---'Why people believe weird things' by Michael Shermer--

---'Why people believe weird things' by Michael Shermer--

Interesting 'newbies' from the book
1. People confuse skeptics with cynic. 
2. I am therefore I think..sum ergo cogito

-Why do people believe weird things-
1. We evolved to be skilled pattern-finding and casual-finding creatures. 

2. Credo consolans- because they want to. It feels good and comforting. 

Traditional psychology is formal, expensive and time-consuming. Deep insight and improvement may take months or years. Delay of gratification is the norm, instant gratification the exception.

3. Simplicity. Immediate gratification of one's beliefs is made all the easier by simple explanations for an often complex and contingent world. Scientific and critical thinking does not come naturally and needs training, experience and effort.

4. Others believe in weird things for reasons of morality and meaning.

5. Hypnopompic hallucinations: visions of the supernatural that occur as one emerges from deep sleep. Hypnagogic hallucinations: occurs soon after falling asleep

6. People have errors in thinking because:
a. Without corroborative evidence, anecdotes do not make a science
b. scientific language does not make a science
c. Heresy does not equal correctness
d. Burden of proof lies with the person making the claim
e. Emotive words provoke emotion and obscure rationality

7. Confirmation bias. Paranoia is just another form of confirmation bias.

Psychics depend on the power of confirmation bias by telling their clients what to expect in their future.

-Why do smart people also believe in weird things?-
1. They are smart and good at defending their illogical beliefs.

Although there is some evidence that intelligent people are slightly less likely to believe in some superstitions and paranormal beliefs, overall conclusions are equivocal and limited.

2. For the most part, intelligence is orthogonal to and independent of belief.

3. Smart people might be smart in only 1 field.

4. Intellectual attribution bias where we consider our own actions as being rationally motivated whereas we see those of others as more emotionally driven.

- Belief in weird things as related to profession, gender and age-
With regard to psychic belief, women are the vast majority. Ufology are guy beliefs. There are No differences between men and women in the power of belief, only in what they choose to believe.

People under thirty were more superstitious than older age groups. Religiosity and belief in god steadily decreased with age until about 75 when it went back up.

Psychologists were the most skeptical of all because they best understand the psychology of belief and how easy it is to be fooled,

Deep commitment to belief in esp entails that one has a strong internal locus of control.