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. (shrink)

Even as today’s spectacular advances in science enhance the quality of life, so also are new opportunities created for those who would deliberately mislead a scientifically ill-informed public. The scientific community, made up of those who participate in professional science organizations and publish their methods and findings in the open scientific literature, have a responsibility to keep the public informed of scams carried out in the name of science. Fraud within the scientific community should be quickly exposed by the culture (...) of openness. Secrecy in the name of national security offers a refuge for fraudulent science. (shrink)

The world is increasingly full of junk science. Pseudo-scientific claims are rife, and the public is regularly misled. Here, the physicist Robert Park points out seven warning signs of pseudo-science. Does parapsychology exhibit any of these warning signs? Read on to find out….