred, despite decades of history and research, and documentation. 

This chapter details the arguments based around the groups of people who deny one of the most damaging events in the history of the human race: The Holocaust. Shermer is quick to notice the claims of the deniers is separate from what most would generally think of the group. Shermer examines the claims of the deniers closely, and sees that they do not deny the event, but the history around it. They claim that it was not a tactical and calculated extermination of a race, but due to the allied invaders destroying property and supplies which lead to the deaths of the Jewish bystanders, “The main causes of death were disease and starvation, caused primarily by Allied destruction of German supply lines and resources at the end o the war.” (189). This is just one example of how this group of people have understood history. Another example is how this same group also incorrectly understands the statistical aspects of the Holocaust. The group is quite assertive when determining the average number of Jews killed in the Holocaust, debating that it is around 5 or 7 million. However, the statistics actually read a much larger number, but that number is more general, as it over-arches with the Jews that have died in camps, during executions, etc. 

Finally, the group’s origins lie within other books developed during the German Revisionism Era, in which Germany attempted to rebuild itself after the second World War. During this revision, Germany had many authors publish books about the Holocaust and the second war, and select books gave ‘statistical records’ in relation to what modern deniers claim are hard facts; the same Jewish death numbers, as well as what the camps were for. Shermer notes the books in his very own, to give the readers reference.

In conclusion, Michael Shermer is a skeptic who was also very experimental. Due to his curiosity, he had taken part in various kinds of pseudosciences. While participating, Shermer had performed research in order to understand how the pseudoscience worked, however, the ‘sciences’ had failed and Shermer was able to describe the issue with the ‘science’. He also details the experiences with particular groups and why they still hold these beliefs. Overall, Shermer is quite a daring author who goes above and beyond what is required in order to entice an audience. He also is able to research and develop strong analytical pieces that explain and elaborate upon the history and effects of a specific pseudoscience.

Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, And Other Delusions

I went with Flim-Flam by James Randi for the class book project. It was an interesting read and parts of it were actually quite funny. Before i get into the book itself, I think it would be worthwhile to take a moment to talk about the author. James Randi was a magician and illusionist for several years. As with many stage magicians, such as Harry Houdini and Penn and Teller, Randi felt a certain disdain with many scientist and intellectuals, particularly those who let themselves be fooled by people performing essentially some of the oldest tricks in the book. Some of the ways he found an outlet for such frustrations was involvement in studying claims of the paranormal and proving hucksters and charlatans for what they are. James Randi through his educational foundation in fact has 1 million dollars on the line for anyone who can successfully prove in a scientific experiment they actually have paranormal abilities. Of worthy note, no one has collected yet.

In the book, Randi makes his best effort to explain in plain language why particular schemes and things are hoaxes. He also makes many attempts not to condemn people who were merely playing pranks that got away from them. For instance in the first full chapter he talks longly on a more historical hoax in which two young girls faked many photos of fairies. He takes careful steps to never demonize or vilify the two young girls, who were most likely having a laugh at their neighbor's expense. That is at least, before said photos got more attention and became a national hit in Britain in the 1920's. There are others he makes attempts to paint in softer light, however there are many he is not as kind too.

Throughout the book, Randi focuses on paranormal hot-topics from several disciplines. He also keeps the aim on the amount of misdirection, misinformation, and lack of critical thinking. Whether it is scientists using poor experimental methods, people cleverly presenting information to support their narrative, or psychics and mediums selling out right lies. In one chapter he gets into a few propagators of ancient alien theories and shows how most of their "facts" are carefully selected to sell several of their points. When the whole story is looked at their facts and theories quickly fall apart.

In several chapters the subject matter turns to psychic and the various phenomena attributed to some of them. Randi makes sure to point out how most of the research, and successful experiments involving them, has enough holes to fit the chinese army through. Whether it be basing its validity completely on the word of those being tested, poorly designed experiments, or selective reporting of the experiments. One might even argue trusting someone who claims to hold commune with the spirit world might be rather misguided, after reading this book in particular.

James Randi also makes sure to never alienate the reader. Whether it is the plain language he uses or the generally humorous tone, which can stem from the ludicrousness of the situations involved or his exasperated-ness with them, it tends to involve the reader in a good way. He also takes a few steps to explain that, it is not to say there is no such thing as paranormal activity or UFOs, but that the people who are trying to study these phenomena should make better efforts to weed out the large amounts of non-sense and fakers. This would make it easier to find true evidence and study truly un-known events, it would also lend more credibility to the people studying and researching such things.

While making small passes at things like astrology or something vaguely similar called numerology, Randi's biggest issue is taken with people who are doing harm. While pointing out the problems with scientology and transcendental meditation, he strives to draw parallels to the Jonestown Massacre, which bears a lot of resemblance to The Heaven's Gate cult of more recent years. He wants to make the point known that while some of it seems silly, left alone these things become issues and people get hurt or even die. It is our responsibility to out these fakers and pretenders. Whether its psychic surgeons in the Phillipines or other sorts of faith healers, the people they serve may not seek out real treatment.

The biggest thing to take away from this book is just this, while some of these "paranormal" subjects may seem silly or trivial, it is easy to lose sight of the fact it can cause larger problems. Whether these problems are people throwing their money at table-knockers claiming they talk to the dead, or peaceful cults that end up committing mass suicide, it is our job to do our best to keep these people from causing harm to others. I think thats whats really the important fact of any short look at the sellers of pseudoscience and the paranormal, they should be stopped and discredited before they can cause real harm to innocent people.