Book Review: Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer

Pseudoscience and superstition have always been interesting subjects in my mind, and the way Michael Shermer examines it in his book is very engrossing. He doesn't just present the cases, but instead shows why people believe in these things, and I find this to be more interesting. Even if you don't believe in things like aliens, evolution, or God, it's fascinating to examine why other people might.

The book is divided into five parts, but first, however, he preps you for the book with his prologue, in which he shows two different cases of psychics and how they use cold reading to find information about people. I had known a little about this already, but he shows very explicitly how they use this and information they find informally through conversations with people to make it appear like they have psychic powers. Even more interesting was how, when Shermer sat with a group of people being worked over by the psychic, not many would believe him when he explained the techniques.

In the first part about skepticism, my favorite chapter is the third one, in which he shows twenty-five fallacies that lead people to believe weird things. It was interesting to look at each fallacy and see if it has ever affected my observations or beliefs, or if I had seen them being used in other arguments. One that I agree wholeheartedly with is 'Scientific Language Does Not Make Science.' Even if you dress something up pretty, doesn't mean it's true or right. Unfortunately, most people will get put off by the fancy or scientific language and will not dig deeper into the article or book. Another interesting fallacy is the 'Either-Or,' which seems to have significant impact on the creation-evolution debate since most people on each side think it has to be one or the other.

Part two is all about pseudoscience and superstition, and chapter five is intriguing when he talks about immortality and why people want to try to extend their lives. He shows how immortality can be more than just life after death, and can be achieved instead by transcending history. This is achieved by affecting history, which could happen even if what you do today doesn't seem to be relatively important. The future is hard to predict, and you could be well known tomorrow for what you do today.

The next chapter is this part is about aliens, and was my favorite in this part because Shermer talks about his own alien abduction experience. However, it turns out that, as he was participating in a cross-country bike race, he biked for too long and became so exhausted that he thought his support crew were aliens and were trying to abduct him into their van. The entire story was hilarious and shows how even skeptical people can be thrown into strange, altered states.

Chapter seven was on accusations and witch hunts, and the recovered memory section is especially worth reading in this chapter because it shows how people can be influence by their psychiatrists in bad ways. It makes you especially wary as you hear how people's lives were affected in long-lasting, negative ways.

The last chapter may not excite or interest many people since it is on Ayn Rand, but it is fascinating seeing how the movement degraded into the makings of a cult toward the end. As a side note, in the introduction to the paperback edition, Shermer has an additional story about the Objectivist reaction to this chapter.

The next part was about evolution and creationism, and probably my favorite larger section of the book. I enjoyed reading about the different ways creationism has tried to insinuate itself into schools and keep evolution out. I myself believe in evolution, but am open to an intelligent designer, but the way that some creationist have tried to argue and fight is just ridiculous. The first chapter in this book really highlights this as Shermer shows a debate between him and a well-challenged creationist, Duane T. Gish. Shermer studied up on him and made sure to style his argument accordingly, but Gish didn't even listen and had a pre-made argument that he had used in many other debates. Shermer even knew his argument before hand since he had seen his earlier debates and tried to counter Gish's points beforehand, especially stressing the part where he isn't an atheist, but it didn't matter in the end.

Chapter ten was also very interesting because it showed the questions creationists raise and the evolutionists answers to them. I really like the one where the creationists try to show evolution as a religion, but he disputes that making evolution a religion is 'to so broaden the definition of religion as to make it totally meaningless.' Another fascinating argument is the one where the creationists try to prove there were only two people living in 4300 B.C. using extrapolation, but this backfires completely when Shermer uses the same techniques to show how they have used it wrong.

The fourth part was on history and pseudohistory, especially highlighting on Holocaust denial. The first chapter in this part is my favorite, showing the ignorance people have on this topic through a Donahue appearance by Shermer and several well-known Holocaust deniers. I've never seen Donahue, but this chapter made me laugh, but also a bit sad over how people really try to sensationalize things and make fights happen on shows like this to get good ratings. They never got to the heart of the matter and instead it devolved into a circus.

The next chapter explains the arguments deniers have about the Holocaust. This was probably the most informative chapter in the book for me since I had heard of deniers and wondered just how they could deny something like this. I learned that instead of denying the whole thing, they deny the magnitude of it and the reasons behind it. He also shows the important people of the movement and why they believe in it. While this chapter was informative, I also found it to be a bit long and repetitive.

Chapter fourteen challenges the deniers and gives proof against their arguments. This was an interesting chapter, but again it gets a little long and repetitive. The evidence that he gives certainly seems to prove anything the deniers want to deny.

The last chapter in this book is a bit different and looks at race in general. I may have been a bit tired from the last two chapters, but this one didn't interest me as much as the rest of the book had. I do like how he shows how it's more difficult than it seems to classify race, and how the term and classification of race should be ended. It may be simple to point out an African or Asian, but when races begin blending and mixing, it becomes more challenging. Most of the classification are only skin deep and none is shown in genetics.

Part five is titled 'Hope Springs Eternal' and is the concluding part. The first chapter gets somewhat deep into philosophy at times, but I was able to understand most of it because my significant other is a philosophy major and I had heard some of these arguments already. The best of all possible worlds argument is always interesting, and I agree that this could definitely not be the best of all possible worlds. With the universe being so huge, there are many other chances out there for a better world. One of the more interesting subjects in this chapter is a man named Tipler's view on the future/afterlife. He believes that technology will continue to progress as it as and a supercomputer will be built that has the capabilities to reproduce every human that has ever lived as the universe is collapsing. This supercomputer will be like God and everyone will be basically immortal. The idea of a computer being God is new to me and an interesting one, but I don't think I'd ever want one as God.

Overall, I would recommend this book. While its engrossing quality seems to dip in the middle to end of the book, it will make you reexamine what you believe and why you believe it. This is an unbelievably useful skill, especially in a world that bombards you with so much information and misinformation every day.