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The Science Of Superstition
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Book Synopsis The Science of Superstition by : Bruce M. Hood
Download or read book The Science of Superstition written by Bruce M. Hood and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-06-17 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Science of Superstition, cognitive psychologist Bruce Hood examines the ways in which humans understand the supernatural, revealing what makes us believe in the unbelievable. *Previously published as SuperSense.
Download or read book SuperSense written by Bruce M. Hood and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-04-01 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A neuroscientist examines the science behind humanity’s beliefs in the supernatural. The majority of the world’s population is religious or believes in supernatural phenomena. In the United States, nine out of every ten adults believe in God, and a recent Gallup poll found that about three out of four Americans believe in some form of telepathy, déjà vu, ghosts, or past lives. Where does such supernatural thinking come from? Are we indoctrinated by our parents, churches, and media, or do such beliefs originate somewhere else? In SuperSense, award-winning cognitive scientist Bruce M. Hood reveals the science behind our beliefs in the supernatural. Superstitions are common. Many of us cross our fingers, knock on wood, step around black cats, and avoid walking under ladders. John McEnroe refused to step on the white lines of a tennis court between points. Wade Boggs insisted on eating a chicken dinner before every Boston Red Sox game. President Barack Obama played a game of basketball the morning of his victory in the Iowa primary and continued the tradition on every subsequent election day. Supernatural thinking includes loftier beliefs as well, such as the sentimental value we place on photos of loved ones, wedding rings, and teddy bears. It also includes spiritual beliefs and the hope for an afterlife. But in this modern, scientific age, why do we hold on to these behaviors and beliefs? It turns out that belief in things beyond what is rational or natural is common to humans and appears very early in childhood. In fact, according to Hood, this “super sense” is something we're born with to develop and is essential to the way we learn to understand the world. We couldn’t live without it! Our minds are designed from the very start to think there are unseen patterns, forces, and essences inhabiting the world, and it is unlikely that any effort to get rid of supernatural beliefs, or the superstitious behaviors that accompany them, will be successful. These common beliefs and sacred values are essential in binding us together as a society because they help us to see ourselves connected to each other at a deeper level.
Book Synopsis Believing in Magic by : Stuart A. Vyse
Download or read book Believing in Magic written by Stuart A. Vyse and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-11 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fully updated edition of Believing in Magic, renowned superstition expert Stuart Vyse investigates our tendency towards these irrational beliefs.
Download or read book 2012 written by Alexandra Bruce and published by Red Wheel Weiser. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The expanded companion book to the #1 documentary film about 2012! The 2012 meme has evolved beyond any debates about the relevance of the Maya Long Count calendar to the lives of contemporary human beings. 2012 is about us on planet Earth at this time. December 21, 2012: will the world really change forever on this date, the end of a 5,125-year calendar last used over a thousand years ago? Certainly Hollywood would like you to think so. Indeed, a not-so-small industry has arisen around the date, hawking everything from t-shirts to teleseminars. Clearing a path between fantasy and reality, Alexandra Bruce surveys the entire 2012 landscape, asking questions such as: Is the Earth losing its Mojo? How did 2012 come to mean "The End of Time"? Did psychedelics facilitate the Maya "Cosmovision"? Should we worry about Earth Crustal Displacement? What the hell is "Planet X"? Uniquely amongst a vast array of 2012 literature, this book features interviews with the leading experts—including Graham Hancock, John Major Jenkins, Daniel Pinchbeck and many others—and insightful, detailed analysis of the broad spectrum of opinion, debate, research and myth regarding the most compelling "end times" prediction of the 21st century.
Book Synopsis Superstition: A Very Short Introduction by : Stuart Vyse
Download or read book Superstition: A Very Short Introduction written by Stuart Vyse and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-23 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you touch wood for luck, or avoid hotel rooms on floor thirteen? Would you cross the path of a black cat, or step under a ladder? Is breaking a mirror just an expensive waste of glass, or something rather more sinister? Despite the dominance of science in today's world, superstitious beliefs - both traditional and new - remain surprisingly popular. A recent survey of adults in the United States found that 33 percent believed that finding a penny was good luck, and 23 percent believed that the number seven was lucky. Where did these superstitions come from, and why do they persist today? This Very Short Introduction explores the nature and surprising history of superstition from antiquity to the present. For two millennia, superstition was a label derisively applied to foreign religions and unacceptable religious practices, and its primary purpose was used to separate groups and assert religious and social authority. After the Enlightenment, the superstition label was still used to define groups, but the new dividing line was between reason and unreason. Today, despite our apparent sophistication and technological advances, superstitious belief and behaviour remain widespread, and highly educated people are not immune. Stuart Vyse takes an exciting look at the varieties of popular superstitious beliefs today and the psychological reasons behind their continued existence, as well as the likely future course of superstition in our increasingly connected world. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Superstition written by Robert L. Park and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2008-09-22 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why the battle between superstition and science is far from over From uttering a prayer before boarding a plane, to exploring past lives through hypnosis, has superstition become pervasive in contemporary culture? Robert Park, the best-selling author of Voodoo Science, argues that it has. In Superstition, Park asks why people persist in superstitious convictions long after science has shown them to be ill-founded. He takes on supernatural beliefs from religion and the afterlife to New Age spiritualism and faith-based medical claims. He examines recent controversies and concludes that science is the only way we have of understanding the world. Park sides with the forces of reason in a world of continuing and, he fears, increasing superstition. Chapter by chapter, he explains how people too easily mistake pseudoscience for science. He discusses parapsychology, homeopathy, and acupuncture; he questions the existence of souls, the foundations of intelligent design, and the power of prayer; he asks for evidence of reincarnation and astral projections; and he challenges the idea of heaven. Throughout, he demonstrates how people's blind faith, and their confidence in suspect phenomena and remedies, are manipulated for political ends. Park shows that science prevails when people stop fooling themselves. Compelling and precise, Superstition takes no hostages in its quest to provoke. In shedding light on some very sensitive--and Park would say scientifically dubious--issues, the book is sure to spark discussion and controversy.
Book Synopsis Higher Superstition by : Paul R. Gross
Download or read book Higher Superstition written by Paul R. Gross and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 1997-12-03 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The widely acclaimed response to the postmodernists attacks on science, with a new afterword. With the emergence of "cultural studies" and the blurring of once-clear academic boundaries, scholars are turning to subjects far outside their traditional disciplines and areas of expertise. In Higher Superstition scientists Paul Gross and Norman Levitt raise serious questions about the growing criticism of science by humanists and social scientists on the "academic left." This edition of Higher Superstition includes a new afterword by the authors.
Book Synopsis Astrology, Science Or Superstition? by : Hans Jurgen Eysenck
Download or read book Astrology, Science Or Superstition? written by Hans Jurgen Eysenck and published by St Martins Press. This book was released on 1982-01-01 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uses modern statistical methods to explain the mechanisms by which the planets might well have a significant influence on life on earth, proposing a new branch of science, cosmobiology
Book Synopsis How Superstition Won and Science Lost by : John Chynoweth Burnham
Download or read book How Superstition Won and Science Lost written by John Chynoweth Burnham and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Burnham studies the history of changing patterns in the dissemination, or "popularization," of scientific findings to the general public since 1830. Focusing on three different areas of science -- health, psychology, and the natural sciences -- Burnham explores the ways in which this process of popularization has deteriorated. He draws on evidence ranging from early lyceum lecturers to the new math and argues that today popular science is the functional equivalent of superstition.
Book Synopsis Why People Believe Weird Things by : Michael Shermer
Download or read book Why People Believe Weird Things written by Michael Shermer and published by Holt Paperbacks. This book was released on 2002-09-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revised and Expanded Edition. In this age of supposed scientific enlightenment, many people still believe in mind reading, past-life regression theory, New Age hokum, and alien abduction. A no-holds-barred assault on popular superstitions and prejudices, with more than 80,000 copies in print, 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. In an entirely new chapter, "Why Smart People Believe in Weird Things," Michael Shermer takes on science luminaries like physicist Frank Tippler and others, who hide their spiritual beliefs behind the trappings of science. Shermer, science historian and true crusader, also reveals the more dangerous side of such illogical thinking, including Holocaust denial, the recovered-memory movement, the satanic ritual abuse scare, and other modern crazes. Why People Believe Strange Things is an eye-opening resource for the most gullible among us and those who want to protect them.
Book Synopsis Superstition and Science by : Derek Wilson
Download or read book Superstition and Science written by Derek Wilson and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2019-06-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, Europe changed out of all recognition and particularly transformative were the ardent quest for knowledge and the astounding discoveries and inventions which resulted from it. The movement of blood round the body; the movement of the earth round the sun; the velocity of falling objects (and, indeed, why objects fall) - these and numerous other mysteries had been solved by scholars in earnest pursuit of scientia.
Book Synopsis Book of Superstitious Stuff by : Joanne O'Sullivan
Download or read book Book of Superstitious Stuff written by Joanne O'Sullivan and published by Charlesbridge Publishing. This book was released on 2011-07-26 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the curse of the lottery winners to the good feng shui of a local restaurant, this quirky, wacky, weird, and wonderful collection of superstitions uncovers the truth about some of our most familiar beliefs, as well as others that are much stranger. It turns out that everywhere in the world, people still put their trust in luck, magic, and mystery. By the end of this look at the bizarre world of illogic it’s clear: superstition is alive and well...and really spellbinding!
Download or read book Superstition written by David Ambrose and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Having exposed a group of fraudulent spiritualists, investigative journalist Joanna Cross is intrigued by the claims of psychologist Dr Sam Towne that paranormal phenomena do in fact exist. Accepting his challenge to enter into a scientific experiment to 'create' a ghost, Joanna, Sam and six volunteers bring to life 'Adam Wyatt' - a young American living in France after the American War of Independence. Associated with the great minds and mystics at the close of the eighteenth century, he dies tragically in the French Revolution. The experiment is a great success, with poltergeist activity and disembodied messages all scientifically recorded. Sam's theory appears conclusive - that ghosts are created by the people who see them. But a series of inexplicable and ominous events force Joanna and Sam to realize the ghost they have brought to life can also cause death…
Book Synopsis The Science of Superstition by : Bruce M. Hood
Download or read book The Science of Superstition written by Bruce M. Hood and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-06-17 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Science of Superstition, cognitive psychologist Bruce Hood examines the ways in which humans understand the supernatural, revealing what makes us believe in the unbelievable. *Previously published as SuperSense.
Book Synopsis Spectacular Science, Technology and Superstition in the Age of Shakespeare by : Sophie Chiari
Download or read book Spectacular Science, Technology and Superstition in the Age of Shakespeare written by Sophie Chiari and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-22 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can multicultural governance respond to our increasingly complex migratory world?
Book Synopsis The Struggle Between Science and Superstition by : Arthur M. B. Lewis
Download or read book The Struggle Between Science and Superstition written by Arthur M. B. Lewis and published by Legare Street Press. This book was released on 2023-07-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely book explores the ongoing tension between scientific knowledge and irrational belief. With incisive analysis and thought-provoking examples, the author makes a compelling case for rational thinking, critical inquiry, and evidence-based decision-making. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Book Synopsis Towards a Science of Belief Systems by : E. Griffiths
Download or read book Towards a Science of Belief Systems written by E. Griffiths and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-09-29 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People believe in a great many things; and yet most of us know almost nothing about why other people believe what they do, or indeed about how it feels to believe it. This book presents an objective method for understanding and comparing belief systems - irrespective of whether the investigator happens to agree with them.
