Summary
Title: Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, 2nd edition
Author: Terence Hines
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1573929794
Pro:
• Excellent single volume introduction to a wide range of pseudoscientific and paranormal beliefs
• Great deal of information for a very good value
• Clear, understandable explanations
Con:
• Photographic plates are inexplicably blurry
Description:
• Comprehensive examination of the most popular paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs
• Explains what people believe and why those beliefs are problematic
• Ties explanations together into a more general skeptical understanding of the world
Book Review
You probably can't rebut all of the various pseudoscientific claims out there - and, unless you spend much time around people prone to make such claims, perhaps you don't even need to. But if you would like to be able offer some basic rebuttals or even would just like to familiarize yourself with some of the pseudoscientific beliefs that people have, you can't do much better than the book Pseudoscience and the Paranormal by Terence Hines, now in its second edition.
Hines, a professor of psychology at Pace University, adjunct professor of neurology at New York Medical College, is a regular writer on paranormal and pseudoscientific topics. In this book, he has gathered together explanations and critiques of psychics, spiritualism, astrology, parapsychology, faith healing, alternative medicine, UFOs, Near Death Experiences, psychoanalysis, and much, much more.
These aren't definitive explorations of their topics and you can get book-length treatments on any one of them for a really in-depth study, but that would be a lot of money and a lot of reading. Here, you can get an excellent introduction to each, all brought together into a coherent whole for a reasonable price.
Of course, one might be tempted to ask just why Hines has gone to so much trouble - after all, if so much of what gets classified as paranormal or pseudoscientific really is obvious nonsense and not worth believing, why not simply dismiss them and move on to more important things? Well, that's exactly what many working scientists do, but it would be a mistake to assume that examining and refuting these claims doesn't have some real importance as well.
Naturally there is always the chance that one of these claims is true in some way, and if it is, people need to know that. More importantly perhaps is the fact that so many not only aren't true, but are in fact fraudulent at best and dangerous or deadly at worst. Psychic and spiritualist con artists defraud people out of untold amounts of money and cause a great deal of psychological harm along the way. Even worse may be the faith healers who help to kill people by dissuading them from seeking effective medical care, and the conspiracy mongers who encourage "witch scares" by targeting some vulnerable group of people as an object for fear and hatred.
Even otherwise innocuous beliefs can be damaging because of the bad habits of thinking they create:
Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, by Terence Hines
- "[N]ot all pseudosciences have the vast potential for damage of the witch mania and the Nazi racial theories. However, if one accepts faulty evidence, intellectual shoddiness and fraud, and twisted logic in the case of relatively benign pseudosciences, it becomes much easier to accept the same type of evidence when it is presented in support of much more damaging pseudoscience."
Thus, it is important that we develop good habits of thinking - habits which cause us to be skeptical, critical, and careful in how and why we believe the things we are told. It is irresponsible for us to do anything else because our beliefs carry very real consequences both for ourselves and for those around us. Whether the issue is small or large, the same principles apply - and we shouldn't compromise our principles in the small things lest we lose our principles entirely, bit by bit, and are no longer able to hold back the tide of the big things.
