I read “Why People Believe
Weird Things” by Michael Shermer. The book was just that: Shermer’s
explanations of why people believe pseudoscience concepts. For a good portion of
the book, he listed and explained the fallacies that morph people’s thinking
allowing them to believe pseudoscientific concepts. Shermer is a
self-proclaimed skeptic but has slightly controversial skeptic views; he
somewhat believes in varied states of consciousness. He believes that different
states of consciousness allow people to be more susceptible to altered
thinking. He gives the example of how he was a marathon cyclist, claiming that
in an extreme state of sleeplessness, he thought his crew were aliens that
abducted him. He knows, of course, that that is not true, yet he said it felt
real. He believes that in certain conditions people are more likely to believe
hallucinations. Shermer also focused a lot on Holocaust deniers, explaining
talk shows he’s been on and debating such nonbelievers. That was kind of an
uncomfortable part of the book for me. Having always been interested in that type
of history, going to the Holocaust museum and survivor seminars, listening to
reasons why people would deny those horrid things done to those people is, in
my opinion, absurd and insensitive.
I have a few parts of the
book that I really enjoyed. Because I read the book via audiobook, read by
Shermer himself, there was a bit of sass that he added, which was kind of funny
at parts. I also liked when he spoke on his experiences trying “health crazes”
as a cyclist. It seems like he went extremely far for his research of these
performance-improving suggestions. He took excessive vitamins, drank smoothie
concoctions, had massages, etc., all testing fads and “tricks” of the health
community.
Shermer focused a bit on out
of body experiences and near-death experiences, and how trauma is an important factor
in understanding why people have these “experiences”. When I was younger, I believe
in the 1st grade, a traumatic event struck on of the people I love
the most, my father. He was a road worker and was drawing lines on the ground
to mark where to pave for a person driving a machine. The person driving the
machine didn’t see my father, and accidentally ran him over, causing the loss
of my dad’s leg. I never asked him what went on in his head at that moment, so
for the sake of this paper I decided to interview him. His experience isn’t exactly
like descriptions of a NDEs discussed by Shermer and in class. He didn’t see anyone
deceased calling to him or a white light, but he did hallucinate in his time of
extreme trauma. He told me that he remembers staring at one of his coworkers
trying to ask him for a gun, so he could kill himself. Then my dad said that he
seen my mother and I looking down at him asking him not to give up. We have a
family member, Lisa, that has a prosthetic leg. So, my father said to himself, “If
Lisa can do it, so can I”, referencing his unfortunate new lifestyle. He is
aware that all of this happened in his head, he knows my mother and I weren’t
actually there, but he said it feels as real to him as talking to me now.
Shermer said that he was
on numerous television programs as a skeptic, so I wanted to include the one
that sounded the most interesting to me. He was on the “Bill Nye The Science Guy”
show, which who doesn’t love that show? He was there debunking fire walking. I
don’t know if I found the exact clip, but this is a video of Shermer explaining
the “phenomenon” and participating in it. He proves that the coals are not hot
enough to burn your feet whilst moving quickly on them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W5FRl0qhOM
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