Having spent a fair amount of time on my spiritual path believing things that at best had no evidence and at times were quite outrageous, I’ve become very interested in the question that forms the title of this book. A former born-again Christian who is now head of the Skeptic society, Michael Shermer has written a very readable and compelling exploration of the cognitive thinking errors humans regularly make that support belief in ideas that can often be very detrimental to our overall well-bei...

This guy is in Australia at the moment for Science Week and I was thinking of going to see him, but this is not really a week in which I can engage in such optional behaviours – so, I thought I’d get out one of his books instead.And look, it was very good and if it had been the first book I’d ever read on scepticism (which I think it was written to be) than I really would have been impressed. But it wasn’t the first book I’d read on this subject and so that in itself gave the book a bit of a str...

Like many people, I could hardly believe my eyes when Donald Trump, in the wake of the Orlando shooting, actually went as far as to insinuate that President Obama could in some way have been complicit in causing this appalling hate crime and act of terrorism. The idea is so offensive and absurd that you hardly know where to start. A common reaction has been to point out that, if Obama is on the side of the terrorists, you'd have to explain why he'd want to invest so much effort in killing Osama

Audiobook - Abridged - 3.5 hours-- Note this is not the Revised and Expanded edition (if there even is one for audio). I listened to the original audio from '98.Shermer is the founder of The Skeptics Society and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic. He knows his stuff. In this book, he explores alien abductions, Holocaust denial, the legal history of creationism in science classrooms, and some other things. These are all interesting and covers Shermer's experiences with all of them. My primar...

Why People Believe Weird Things is a meticulously researched and presented deep-dive into the causes and explanations of human irrationality. It probably deserves four stars but I'm leaving it at three because it's easily the most depressing book I've ever read (and there's no way to "really like" that). Shermer explains that our brains are hardwired to look for patterns as a way of making sense of our world. Sometimes the patterns we detect are genuine (which we either accept or reject as real)...

1. The Taj Mahal is actually a Siva Temple called Tejo Mahalaya.2. Indian civilisation is terrifically ancient and completely indigenous. There have been no migrations into India. The Hindu religion we see today is "Sanatana Dharma", the Eternal Law, which has been in existence since time immemorial.3. Indian Muslims are carrying out an organised covert operation to seduce Hindu girls and convert them to Islam. This is called "Love Jihad".4. There is an underground "Deep State" in India comprisi...

There have been enough positive reviews of this book that I'm sure it won't hurt the author's self-esteem if I say this: This book is dumb. It was on my to-read list forever, so maybe my expectations were a little high. But fair warning to anyone planning to read this, it's not what you think it is. It doesn't even address the question in the title directly until a final chapter, which I gather was added after the first edition was published.If you want to read about the history of holocaust den...

This is a joint review of this book and How We BelieveShermer postulates that humans have evolved a belief module that helps us find patterns in what appears otherwise to be a meaningless universe. (Why we feel compelled to find meaning in everything continues to puzzle me.) Until about four hundred years ago, when the process of science gave us a method to determine the difference between patterns that are real and those that are mere illusion, the tautologies myth and religion, (a tautology) e...

Michael Schermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine and a contributing editor of Scientific American. In this book, an update of an earlier version, with a foreword by Stephen Jay Gould, he takes on a number of worthy targets, including:* believers in the paranormal and extra-sensory perception (ESP)* near-death experiences and those who channel "past lives"* alien abductions* witch-hunting and the recovered memory movement* Ayn Rand and the cult of objectivism* anti-evolutionism and

I don't think I learned why people believe weird things, just that they do (which I already knew).It also mentions how these beliefs don't listen to reason, because that was never the point, but the author also proceeds to tell you how to logically refute every moronic argument of creationists or Holocaust denials. As if the lack of logical counter-arguments was ever the problem.I did enjoy the history of the evolution theory denialism in the US which from the European perspective is really shoc...

I have read many of Shermer's articles for Skeptics Magazine but this was the first book by him that I've read. It was probably a good one to start out with. He appears to be setting out his basic ideas on why people often lean to unscientific and illogical beliefs. He goes through these reasons and also describes the basis of scientific inquiry well. However he also gives specific examples of pseudo-science and outright erroneous thinking including Holocaust denial, aliens abductions and Creati...

Why People Believe Weird Things is kind of a modernistic blend of Martin Gardner’s pioneering Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science and Carl Sagan’s masterpiece, The Demon-haunted World. Author and prominent skeptic Michael Shermer begins with a recollection of his own conversion from evangelical Christian to skeptic, and generalizes from his personal experiences in an overview of the difference between science and pseudoscience/superstition starring the 25 Fallacies That Lead Us To Believe

Why People believe weird things is something I have also wondered a lot when I hear people talking about ghosts or astrology or God. Things are different here in India and you wouldn't find people shouting for creationism or Holocaust deniers here as you neither have prominently christian people here and not too many Jewish people but still we in India have our own laundry list of weird things people believe in. It was a fun read and shocking though I already knew that still so many people belie...

“...no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish.” - David HumeWhat kind of person could deny that the holocaust actually happened? Who could argue against the evidence for evolution? And how do smart people believe such outlandish claims as ESP, alien abductions, and haunted houses? In his book, Michael Shermer explains the logical fallacies and cycles of bel...

I finished this book and came to the conclusion, the same as the Amish have, if you get someone young enough and you deny them a scientific education they will believe almost anything. In other words, brainwash them young when they don't know the difference between reality and fantasy and the big frightening man that will come and get them if they bite their nails is as real in their heads as their mother or father.Not that you can't brainwash adults though. Look at the 8 glasses of water a day

This book seems to hold great promise from the outset. It's a book (as the author would confess) that values reason, science, knowledge and the examination of beliefs. Nothing wrong with that. However, the book seems to ramble on a bit and takes on the feel of the author's personal musings instead of objective examination of the material. A couple of the chapters could be condensed into one chapter that contains more focus and sticks to the topic. For instance, in one chapter Shermer drones on a...

Interesting read, enlightening a bit.The book does answer the question, to a satisfying degree at least.The weird things referred to are mainly: psychics, aliens, creation, holocaust denial, but many others are mentioned. The author provides arguments against those things and refutation to the arguments for them, relying on critical thinking and science.Honestly, I was not very satisfied with this book, as I somewhat expected more. The information presented is not mindbending or hard to wrap you...

I have always felt like the books I read intertwine themselves into my memories of that point in my life, but this book, more than any other, stands out as one that isn't just a part of my experience in a time and place but a book that actually changed how I think and view the world, in a meaningful way. Why People Believe Weird Things is a great first book for exploring the basics of critical thinking and gives one a chance to see real life examples of how faulty reasoning can lead one to falla...

As much as I liked this book, I can't give it a full 5 star review because it is too dated. Yes, 'holocaust denial' folks are pretty much a fringe idiot band, but that was a long time ago comparatively speaking. There is nothing about global warming whatsoever. Nor is there anything about "Scientology". This is not to say this book is not worthwhile. It is. I'm afraid it is difficult to keep up with the various crackpot things with our ratings driven media, but i would enjoy an updated version o...

The final four pages of the book summarizes why people believe in weird things quite well. Funnily, the other 270-odd pages deal argues in an orthogonal manner to these propositions made by the author himself. Let me elaborate in my own words.The author says that as a culture, we seem to have trouble distinguishing science from pseudo-science, history from pseudo-history and sense from nonsense. He gives the underlying motivations for this shortcoming as follows:1. Atheists and skeptics are butt...