Books by Michael Shermer

“A lot of the factors that are involved in conspiracy thinking overlap with belief in the paranormal and other kinds of magical thinking. There are some differences, but they have an awful lot in common. There are certain kinds of cognitive biases that underlie paranormal belief and Shermer is very good on those. He talks about what he calls ‘patternicity.’ It’s the tendency that we all have to spot patterns and meaning and significance in what’s going on in the world around us. Generally, that’s a good thing. That’s why we’re successful as a species. But sometimes we overplay it.” Read more...

The best books on Paranormal Beliefs

Christopher French, Psychologist

“I was particularly fascinated by this book of Michael Shermer’s because Alfred Russel Wallace is a name that most students are not familiar with. But if you have a good knowledge of science you will recognise the name right away. He and Darwin converged on the idea of evolution from different angles. But Darwin was well supported by his family’s wealth and the fact that he could travel across the world, as he did on the Beagle, and come back with masses of specimens. He had the means to be able to collect all these things, while Alfred Russel Wallace was very poor. It turns out that Alfred Russel Wallace was also a great believer in woo-woo and in spiritualism. He had his own personal reasons for believing in survival after death – most people do. Yet that coloured his life so substantially that he wasn’t quite able to wrap his mind around some of the problems that evolution presented. Alfred Russel Wallace should be given as much credit as Charles Darwin for discovering the idea of evolution, and if he didn’t have the prejudices of believing in superstitious nonsense – and if he had better income – then he could have been as famous as Darwin. But Darwin was more fortunate.” Read more...

The best books on Being Sceptical

James Randi, Magician

“He takes a wider perspective on the paranormal, looking at UFOs and conspiracies. His argument is that we’re very good at finding patterns – that’s one of the reasons why science has been so successful – but sometimes that mechanism goes into overdrive. If you take something like finding a face in the environment, the brain would rather see a few faces that aren’t there than not see one that is. So you can look into the darkness of the bushes and see a face that isn’t there, and convince yourself that it’s a spirit or ghost.” Read more...

The best books on Debunking the Paranormal

Richard Wiseman, Psychologist