This is a wonderful book that sets the record straight. I remember when I was a kid, it was the latest thing to read about the Bermuda Triangle, or spoon-bending and so on. What a thrill it was, although now we grew up and we see the world through different spectacles. Lynne Kelly uses great insight to pick the most intriguing cases of paranormal claims. Her respect, humor and scientific logic do miracles (although I am sure she would question this last word). Some of these claims she deals with are just the product of our wrong attribution but most of them have remained a question mark in our minds. For example back in the seventies I was reading about numerology and trying to make it work for me, or then the horrible spontaneous human combustion - never expected to see an explanation for this one. Astrology, which always intrigued me, is approached and explained in a very logical and straight-forward way and Nessy is treated with charm. Whoever is interested in setting the record straight should definitely read this book. Highly recommended.
It's a strange world out there, full of mysteries that no one has gotten a grip on. It is even stranger that some have taken grips on mysteries that are artificial, imaginary, or delusional. You can read the astrology column in today's paper, for instance; millions do, and of those millions, many feel it is instructive and that the stars and planets affect our lives. There are those who insist that they can bend spoons not as a magic trick but by using mental powers that physicists cannot yet measure. Psychic detectives claim they have used extrasensory powers to catch criminals. Into the Bermuda Triangle vanish untold numbers of ships and airplanes. The letters in your name, or the numbers in your birth date, reveal your personality and fate. Aliens are picking us up to do gastrointestinal tests and impregnations. People seem sincere in advancing such beliefs. They can't all be lying, can they? What's the rational way to examine such ideas? Lynne Kelly knows. In _The Skeptic's Guide to the Paranormal_ (Thunder's Mouth Press), she devotes one chapter to all of them, and many more. The aim of her book is that it "gives a rational explanation for some of the most widely known claims of the paranormal." Kelly takes tangible claims and examines any applicable tangible evidence. She knows that there are book-length refutations of most of the paranormal phenomena that people believe in, but the beauty of her book is that each is pithily examined, and although not all evidence pro and con is given, there is advice on how to look at the evidence that will make each case clear.
Skeptics have some sensible rules to go by, like extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence, or for the acceptance of the simplest explanation that covers all the evidence. Kelly is a teacher of physics and mathematics who for thirty years has employed such tools on paranormal claims. "Not cynicism, but a healthy skepticism," is her motto. "Not disbelief, but a reluctance to believe without substance." In each chapter, Kelly takes one phenomenon and examines evidence pro and con. She repeatedly confronts the human eagerness to believe in fun and fanciful explanations; it is more delightful, for instance, to conceive of aliens mystically bending crops rather than a couple of guys doing it with ropes and planks and stomping. Desire for fanciful explanations does not, however, trump the need for good evidence. She has acted as a psychic, using cold readings and impressing the credulous with her psychic powers. She insightfully reports how easy it would be in cold readings to fool herself into thinking she was getting her hits from some psychic source, just as she explains that when she has used a dowsing rod, she has been astounded by how real is the feeling that the rod is actually being pulled down. She'd like for such an indicator to really mean something, just as she'd love to be around when aliens do drop in for a visit, or she would enjoy having veridical prognostications via dreams. It's sometimes tough to be a skeptic.
Other topics here include the Shroud of Turin, spontaneous human combustion, ESP, levitation, Bigfoot, reincarnation, and many more. Kelly has repeatedly confronted those who are eager to believe in paranormal explanations for such things, and she admits, "Some believers accuse skeptics of having nothing left but a dull, cold, scientific world." She shows, however, that rigorously trying to examine the way the world works by our best investigative method, that of science, is anything but dull, and that anyway, our world presents plenty of enchanting realms like music, sex, love, and imagination that call upon no explanations, scientific or paranormal, to enjoy in full. She has written an instructive and useful guide about some very strange matters that can eventually be explained without recourse to anything beyond physics and human nature.
