Reddit reviews Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time
We found 47 Reddit comments about Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Holt Paperbacks
Francis Collins = guilty.
EDIT
For those downvoting. Google creationist. Now.
Fine. I'll do it for you:
"Creationism is the religious belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being,"
And collins believes:
"God is the creator of the material universe and (by consequence) all life within,"
So yes. Collins is a creationist. This is pretty cut and dried, and not really open to debate. Its true hes not young earth, but he is creationist. Definately.
furthermore, I invite you to read his book yourself as I've done. I think it qualifies at intellectually dishonest in many ways. I can go into details, but I feel it is loaded with straw-men and false equivalency fallacies.
In other word I was frequently reminded of this book. Particularly the chapter 'Why Do Smart People Believe Weird Things?' You can extract a lot of the information in that chapter here. Collins is clearly brilliant, and his defenses felt very much like those of C.S. Lewis, with whom I have a similar criticism.
Hes aware of science, logic and is very intelligent, and oddly that almost makes his take on theology more poisonous, as its harder to detect when he expresses clear logical fallacies, but nontheless they are there.
tl;dr
"Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons."
Edit 2:
For those unclear I am mainly replying to GPU_WHore's second flavor of creationist rather than the OP's imae which pokes fun at young earth creationists. I can see how there is a reasonable misunderstanding there, but make no mistake Collins is absolutely a 'creationist', and categorically I'd also say an apologist. It is also his deep understanding of science which I think qualified him so well as the 'type two' creationist. I appreciate the rebutting viewpoints, but I am having a hard time seeing why you would not categorize him as a creationist.
Also... he does have books for sale... Just sayin'
Ahora que anda el puerta a puerta te recomiendo esto.
I was trapped in a cult called Mormonism. This magazine taught me much about critical thinking and I escaped :
https://www.csicop.org/si
And this :
Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805070893/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_XHXIAbHYPT1YR
And this:
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345409469/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_7JXIAbH1KZTJH
Chapters 13 and 14 of Why People Believe Weird Things discuss why people believe the Holocaust was a hoax and then why we know it is a historical fact.
She has this Bermuda Triangle thing going on. Everyone loves to post the stories about how someone mysteriously disappears in the Bermuda Triangle. I think I read it in this book, but basically some guy started collecting all of these stories about people sailing in the Bermuda Triangle region and getting lost mysteriously. Newspapers would print up all these stories about the mysterious circumstances and how no one knows where these people are. The guy in the book basically called around to look for the people that went missing and found out that almost all of them were eventually found. He called the newspaper to ask them why they didn't print a correction to the original story and they basically said "corrections don't sell newspapers".
Philip Kitcher's Abusing Science, Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things and Massimo Pigliucci's Nonsense on Stilts are all great reads on this topic. I also highly recommend Naomi Oreskes' and Erik Conway's Merchants of Doubt as an examination of how scientific language can be abused to stymie public policy progress on certain issues.
This is certainly part of the philosophy of science. The problem of how to separate genuine science from pseudoscience is called the demarcation problem, and there's not really any generally accepted criteria that apply to all cases. Some people reject the idea that we ought to draw that kind of principled distinction in the first place. Nobel Prize-winning chemist Irving Langmuir has a great talk advocating for a notion of "pathological science" rather than pseduoscience that's worth reading through.
Take a look at Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things There's a chapter in there titled 'Why Smart People Believe Weird Things'
We evolved incredible pattern-recognition heuristics, and there are evolutionary "bugs" in the way those heuristics work - that's where things like confirmation bias come from. We typically find a pattern and we then look for things that agree with that pattern. It's not in our nature to attempt to disprove that pattern. Science, as a process, is designed to enforce the sort of behaviour needed to recognise and weed-out false patterns.
Additionally, people define their identities based on their beliefs. When beliefs are challenged, such people feel threatened. It ends up being that people value how their beliefs make them feel more than they value their beliefs being true. Some have used the phrase "feels, not reals" to describe this tendency.
You might enjoy Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things. It goes into more detail.
You may find the ideas of confirmation bias and motivated reasoning helpful. I also grew up very Christian (I once went to a camp where the whole purpose was to go minister to people on the streets for a week. Yikes.) and am now atheist AF. It was a struggle for me as well. You may also be interested in the TedTalk and book by Michael Shermer - Why People Believe Weird Things.
The most helpful way for me to think about it is that most religious people didn't come to religion because of reasons. They came to it either by default (raised in it) or by emotional need (tragedy strikes, they need purpose / stability / sympathy / to know things will be okay / etc.) My dad's wife told me that she believed in God because she couldn't stand the thought of not seeing her father again in Heaven. I told her that wasn't really a good foundation for a religion, and she didn't much like that. The real answer is that people believe because they want to believe.
Also, let's not pretend people are rational in other aspects of their life. Once I got into the workforce, I saw that people believed all kinds of silly things to protect themselves (their ego, really). They'll claim that such-and-such method is really the path forward, when it's very clearly not, just because it was their idea. They'll blame other people for their own mistakes. They'll hold down their subordinates because they don't want their employee to outshine them. And on and on it goes. I guess people do act largely "rationally" in these cases, it's just that the goal isn't to be right, it's to feel like they're right. People also really, really, really, really, really hate to admit that they were wrong, especially about something as foundational as religion - but also about anything else. Like, they really hate it.
Finally, there's no punishment for being wrong about this. People believe much more insane things, in the sense that they can easily be proven false - Obama was a secret Muslim bent on enacting Sharia law in the US, the Earth is flat, the Queen of England is a lizard-person, etc. - and nothing bad happens. Sometimes they may air their insanity in public and get laughed at but they go back to the previous paragraph and distort things to protect their vision of the world and themselves. It's not like you'll be sent to prison or fined for believing silly things. So they get a lot out of it (self-affirmation) and nothing bad happens to them (no fines for stupidity) and they don't have to admit they were wrong. They're going to keep on keepin' on.
To me, this is more a psychology problem than a philosophical one. It's more about how people think than what they think and the sad truth is, people aren't great at rigorous thinking. Our ability to argue rewards those who win arguments, not necessarily the people who are right. I can't tell you how many times I've been discussing something contentious with someone and they bring out a 'gotcha' kind of statement - something that people don't hear often so it's unexpected.
For instance, some Jehovah's Witnesses asked me the other day if I trust science. I saw where they were going with this (trying to equate my belief that science works with their faith in religion.) I told them that science is no more a collection of facts than a stack of bricks and wood is a house and that science is a process - it's really a verb, not a noun. Every fact we have is subject to updating given appropriate evidence, and that is where the true strength of science lies. That we don't try to be eternally right, but just the most correct we can be right now given the available evidence. This had obviously worked well for them before, but they abandoned this line of 'reasoning' before they even got to the question, because I'd already explained how they are misunderstanding my position in order to make that argument.
That's my brief explanation for why I, a layman, think this kind of thing happens. I'm no expert, but this is something I've gone through myself, and it's a rough journey, especially with your family and most friends shitting on your new beliefs (I don't know your experience, but that happened to me for a long time.) If you want to chat more about it, feel free to message me or continue the thread and I'll help however I can.
Why People Believe Weird Things - Michael Shermer
Letter to a Christian Nation - Sam Harris
This book is decent It also has a chapter on Ayn Rand objectivism as a cult.
Also see another book:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Believing-Brain-Conspiracies-How-Construct/dp/1250008808/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=128C3144EKDPV7SQPYRY
Among the Truthers is also not bad.
On the question of people and their blind spots, I recommend going to the library and borrowing a copy of Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things. (I'd be remiss if I didn't specifically call out chapter 18, "Why Smart People Believe Weird Things" in the revised edition.)
There are numerous psychological reasons for her acting the way she did. Blaming herself for not being able to improve her boyfriend, seeking control by being able to push you away, clinging to the illusion of stability of having a boyfriend...
I don't know if any of those reasons are the same for why people defend God, but if some are I also think there are many other reasons that have to do with some of the things Michael Shermer brings up in his book "Why People Believe Weird Things".
>(in this case uncovering the truths behind pizzagate)
The likelihood that there are any "truths" behind pizzagate is really, really, really low. Your evidence is waaaaay more easily explained as a classic case of a well-known psychological phenomena called apophenia.
If you're interested in learning about what's happening surrounding pizzagate (or any conspiracy theory), I'd suggest Michael Shermer's "Why People Believe Weird Things". It's not a rigidly academic book by any means, but it's a good one for us regular folk, and it's a fairly quick, entertaining read.
If you don't have time for that, you could just watch the Ted Talk, too.
This really cool dude also gave some good tips to avoid this kind of stuff in the future.
Frightening. I have book suggestion for you:
http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893
If you're looking for a good book on skepticism and critical thinking I suggest "Why People Believe Weird Things," by Michael Shermer.
Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan for general science.
Stuff by James Randi, Michael Shermer for general stuff about new age crap.
The Panic Virus by Seth Mnookin and Deadly Choices by Paul Offit on the Anti-Vaccination movement.
Damned Lies and Statistics by Joel Best and How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff (Also see How to Lie with Maps by Mark Monomonier for a similar subject) for questioning stats and graphics used in the news.
Is there anything specifically you're interested in?
There is a book about this
You should read the chapter in Why People Believe Weird Things where Michael Shermer described how he was abducted by aliens. Then read the rest of the chapter and you will get your answer.
Humans are imperfect animals and our senses often fail us. Even the smartest among us can have beliefs that are completely irrational. Everyone is susceptible of cognitive dissonance, regardless of political affiliation. Michael Shermer's book digs into this subject, if you're interested.
Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time
This has a great later chapter that explains why intelligent people are susceptible to superstition and religious dogma.
Humans have a talent for self deception. Yeah, there are a lot of phonies out there who want to make money. But the only reason they get any attention are the regular joes who believe or are open to the idea (almost believe) in the subject.
I know way too many people that honestly believe in ghosts, astrology, and UFOs, that are hilariously deluded. They think they are keeping an open mind. I think their mind is so open it fell on the ground.
Edit: There's a great book ["Why People Believe Weird Things"](http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342445382&sr=8-
1&keywords=why+people+believe+weird+things)
You should check it out.
Why People Believe Weird Things is up next on my reading list.
"Why People Believe Weird Things" debunks these nonsensical claims and explores the very human reasons people find otherworldly phenomena, conspiracy theories, and cults so appealing."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-People-Believe-Weird-Things/dp/0805070893
Did you know that the sidebar contains a link to recommended reading? https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/wiki/recommended/reading There are a couple of good Bertrand Russell books listed there, though the titles are a bit obvious. Nevertheless, they're easy to read (Russell was the recipient of the 1950 Nobel Prize for Literature).
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You didn't state anything about creationism vs. evolution; Nathan Lents' Human Errors pretty much demolishes any idea about so-called "intelligent design". Adam Rutherford's A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived is another one. Both are available via Amazon Prime Reading.
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As far as MAGA, etc., there are the classic "George Orwell" (pseudonym for Eric Arthur Blair) books 1984 and Animal Farm. A combined volume is also available on Amazon Prime Reading.
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A. C. Grayling has a number of books: some with obvious titles, some not so obvious.
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You can also find a plethora of books on critical thinking, which isn't directly related to religion or politics, but which can lead people away from blind allegiance to religious dogma and political rhetoric. A good easy-to-read classic is Schick and Vaughn's How to Think About Weird Things, but it can be pricey unless you can find a used edition or older edition in good condition. [And you could underline passages and annotate them with the word THINK :-)] A similar sounding, less expensive but lighter-on-principles book is Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things.
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Addendum:
>Google is of no help, it mostly suggests pro-Christian books (and the big names like Harris/Dawkins/Nietzsche).
You need to train Google: start with https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=critical+thinking and https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=debunking+christianity (Andrew Seidel's The Founding Myth should show up there) and https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=humanism. Follow lots of relevant links, and after a while Goggle will start showing more relevant suggestions.
The book list just keeps growing in so many different directions that it's hard to identify which I want to tackle next (I also have a tendency to take meticulous notes while I read and that slows the process down even further!). Some of the topics I intend to read about once I'm done with the books mentioned:
Plus a bunch of books by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Carl Sagan, and others. There are way too many. And all the fiction books I want to read too! It's not that I didn't read books before, but my faith transition has sparked an intense desire to study and learn far greater than I ever experienced before.
A descent selection so far from the other comments. I'll throw in a few, as well:
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Some of the above is specifically related to atheism, while others I've used to help shape and inform my understanding and my worldview. Out of the entire list, the Carl Sagan book and the Sean Carroll book rank highest, for me, in level of importance. Those books didn't just change what I think, they changed how I think, and I am forever indebted to them.
His book (Link to Amazon) by the same name is really good.
The last chapter of Michael Shermer's book has an illuminating chapter on this topic:
http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1299190518&sr=8-1
Maybe this one …?
Bart Ehrman's books & videos are a great start for the accuracy of the Bible. He is very clear especially considering he's an academic. Forged would be the best one specifically about the accuracy of the Bible. His books are linked at his website: http://www.bartdehrman.com/books.htm
There are no historical documents of Jesus' life, only a few references to Christians from later documents. Nobody disputes that people believed in Jesus, so those don't really prove anything. It's clear that people believed in Thor and Zeus too. That doesn't mean a thing.
Whether faith is helpful or good, can't help you there. I think it's totally useless except to control sociopaths with low IQs.
For morality, check out Good without God: http://www.amazon.com/Good-Without-God-Billion-Nonreligious/dp/006167012X
or Sam Harris The Moral Landscape: http://www.samharris.org/the-moral-landscape
Science vs religion: that's kind of apples & oranges despite what believers keep saying. Science is a method of investigating hunches. Religion is subservience to an unproven deity.
How about the science of religion? Try Michael Shermer: The Science of Good and Evil: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805077693/ or The Believing Brain: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250008808/ or Why We Believe Weird Things: http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893/
Thanks for visiting. An unexamined belief system is not worth believing!
A brief search on Amazon brought up these:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Know-What-Isnt-Fallibility/dp/0029117062/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1
http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893/ref=pd_cp_b_2
What do you think?
And I must say, I like your approach: First teach him critical thinking, and then, if necessary, point out to him that religion is one of the fields where he should apply the rules of scepticism. If he's not too deluded (which I'd expect since he wasn't indoctrinated as a child), he will probably come to the only reasonable conclusion.
Thank you for asking a question. I have to give you credit, most people don't care enough to search.
Emotions are nothing more than chemical reactions in the brain. They absolutely can be tested. "Feelings" is just the word we give to certain brain states. Each brain state is simply a mix of hormones in the brain.
Both Sam Harris and Michael Shermer reference these studies in their most recent books. To answer you question directly, oxytocin is the chemical responsible for love.
By the way, you're back to shifting the burden of proof again. I'm not saying your beliefs are either true or not. I'm simply saying you have no evidence for them so there's no good reason to believe them. As I simply said before, you can believe any thing you want, but until you have evidence, you could be as crazy as the people who think they are Napoleon Bonaparte.
Think about it for a moment. I know people who claim to have been abducted by aliens and sexually probed while on the ship. Are they telling the truth? For them, yes. They believe it, and it's as real as anything else in their life. But is it true? Probably not.
It seems you have an opportunity here. I get the feeling you're pretty smart and might be looking for answers. That's a powerful combination. The problem, however, is that the places you've been looking for answers up until now have been pretty bad. You can go deeper down the rabbit hole into things for which there is no evidence, or you can discover reality as it is.
If you're interested in living an evidence based life there are books that will help. Can I recommend one or two to get you started?
Michael Shermer has written two books that will get you started. Either would be excellent for you and your position at the moment.
The Believing Brain and Why People Believe Weird Things.
Once you get a foundation of how things work, then we can move on the fun stuff like physics, biology, philosophy, astronomy...and so on.
Do you listen to podcasts? There are a few of these you might try out as well.
Rationally Speaking
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe
Point of Inquiry
Reasonable Doubts
In the end, as I said before, you're going to have to make a choice. Either the supernatural realm exists or it doesn't. And since there isn't any evidence now, nor has any evidence ever been shown that anything supernatural ever existed, it should be an easy choice.
It's pretty simple really. When someone says weird, crazy things they believe, I would believe them too, IF THEY HAVE EVIDENCE. If they don't, I'm sorry I'm going to withhold saying you're right or wrong until I have more information.
Smart people can believe weird things.
https://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893
Smart people are vulnerable to certain biases and mental traps. And because they are smart they are really good at defending their thinking.
>Heck, what are your methods?
Science! :) The Scientific Method approach and the peer review process has proven, time and again, that it is extremely effective at preventing us from fooling ourselves based on intuition or wishful thinking. It also has built-in error checking, in that every scientist, by the very nature of science, is interested in disproving claims made by other scientists. If they can't, then it's (temporarily) true. Additionally, no scientist is going to submit information for peer review that they haven't checked and re-checked and re-re-checked, because the peer review process can be brutal and humiliating. The process is also extremely effective at discovering things about our universe that we are unable to detect with our five senses (example: the electromagnetic spectrum, which has changed our lives completely). Speculation and hypothesis are how ideas get started. I am very appreciative that we have these methods to test these speculations and hypotheses in order to sort the gold from the pyrite.
>Show me conflicting evidence against those cases - the ones that even the government acknowledges they had to put in their "This is a UFO" pile - and then one's skepticism might be grounded. [...] Some cases absolutely defy any attempt to classify the phenomenon as anything other than extraterrestrial.
Which ones?
>the practical entirety of the field [...] of science in general [...] is bridled by special interests (often very powerful financial interests) with agendas that prevent the challenging of long-held, long-standing, and established beliefs
This is why you've chosen the opinion of authors over the evidence presented by ancient historians and archaeologists? What do you mean by "field of science"? Science isn't housed in Science Headquarters in the Science Skyscraper in Scienceopolis. Science is just a word that describes a methodology for learning more about the world, and anyone can do it.
>even if those long-held beliefs are actually WRONG and debilitating - you're going to find that even valid research that has not been debunked or proven wrong will absolutely get put aside and shut down if it challenges the established system as it stands. [...] With this in mind, many of these ancient historians and archaeologists are more interested in making sure and simply "towing the party line" and perpetuating the established system
Are you speculating? Or are you claiming that this is true? If the latter, does that mean that you believe there's a conspiracy/cover-up scenario going on within the world of science, because they aren't allowed to finally say that there has been extraterrestrial visitation or advanced technologies? If that's the case, then why are they being censored? Why do you believe that your statement is true?
>lacking as that system may be
What is it that science hasn't discovered so far, or has discovered so far, that makes you find the system "lacking"? Is it lacking because science disagrees with some of your speculations? Our life expectancy is through the roof, comparatively. We've landed on other celestial bodies. We have a cures for terrible afflictions like polio and tuberculosis. We can use x-ray machines to see through our bodies. We have night-vision goggles, and telephones, and the internet, and wireless communication, and hearing aids, and prosthetic limbs, and mechanical hearts, and medicine that actually works, and on and on and on. I don't understand?
>the reason why the collective expertise of those in an established academic community is challenged (and far from "carelessly dismissed") is because the evidence simply points to that "expertise" being lacking and considerably limited.
What is the evidence that points to a lacking expertise in the established academic community? What is it that you're referring to? What is it that science has or hasn't done that has caused you to lose (or never have) confidence in the process?
>What - do you think that the knowledge that humans have garnered up to this point is, somehow, infallible and incapable of being wrong?
I never said that or implied it. I've stated that just because there are known gaps in our knowledge of how the world works doesn't mean we get to fill in those gaps of knowledge with speculation, and then claim that speculation to be true.
>the staunch effort that has often been made by the scientific and archaeological community to squelch certain areas of inquiry
Can you list a few examples?
>Much of the establishment, as a definite point of fact, has certainly shown itself to NOT allow many to be inspired by it. They actually kill the type of inspiration that can lead to real discoveries if that inspiration strays too far away from the set and established line of traditional inquiry.
Because this is a definite point of fact, can you list a few examples?
>There are many things we are very, very ignorant of on this planet.
Agreed! But that doesn't mean that Edgar Cayce had psychic powers (source #1, #2). There is an excellent book by Michael Shermer titled Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time, and he dedicates an entire chapter to Edgar Cayce. It's extremely informative, interesting, and (most importantly!) sourced. This list of 25 Reasons People Believe Weird Things is sort of a quick blueprint of Shermer's book, but with far less information, of course.
This is a good book on the topic: https://www.amazon.ca/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893
A very, very small minority of people are vegetarian for legitimate health reasons (lysinuric protein intolerance, etc.)
The rest either believe it is better for their health, which is not true, or that animals are intrinsically the intellectual or spiritual equivalent of humans, which is also not true
Some believe that being vegetarian will save the world, and while there's an argument to be made there, it's a pretty poor one and it seems more likely that their diet has more to do with narcissism than altruism
Vegetarians tend to also believe in other related new age naturalism, vitalism, pseudoscience type beliefs (acupuncture, spiritual energy, healing crystals, reincarnation, homeopathy, etc.)
Not necessarily. Being educated doesn't mean you're not indoctrinated by nonsense, or possess critical thinking skills. Educated people are quite capable of believing in nonsense. I think it's more complicated than just education - it's when and how you educate the person, who they are surrounded by, what culture they grew up in, etc.
There's a great book called "Why People Believe Weird Things" that addresses the issue. My favorite book on the subject of belief is probably "How We Know What Isn't So". If you're interested in epistemology, or how beliefs are shaped, these two books give interesting insight.
Have you read Michael Shermer's book "Why People Believe Weird Things." He discusses this topic and others like it at great length. Such as 9/11, Bigfoot, Alien abduction and many more. He cites sources, explains exactly why these conspiracies exist, and even gives their arguments some extra validity (steel-manning rather than straw manning) before explaining the reality of the situation.
https://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893
Why People Believe Weird Things by Shermer.
It's not a book about atheism but it's a book that teaches you how to be skeptical and think rationally. When you do that atheism just makes sense.
Awesome, it's great you're so proud of her!
Haha knowledge that leads to everlasting boredom! Book studies were the worst, I always felt super obligated to study extra hard because there were so few people that often nobody would answer!
Don't be so sure that your family will keep abandoning you, it's possible sure, but there's always hope! Often they're surprised that you can leave the witnesses and live a normal, or even better than normal life (of course there's always the "blessed by satan" get out clause) but they do expect people who leave to get aids and die from a heroin overdose.
It's easy to prove them wrong! Either way though, you have your own family to look out for and you can learn what not to do!
On to the suggested reading. I've mentioned many on here before but I don't expect everyone to be aware of it all so here goes:
Reading (I have a kindle and love reading, but they're all available for ebook and in paperback)
Web
Pocasts
(all on iTunes etc, i like them because I can listen at work or download to my phone)
That's about it for now, if you soak all that in / want more / have suggestions let me know, and I'd love to hear what you think! :)
For more on Basic Skepticism see:
https://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893
okay, sorry, let's take a step back:
> I believe, Hope is the purpose. Anyone at that level (speaking of Q) certainly doesn't need any research we give them, they already have it all.
So, by this you mean a hypothetical 'Q entity' that has some high level military intelligence possition wouldn't need info from the citezenry? But asking them for it, is a service to them to provide them hope?
But maybe there is really no Q, just the internet ghost that's been constructed on the various chans and here and taken on some life of its own or propigated by folks that maybe believe in the Hope mission or for other nefarious reasons?
Feel free to cut this off anytime, I'm really fascinated by this stuff though. But more in a Why do people believe weird things kind of way. Which I know may be insulting to you.
Why People Believe Weird Things is a book that might interest you. One of the main points of the book is how otherwise smart and rational people become creationists, holocaust deniers, etc.
"Science Fiction" is a pretty big umbrella -- The Giver is actually sci-fi, if it's the first one in the search results! Doesn't have to be all spaceships and technology to qualify. You might find The Electric Church interesting; the blurb doesn't really do it justice.
Easy reads, hmm. Dragonsong is very readable as straight fantasy, and if you like it there're a lot of books in the series. You might like Pollotta's Bureau 13 series; light, fast-paced action adventure with supernatural and magic elements. Or Elrod's Vampire Files -- the adventures of an undead detective in the thirties.
For straight action-mysteries, I'm going to suggest Travis McGee because one, I love it, and two, it gets progressively more difficult as you go through the series. You could also try Rex Stout.
For non-fiction, Why People Believe Weird Things.
As far as developing reading as a hobby, well, I think the key is to be as eclectic as possible. Read a book. Read a book by an author who has a blurb on the cover of the first book. Read a book you see linked to at the bottom of the page on the second author's book's Amazon page. Hit used bookstores and spend $10 on a bunch of books out of the quarter pile. The only rule is "you don't have to finish it, but at least try it".
At least that's how I grew my collection into what it is today.
(Edit to fix a link and add one)
I know you did not say it. It was the link you posted that said it.
What you did say was that if you did not have someone singing then were simply doing it wrong. Which sounds very much like a fact, but is in fact a statement which is very objective. But you forgot to mention that it was your personal opinion.
But I am certain a lot of people has had a very profound and pleasant experience drinking ayahuasca without any shaman songs or songs of any kind around.
What triggers me is this elitist bullshit "well you know.. that's not how the shamans do it..."
The proper way of doing it? What does that even mean? Proper according to who? If someone did it first, then they have the copyright on how do ingest something? That's a great way to never find a better way of doing something.
And they know exactly what they are doing? So in their mind all they do is set the mood with some songs? They don't call out the good spirits and keep the bad ones at bay? In my mind there might be some contradictions going on there, but what do I know? I am uneducated on the subject.
While we are on the topic of books, here are some great ones.
Probably not what you meant but this is a good read. The 20 logical fallacies should be taught to all students.
https://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=why+people+believe+weird+things&qid=1564878644&s=gateway&sr=8-1
> For starters, its entirely irrelevant to a discussion on human behavior. the last traces of our planet will have been destroyed billions of years prior to heat death which will still happen billions of years after we are all dead and buried and everyone who ever knew our name is dead and buried as well.
I agree 100% with your second sentence, however your first is dead fucking wrong.
Physics is everything.
It is, after all, THE science.
If sociology and psychology are indeed sciences, they will be touched in some way, some how, by physics.
Nevertheless, what you've stumbled on is a point within a point that I sought to make.
What do most people believe? All kinds of crazy shit. Everything from astrology to alternative medicine to Bronze Age myths and superstitions to My Little Pony to ... dare I say it ... hope.
Not many people have even heard of Thermodynamics, much less understand it.
And you're telling me that their beliefs, or more to the point the lack of comprehension and flat-out disinterest of modern physics, does not influence their behavior?
No, friend, what I've said is quite relevant.
What you're doing is attempting to turn it into a red herring and drawing unneeded attention to minutiae. It's neither. Follow the flow of my writing top-to-bottom. It fits.
All I'm doing is trying to make a point. Don't sweat the small stuff.
I really do stand behind what I've said. You are free to disagree. And that's fine. You're not alone.
> Also, our star is around 1% of the mass required to form a black hole, if that.
I stand corrected. It will collapse to form a white dwarf after it burns away what's left of a dead planet previously known as Earth.
Details.
> By all means, keep science in the discussion, we need it, but lets stick to facts that are relevant. I'd do some actual studying and work with thermodynamics before you try to talk about, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics of course you may need a few years of elementary calculus and physics before it makes any sense. have fun, i've done it.
Hmmmm, I think I may have studied elementary calculus and physics before I studied:
... aaaaaaand
Do I need to re-take them so that I can be more smug like you?
> A better argument would have been to say that we are utterly insignificant in the grandest scheme of things.
I do agree with that statement. And that would be quite satisfying if I wanted to toy with memes. Yes, the universe doesn't exist for us. It's > 99% dark matter / dark energy, and less than 1% us. Big deal.
Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick to practical science.
I'd rather strive for understanding than latch on to soundbites and convenient explanations.
In closing, before you make authoritative statements like these:
> Please leave the 2nd law of thermo out of any and all discussions about TRP and our planet.
Try to remember this:
> Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts. - Carl Sagan
Now, hopefully, we can get back to my point.