University Press of America
Pages: 180
•
Trim: 6 x 9
978-0-7618-6292-5 • Paperback • December 2013 • $41.99 • (£32.00)
978-0-7618-6293-2 • eBook • December 2013 • $38.00 • (£29.00)
Subjects: Psychology / Social Psychology,
Body, Mind & Spirit / Channeling & Mediumship,
Body, Mind & Spirit / Divination / Fortune Telling,
Body, Mind & Spirit / Supernatural (incl. Ghosts),
Body, Mind & Spirit / UFOs & Extraterrestrials,
Body, Mind & Spirit / Unexplained Phenomena
Bryan Farha is professor of behavioral studies in education at Oklahoma City University. He received a doctor of education degree in counseling psychology from the University of Tulsa. A scientific and technical consultant to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), his work in combating deception has been recognized by CNN, TIME.com, The National Geographic Channel, and A&E. Dr. Farha is founder of the creative website, PARANORMALinquest.net.
Foreword, by Michael Shermer
Preface
Acknowledgements
CRITICAL THOUGHT ABOUT STRANGE THINGS
1. Why Smart People Believe Weird Things
2. How to Argue
PSYCHIC PHENOMENA & FORTUNE-TELLING
3. Cold Reading: How to Convince Strangers That You Know All About Them
4. Long Island Chicanery
SCIENCE/HEALTH CLAIMS
5. Why Bogus Therapies Often Seem to Work
6. Power Balance Products: A Skeptical Look
7. Consensus on Climate Change
8. Why Traditional Chinese Medicine Diagnosis is Worthless
OUT OF THIS WORLD
9. The Case For and Against Astrology
10. Looking Up to Logic
11. The Lunar Effect and Confirmation Bias
RELIGION & FAITH HEALING
12. Prayer and Healing: The Verdict Is In and the Results Are Null
13. Confessions of a Skeptic
PSYCHOTHERAPY
14. Pseudoscience in Contemporary Clinical Psychology: What it is and what we can do about it
NUMERICAL ANOMALIES
15. Number Manipulation: The Not “So Spooky” Tim McVeigh
AFTERLIFE AND RELATED PHENOMENA
16. Deconstructing the Dead
CRYPTOZOOLOGY
17. Bigfoot at 50: Evaluating a Half-Century of Bigfoot Evidence
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Praise for the First Edition
Reading the chapters in this fine anthology will make you smarter and better able to cope. First, they will inform you and enrich your life. Then they will give you tools to allow you to sift sense from nonsense about all manner of claims and assertions that swirl about without much intelligent evaluation or response. This is your antidote to those.
— Kendrick Frazier, editor, Skeptical Inquirer: The Magazine for Science and Reason
A ‘how to’ book for apprehending nature in its true grandeur.
— Ann Druyan, co-writer, Co-Writer of the Cosmos TV series and wife of the late Carl Sagan
Dr. Farha has never had any misconceptions about how the universe really works. His book will encourage and help those for whom questions have arisen, and will give them points upon which to base arguments against the ever-growing dumbing-down of the public. We must awaken to this danger and oppose it.
— James Randi