Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole (30 page)
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Authors: Stephen Law
4.
Quoted in Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont,
Intellectual Impostures
(London: Profile Books, 1998),
pp. 156
-
57
.
7.
Richard Dawkins, “Postmodernism Disrobed,”
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/824-postmodernism-disrobed
(accessed October 2, 2010). Published as “Postmodernism Disrobed” in
Nature
394 (1998): 141–43.
CHAPTER 7
1.
Quoted in “Hidden Messages and the Bible Code” by David E. Thomas, which is published in Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal,
Bizarre Cases
(Amherst, NY: 2000),
p. 124
.
3.
Philip J. Klass,
UFOs: The Public Deceived
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1983),
p. 83
.
4.
H. K. Beecher, “The Powerful Placebo,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
159, no. 17 (1955): 1602–1606.
5.
Jean Piaget,
Plays, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood
(New York: Norton, 1962),
pp. 187
–88.
6.
See S. J. Lynn, T. Lock, E. F. Loftus, E. Krackow, and S. O. Lilienfeld, “The Remembrance of Things Past: Problematic Memory Recovery Techniques in Psychotherapy,” in
Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology
, edited by S. O. Lilienfeld, S. J. Lynn, and J. M. Lohr (New York: Guilford, 2003). Also see E. F. Loftus, “The Reality of Repressed Memories,”
American Psychologist
48 (1993): 518–37; E. F. Loftus and 7. K. Ketcham,
The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Accusations of Sexual Abuse
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994).
7.
Margaretta Fox Kane, quoted in R. B. Davenport,
The Deathblow to Spiritualism
(New York: Richardson, 2009),
p. 76
.
8.
Harry Houdini,
A Magician among the Spirits
(New York: Arno Press, 1972),
p. 8
.
9.
From “Defence of Bloodletting,”
http://www.archive.org/stream/medicalinquiries04rush/medicalinquiries04rush_djvu.txt
(accessed September 28, 2010).
10.
Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst,
Trick or Treatment
(London: Bantam, 2009),
p. 172
.
11.
H. Benson et al., “Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessionary Prayer (STEP) in Cardiac Bypass Patients: A Multicenter Randomized Trial of Uncertainty and Certainty of Receiving Intercessionary Prayer,”
American Heart Journal
151 (2006): 934–42.
12.
M. W. Krucoff et al., “Music, Imagery, Touch, and Prayer as Adjuncts to Interventional Cardiac Care: The Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic Trainings (MANTRA) II Randomized Study,”
Lancet
366 (2005): 211–17.
13.
Quoted in Richard Dawkins,
The God Delusion
(London: Black Swan, 2006),
p. 90
.
14.
Caroline Fraser,
God's Perfect Child
(New York: Metropolitan Books, 1999), p. 417.
15.
Quoted in ibid., p. 421.
16.
Quoted in ibid., p. 425.
17.
R. W. England, “Some Aspects of Christian Science as Reflected in Letters of Testimony,”
American Journal of Sociology
59 (1954): 542. Quoted in Fraser,
God's Perfect Child
, pp. 432–33.
18.
England, “Some Aspects of Christian Science,” p. 451, quoted in Fraser,
God's Perfect Child
, p. 432.
19.
Richard Feynman,
The Meaning of It All
(London: Penguin, 2007),
p. 93
.
CHAPTER 8
1.
Solomon Asch's conformity experiments revealed people are prone to denying the evidence of their own eyes if it brings them into disagreement with others (although admittedly this is not quite the same thing as changing what one believes in order to conform). See S. E. Asch, “Effects of Group Pressure upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgment” in
Groups, Leadership and Men
, edited by H. Guetzkow (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Press, 1951).
2.
Times
(London), July 20, 2005,
p. 25
.
3.
George Orwell,
Nineteen Eighty-Four
(Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1954),
p. 265
.
4.
Kathleen Taylor, “Thought Crime,”
Guardian
, October 8, 2005,
p. 23
.
5.
Kathleen Taylor,
Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004),
p. 23
.
6.
Edward Hunter,
Brainwashing: The Story of Men Who Defied It
(New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Cudahy, 1956), p. 309.
CONCLUSION
1.
Erich von Däniken,
Chariots of the Gods?
(London: Souvenir Press, 1990).
2.
Róisín Ingle, “Where No Angels Fear to Tread,”
Irish Times
, May 28, 2008.
http://www.lornabyrne.com/TheIrishTimes28may2008.pdf
(accessed October 4, 2010).
3.
Entry on “Nostradamus” at
http://www.skepdic.com/nostrada.html
(accessed October 4, 2010). This article is the source of the other quotes in this section.
4.
This example is taken from
p. 127
of “Hidden Messages and the Bible Code” by David E. Thomas, published in Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal,
Bizarre Cases
(Amherst, NY: CSICOP, 2000).
THE TAPESCREW LETTERS
1.
Jewish scholars quoted in Solomon Schimmel,
The Tenacity of Unreasonable Belief
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008),
p. 47
.
Aquinas, Thomas
and apophaticism,
119
Arnold, Kenneth
Ayer, A. J.
Bacon, Francis
and the scientific method,
37
on truth,
110
on superstition,
176
Barth, Bob,
189
Beecher, Henry
and placebo effect,
181
beliefs,
10
,
11
,
13
,
14
,
15
,
16
,
18
,
19
,
33
,
36
,
37
,
38
–
39
,
42
,
46
,
56
,
58
,
62
–
64
,
66
,
99
,
100
,
102
,
105
,
106
,
108
,
111
,
122
,
124
,
130
,
141
–
42
,
143
,
195
,
196
–
98
,
200
,
202
,
203
–
205
,
206
–
207
,
209
–
210
,
211
,
212
,
218
,
219
,
223
–
24
Benson, Herbert
efficacy of prayer,
189
Bricmont, Jean
Bulhak, Andrew,
75
Postmodern Essay Generator,
166
Bush, George W.
“
But It Fits!” See
eight mechanisms.
Mary Baker Eddy,
190
Clifford, W. K.
Daniel Dennett, as identified by,
161
Drosnin, Michael
Eddy, Mary Baker
Christian Science,
190
“
But It Fits!
” and
The Blunderbuss
,
11
,
44
,
55
,
65
–
95
,
187
,
209
,
212
,
214
,
215
,
218
,
221
–
22
,
223
,
244
Moving the Semantic Goalposts
,
11
,
113
–
33
,
153
,
169
,
210
,
222
,
245
,
247
“
I Just Know!
”
11
,
46
,
103
,
104
,
133
,
135
–
57
,
197
,
210
,
216
,
217
,
219
,
222
Piling Up the Anecdotes
,
11
,
12
,
17
,
35
,
43
,
46
,
48
,
151
,
155
,
171
–
93
,
210
,
211
,
213
,
217
,
218
,
219
,
221
Ernst, Edzard
problem of,
20
–
29
,
31
–
32
,
41
–
42
,
49
,
58
–
62
,
101
,
103
,
114
–
19
,
130
,
152
Feynman, Richard
views on Christian Science,
192
“fit” model of confirmation,
75
.
See also
Young Earth Creationism.
See also
Young Earth Creationism.
Frankfurt, Harry
on bullshit,
14
Fraser, Caroline
French, Christopher
existence of,
20
–
22
,
23
–
24
,
27
,
29
,
30
–
32
,
37
,
41
–
42
,
49
–
52
,
54
–
56
,
60
–
62
,
101
–
102
,
103
–
105
,
114
–
15
,
117
–
21
,
124
–
25
,
126
–
30
,
131
,
136
,
146
–
147
,
148
,
150