Under The Microscope

WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS by Michael Shermer; W.H. Freeman & Co/MacMillan Publishers, 1997; 306 pp; $39.95 (hardback)

Reviewed by Vicki Hyde

For the past five years, one of the very few magazines which I have made a point of reading from cover to cover has been the Skeptic edited by Michael Shermer, not least because of the thoughtful, meaty essays that Shermer has contributed. I am delighted to see that some of these have been expanded and incorporated into this book, along with new material.

Instead of painstakingly photocopying Shermer's article on "How Thinking Goes Wrong" for journalists who want a bit of background to writing about scientific and pseudo-scientific issues, I can now point them at this book -- it should be in every library and recommended reading on any critical thinking course.

Shermer clearly and cogently covers many of the familiar paths that connect science and pseudo-science, amongst them creation "science", alien abductions and psychics, but he also ventures further afield, examining Holocaust deniers, Ayn Rand followers and Afro-centrists. There are more "weird things" in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of, to borrow a phrase, and Shermer deals with them carefully and sympathetically. The latter does not mean he fails to take issue with untruths or avoids confronting the more uncomfortable aspects of human nature that are revealed thereby. What is does mean is that he attempts to live up to Baruch Spinoza's dictum:

I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them

Shermer's book goes a long way to achieving that understanding.

Vicki Hyde is the editor of New Zealand Science Monthly.