Superstition : : Belief in the Age of Science / / Robert L. Park.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter PUP eBook-Package 2000-2015
• VerfasserIn: Park, Robert L.,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2008]; ©2008
• Year of Publication: 2008
• Edition: Course Book
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction: Lessons from a tree -- CHAPTER ONE. A Bigger Prize: In which we discover scientists of faith -- CHAPTER TWO. The Secret of Life: In which Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection survives -- CHAPTER THREE. Miracle at Columbia: In which both sides pray for victory -- CHAPTER FOUR. Giving Up the Ghost: In which we search for the soul -- CHAPTER FIVE. The Silent Army: In which we search for an afterlife -- CHAPTER SIX. The Tsunami God: In which the innocent suffer -- CHAPTER SEVEN. The New Age: In which anything goes -- CHAPTER EIGHT. Schrödinger's Grave: In which quantum mysticism is found to be superstition -- CHAPTER NINE. The Barbary Duck: In which the body heals itself -- CHAPTER TEN. The Deer. In which the placebo effect is explained -- CHAPTER ELEVEN. The Moral Law: In which we instinctively know right from wrong -- CHAPTER TWELVE. The Last Butterfly. In which there is no place else to go -- Bibliography -- Index