1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910825140203321

Titolo

Pseudoscience and deception : the smoke and mirrors of paranormal claims / / edited by Bryan Farha ; foreword by Michael Shermer

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Lanham, Maryland : , : University Press of America, Inc., , 2014

©2014

ISBN

0-7618-6293-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (195 p.)

Disciplina

130

Soggetti

Parapsychology

Parapsychology - Investigation

Deception

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di contenuto

Contents; Foreword; Preface; Acknowledgments; I: Critical Thought about Strange Things; 1 Why Smart People Believe Weird Things; 2 How to Argue; II: Psychic Phenomena & Fortune-Telling; 3 Cold Reading: How to Convince Strangers That You Know All About Them; 4 Long Island Chicanery; III: Science/Health Claims; 5 Why Bogus Therapies Often Seem to Work; 6 Power Balance Products; 7 Consensus on Climate Change; 8 Why Traditional Chinese Medicine Diagnosis Is Worthless; IV: Out of This World; 9 The Case For and Against Astrology; 10 Looking Up to Logic; 11 The Lunar Effect and Confirmation Bias

V: Religion & Faith Healing12 Prayer and Healing; 13 Confessions of a Skeptic; VI: Psychotherapy; 14 Pseudoscience in Contemporary Clinical Psychology; VII: Numerical Anomalies; 15 Number manipulation; VIII: Afterlife and Related Phenomena; 16 Deconstructing the Dead; IX: Cryptozoology; 17 Bigfoot at 50; About the Contributors

Sommario/riassunto

Pseudoscience and Deception is a compilation of some of the most eye-opening skeptical articles pertaining to extraordinary claims and pseudoscience. The articles explore paranormal, extraordinary, or fringe-science claims and reveal logical explanations or outline the deceptive tactics involved in convincing the vulnerable.