How to Think about Weird Things : Critical Thinking for a New Age

Foreword

Preface

Chapter 1. Introduction: Close Encounters with the Strange

The Importance of Why

Beyond Weird to the Absurd

A Weirdness Sampler

Notes

Chapter 2. The Possibility of the Impossible

Paradigms and the Paranormal

Logical Possibility Versus Physical Impossibility

The Possibility of ESP

Theories and Things

On Knowing the Future

Study Questions

Evaluate These Claims

Discussion Questions

Field Problem

Critical Reading and Writing

Suggested Readings

Notes

Chapter 3. Looking for Truth in Personal Experience

Seeming and Being

Perceiving: True or False?

Perceptual Constancies

The Role of Expectation

Looking for Clarity in Vagueness

The Blondlot Case

"Constructing" UFOs

Remembering: Do We Revise the Past?

Judging: The Habit of Unwarranted Assumptions

Denying the Evidence

Subjective Validation

Confirmation Bias

The Availability Error

The Representativeness Heuristic

Against All Odds

The Limits of Personal Experience

Study Questions

Evaluate These Claims

Discussion Questions

Field Problem

Critical Reading and Writing

Suggested Readings

Notes

Chapter 4. Relativism, Truth, and Reality

We Each Create Our Own Reality

Reality Is Socially Constructed

Reality Is Constituted by Conceptual Schemes

The Relativist's Petard

Facing Reality

Study Questions

Evaluate These Claims

Discussion Questions

Field Problem

Critical Reading and Writing

Suggested Readings

Notes

Chapter 5. Knowledge, Belief, and Evidence

Babylonian Knowledge-Acquisition Techniques

Propositional Knowledge

Reasons and Evidence

Expert Opinion

Coherence and Justification

Sources of Knowledge

The Appeal to Faith

The Appeal to Intuition

The Appeal to Mystical Experience

Astrology Revisited

Study Questions

Evaluate These Claims

Discussion Questions

Field Problem

Critical Reading and Writing

Suggested Readings

Notes

Chapter 6. Arguments Good, Bad, and Weird

Claims and Arguments

Deductive Arguments

Inductive Arguments

Enumerative Induction

Analogical Induction

Hypothetical Induction (Abduction, or Inference to the Best of Explanation)

Informal Fallacies

Unacceptable Premises

Irrelevant Premises

Insufficient Premises

Study Questions

Evaluate These Claims

Discussion Questions

Field Problem

Critical Reading and Writing

Suggested Readings

Notes

Chapter 7. Science and Its Pretenders

Science and Dogma

Science and Scientism

Scientific Methodology

Confirming and Confuting Hypotheses

Criteria of Adequacy

Testability

Fruitfulness

Scope

Simplicity

Conservatism

Creationism, Evolution, and Criteria of Adequacy

Scientific Creationism

Intelligent Design

Parapsychology

Study Questions

Evaluate These Claims

Discussion Questions

Field Problem

Critical Reading and Writing

Suggested Readings

Notes

Chapter 8. How to Assess a "Miracle Cure"

Personal Experience

The Variable Nature of Illness

The Placebo Effect

Overlooked Causes

The Doctor's Evidence

The Appeal to Tradition

The Reasons of Science

Medical Research

Types of Studies

Study Questions

Evaluate These Claims

Discussion Questions

Field Problem

Critical Reading and Writing

Suggested Readings

Notes

Chapter 9. Case Studies in the Extraordinary

The Search Formula

Step 1:State the Claim

Step 2:Examine the Evidence for the Claim

Step 3:Consider Alternative Hypotheses

Step 4:Rate, According to the Criteria of Adequacy, Each Hypothesis

Homeopathy

Dowsing

UFO Abductions

Communicating with the Dead

Near-Death Experiences

Ghosts

Study Questions

Evaluate These Claims by Using the Search Method

Field Problem

Critical Reading and Writing

Suggested Readings

Notes

Epilogue Mysteries in Perspective

Credits

Index

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