Why People Believe Weird Things

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A challenge to readers - Rated
While this book might better have been titled 'What weird people believe', Shermer addresses many of the North American emotional aberrations with wit and clarity. The geographic limitation omits haunted castles in Britain, elephant tusk powder for potency in China, or papal infallibility, but none of these interest his immediate audience. As an American skeptic, Shermer is here seeking to expose irrational beliefs, presumably in the hope better education will result in fewer aberrant ideas. By showing readers what some people believe, spending pages exposing the fallacies in those beliefs, he's challenging us all to take up the cause in his behalf. That's an admirable quest, deserving attention and applause.

Discussing the transmission of weird ideas, Shermer traces expansion of one of the European 'witch crazes' during the 17th Century. This topic is one worthy of further pursuit. Many modern delusions follow patterns often discounted as 'mob hysteria'. In a modern episode, he cites the Satanic Cults of this century in showing such events recur. Shermer's book shows the importance of plumbing these occurrences in the hope of applying some preventive medicine. The medicine is rational thinking, which this book shows isn't limited to the educate elite. If Shermer can attract more people to take the time to understand and care about what is happening in their society he's done what he set out to do. What you, as a reader, must do is extend his appeal - tell the media loud and clear that you don't want them to enhance belief in 'weird things' by spending so much time on them.

Some reviewers have complained this book lacks depth. The 'why' of these errant ideas is incomplete or lacking, but the book isn't intended as a deep psychological study. There are references in the bibliography for that topic. This book is an appeal for awareness - readers will learn the strange ideas his subjects have and who else believes them. Shermer can only be admired for his courage in exposing these mythologies. Shermer's call for reason deserves a wide and attentive audience. Join us and support his book. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

A good read on a wet afternoon - Rated
An interesting read from a punchy controversialist. There seem to be some very odd reviews of this book on Amazon, but there's an obvious reason, in the targets Shermer takes on. First, this book is an enjoyable and very easy read, and I finished it in an afternoon.
The book sets out to question some of the odd urban legends and moral panics of our time. Shermer tackles New Age "medicine", creationism as a pseudo-science, witch crazes and mass delusions, holocaust denial as pseudo history and a number of other controversial topics by applying Humean scepticism albeit in a chatty, and very American style.
At this point I was going to point out Hume's role in awakening Kant from his dogmatic slumbers, and what scepticism has done for the developnment of Protestant theological thinking and philosophy in general, but then, I'm not sure what use that would be to you as a potential purchaser. Either you already know this, or don't care, or just enjoy dogmatic slumbers. Nevertheless the point of Hume, and of this book is to challenge the way in which we take things for granted, what we can actually know and how we can evaluate evidence in a reasonable way.
From a Critical Thinking point of view, Shermer does let himself down at times, principally by engaging in "guilt by association", tracing links between different people and groups of dubiuos merit in a way that could be seen to teeter on ad hominem attacks, but, to his credit, he is generally very clear when he is doing so.
This would be a useful book for Critical Thinking courses although mainly as a supplementary read - that's always assuming we're not talking about within a creationist educational establishment (where no doubt they'll be glueing the pages together as in one of the anecdotes in the book - there's lots more of this with chapter and verse).

This book should be in the National Curriculum! - Rated
This is the best book I have read in the search for rational thinking. The author clearly describes the reasons why "smart" people are prone to believe things that are "weird". Unless you regularly practice your critical thinking skills anyone can adopt weird beliefs without acknowledging how strange they may actually be.

In my experience people have a strong desire to believe what they want to believe, to an extent, even when evidence might be pointing to the opposite of a belief. I myself used to be unaware of the level to which I believed things without any good supporting evidence. This book is great for opening your eyes to the false notions that are projected around contemporary society and to help you spot them.

People who hold beliefs very strongly have a strong influence over people as convictions held with confidence are contagious. In any theory you here throughout your daily life, analyse it using the methods described in this book, and remember it doesn't matter who says it or how they say it, it's what they're saying that's important.

I strongly reccomend this book and believe that it will help YOU as it helped me, overcome the immense amount of horse manure that society throws at you which is claimed to be the TRUTH.

After reading this book I find myself analysing newspapers and television reports aswell as what influential people in my life say CRITICALLY and AUTOMATICALLY. If you want to reduce the confusion in your life caused by irrational beliefs this book is a great place to start. However if you like to hold on to beliefs like a comfy old sweater then you may find it a hard read.

I'm still asking Why People Belive Weird Things? - Rated
This was a difficult read which did not satisfy my expectations based on the title. I read numerous tales and personal views before, on page 275, Shermer actually answer the question "Why People Believe Weirds Things" only to find that it's because "they want to" and "it gives them a comfortable feeling". The book is interesting and anecdotal but largely devoid of fact based arguments.

Smart I Like - SMART Ass I Don't Like - Rated
This book is peppered with phrases like: "I Think", or, "Could it be that" followed by Michael Shermer's version of what really happened[I.E. which is anything other than what the person said he/she experienced... whatever] It is full of anecdotes[which by the way does not prove anything]. AIso to back his claims-up he keeps referring to Hume's Maxim[which if you think about it still doesn't prove anything]. I wish that the author had applied the whole of chapter 3 to his book - "How thinking goes wrong", but then we would have had far less pages I'm not saying I disagree in principle with Michael Shermer, far from it, some kind of model should be used to ascertain truth from fiction. Unfortunately this isn't it.