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Book Review


Weird Things
Why People Believe Weird Things (1997) starstarstarstar

Reviewed 2002-08-20: Author Michael Shermer comes well prepared to the task of explaining why otherwise rational people believe irrational things. And even though the essays collected in this book are recycled from Skeptic magazine, which he publishes, they are polished to a logical luster and burnished with brilliant insights. What makes the book approachable, even readable, is that Shermer takes seriously the dictum of Spinoza: "I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them." That he takes his understanding and makes it ours is a credit to both his scholarship and his style.

The first 60 pages cover the difference between science and pseudoscience (or what some call "junk science"), including my favorite essay on the 25 fallacies that lead us to believe weird things. Then Shermer delves into what the book's subtitle calls, "Pseudoscience, Superstition and Other Confusions of Our Time." So what are these "weird things" people believe in? In Part 2 they include psychic healer Edgar Cayce, alien visitations and abductions, old and new witch crazes (in which he draws parallels between the Salem witch trials and the "recovered memory" fallacy), and the Ayn Rand cult. In Part 3 Shermer slices and dices the arguments for "scientific" creationism, or (old wine in new bottles) "intelligent design theory." Creationism, says Shermer, is an attack on all science.

I found Part 4 most interesting because it was new to me. In it Shermer dissects the arguments of Holocaust deniers and tells us, via a concept called consilience of inductions (convergence of evidence), just how we know the Holocaust happened. There was indeed a Nazi policy of ausrotten (extermination) of the Jews, but it takes evidence from many sources -- written documents, eyewitnesses, photographs, physical evidence, demographics -- to demonstrate it. Indeed, that's the same method historians use to demonstrate how we know anything about what happened in the past. Shermer finishes this part by delving into the Nazi concept of racial superiority, pointing out the biological irrelevance of race.

Not forgetting the title and theme of the book, Shermer finishes off with a Part 5 that touches on the chief reasons why people take leave of logic and leap into the loopy: one of those reasons is that hope springs eternal. But if the reader learns nothing else from Why People Believe Weird Things, it should be the difference between theory and guesswork, and what science is and is not.
Hypothesis: A testable statement accounting for a set of observations. An explanatory principle that by its nature cannot be tested is outside the realm of science.
Theory: A well supported and well tested hypothesis or set of hypotheses. A reliable theory consistently predicts new phenomena that are subsequently observed.
Fact: A conclusion confirmed to such an extent that it would be reasonable to offer provisional agreement.
Note that true science doesn't promise certainty. Its very nature comprises testability, falsifiability and probability. I admit that in my case the author is largely preaching to the choir. That is why I bought two copies of the book: one to keep and one to share.

· Why People Believe Weird Things : Pseudoscience, Superstition and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer, 1997. 306pp, index. New York: Henry Holt & Co. ISBN 0-7167-3387-0.

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Ronald Bruce Meyer is a freelance reviewer.