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Pseudoscience and the Paranormal | 
 enlarge | Author: Terence Hines
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Category: Book
List Price: $22.98
Buy New: $12.50
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Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 56044
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2 Sub
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 500
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5 x 1.2
ISBN: 1573929794
Dewey Decimal Number: 133
EAN: 9781573929790
ASIN: 1573929794
Publication Date: March 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Brand New - Direct From Distributor - Gift Giving Condition - No Remainder Mark
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Product Description
Popular culture fills the mind with a steady diet of fantasy, from tales of UFO landings and alien abductions, haunted houses, and communication with the dead to claims of miraculous cures by spiritaul healers and breakthrough treatments in "alternative" medicine. The paranormal--and the pseudoscience that attempts to validate it--is so ubiquitous that many people lose sight of the distinction between the real and the imaginary, and some never learn to make the distinction in the first place. In this updated and expanded edition of PSEUDOSCIENCE AND THE PARANORMAL, the most comprehensive and up-to-date work of its kind, psychologist and neuroscientist Terence Hines explores the question of evidence for the paranormal and delves beyond it to one that is even more puzzling: Why do people continue to believe in the reality of the supernatural despite overwhelming evidence that it does not exist? Devoting separate chapters to psychics, life after death, parapsychology, astrology, UFOs, faith healing, alternative medicine, and many other topics, Hines examines the empirical evidence supporting these popular paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. New to this edition are extended sections on psychoanalysis and pseudopsychologies, especially recovered memory therapy, satanic ritual abuse, and facilitated communication. Also included are new chapters on "alternative" medicine and environmental pseudoscience. Critiquing the whole range of current paranormal claims, this carefully researched, thorough review of pseudoscience and the paranormal in contemporary life shows readers how to carefuly evaluate such claims in terms of scientific evidence. This scholarly yet readable volume is an invaluable reference work for students and general readers alike.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
Excellent breadth July 14, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book covers a wide range of paranormal topics and is an interesting read. My only mild complaint (why not 5 stars) is that it needs more illustrations/photos. Compare Flim Flam by James Randi (of which he borrows a couple of photos) and Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer (with non-paranormal stuff too like holocaust deniers). Anyway, since this book is targeted as a text for college critical thinking courses, it does cover topics well, but in your lectures you would need more example photos. I hope in a future edition, lots of photos are added, and not in a middle section like now, but in text near the topic - and Randi and Shermer do.
 AMAZING! May 21, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Being a skepticism buff, I declare this book THE ABSOLUTE authority on the scientific aspect of debunking of the paranormal and pseudoscience!!! I have read nearly every book and publication on the subject, but this one takes the cake.
Book Quality:
Cover and back is soft paper that rolls up permanently.
There is a line down each page where the ink is faded but legible.
The book is riddled with typographical errors.
 Piece of trash August 20, 2006
4 out of 26 found this review helpful
This book was truely vomitous. What a shame that even a single tree had to die so that the putrid words of the incompetent author could appear in print. What dross!
As a neuroscientist, I found this book beyond mindless. Clearly the author is more impressed with his own opinions than reason. Time and again, a topic that could have been delt with in a few sentences is given a page or so. Moreover, there is nothing original here, but instead the author borrowed liberally from the work of others in order to make his case. Granted, it is case that should be made, but from someone with a million times more insight into areas of pseudoscience and the paranormal than this hack, faux-academic effort. A better title would have been Pseudoscience and the Paranormal Lite!
Pseudoscience Demolished! February 11, 2006
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
This book is an excellent primer for any non-closed-minded, rational thinker who wants the claptrap of pseudoscientific thinking (ESP, astrology, etc.) debunked and demystified. The book tells the unvarnished truth and exposes the frauds. My only complaint is that the book is just an overview--I wish it were three times as long!
There is certainly a need for a careful, fair minded review and critique of the many pseudosciences. Unfortunately this is not February 1, 2006
10 out of 23 found this review helpful
There is certainly a need for a careful, fair minded review and critique of the many pseudosciences. Unfortunately this is not that book.
The Paranormal and Pseudoscience is sadly superficial, biased, unbalanced and incomplete. Here are two examples
Hines reduces humanistic psychology-a multifaceted, multidimensional a school-to a definition of Rogerian therapy (and a poor definition at that) and lists multiple misunderstandings of Rogerian therapy which he goes on to critique. He then equates the field of humanistic psychology with the worst of the excesses of the human potential movement. Consequently, the critique cannot really be considered an analysis of humanistic psychology per se, although the author does not seem to recognize that. For a good overview of humanistic psychology see James Bugental & Kirk Schneider (Eds.) Handbook of Humanistic Psychology.
Turning to parapsychology, Hines gives a partial, selective and biased review of the voluminous research on this topic. He selects one of the arch critics, Hyman, who is notorious for giving erroneous critiques, as his spokesperson. It would not be so bad if there was also a balanced presentation of the research, but there is not. Virtually none of the many meta analyses that have found such surprisingly positive results for both clairvoyance and psychokenesis are mentioned. For a far more comprehensive and accurate book, see Dean Radin's The Conscious Universe (1997). For a balanced analysis, pro and con, see the 2003 issue of The Journal of Consciousness Studies titled "Psi Wars."
Hines gives some appropriately devastating critiques of some of the pseudo- sciences. Unfortunately the book cannot be counted as trustworthy, and people looking for balanced assessments of the paranormal and pseudosciences should look elsewhere.
R. Elliott, A contemplative reader
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