Abelson, Robert, 117

accountability, 222–23

Agnew, Spiro, 136

AIDS, 225–26

Alexander the Great, 134

alien abduction, 20, 49, 90

alternative medicine, 12, 25–26, 56–60

National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 60

American College Testing program, 131

anecdotal data, 16–18, 35–38

Angell, Marcia, 37

Animal House (movie), 49

aphorisms, 78

appeal to ignorance, 244

argument from authority, 217–18

Aristotle, 57, 95

asbestos, 15

Asch, Solomon, 219

astrology, 14, 30, 109, 136–37, 169

Atlantis, 34, 41

autism, 26–28

bankruptcy prediction, 171

Bass, Ellen, 205

Bay of Pigs, 227

Beatles, the, 46

belief

definition of, 14

ways to improve, 53–57

belief continuum, 52–53

bell curve, 87–88, 176

Belsky, Gary, 145

Bergson, Henri-Louis, 103

Berle, Milton, 201

Bermuda triangle, 28–29

Berra, Yogi, 16, 133

Bigfoot, 28, 49, 225

bin Laden, Osama, 134

Bird, Larry, 93

Blackmore, Susan, 40

Blaine, David, 48

Blakeslee, Sandra, 114

Boggs, Wade, 97–98

Bohr, Neils, 133

Bono, Sonny, 21

Borg, Bjorn, 97

Boston Globe, 151

Bradley, Bill, 136

breast implants, 12, 35–37

Dow Corning, 36

lawsuits, 36

New England Journal of Medicine, 37

studies of, 36–37

Brokaw, Tom, 225

Bryson, George, 95, 96

Burns, George, 271

Bush, George H. W., 178

Bush, George W., 136, 156, 217, 227–28

BusinessWeek, 152

Cambridge Psychological Society, 203

Capgras' delusion, 115

Carlin, George, 150, 183

cause and effect relationships, 19

Cayce, Edgar, 41, 90

Challenger explosion, 193, 203, 227

chance and coincidence, 18–19, 85–100, 234

coin flips, 88–89

computing probabilities, 88–89

searching for causal explanations, 86–87

chaos theory, 153–54

Chapman, Jean, 124–25

Chapman, Loren, 124–25

Cheney, Vice President Dick, 156

Churchill, Winston, 154

CIA, 29–30, 156–57

and the Stargate program, 29–30

clinical psychology, 199–200

coincidence, 95–97

cold fusion, 73–74

cold reading, 61–64

Columbia School of Journalism, 34

Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), 136

common sense, 32, 78

complexity theory, 153–54

confirming decision strategies, 18, 155–65, 234

and gambling behavior, 157–58

hypothesis testing, 159–62

ignoring contradictory evidence, 156

jury decisions, 161–62

positive test strategy, 162–63

conformity, 218–21

Consumer Reports, 17

continental drift, 76

correlation, 128–32

directionality problem, 129

not causation, 128–29

selection bias, 130–31

third variable problem, 129–30

Courage to Heal, The (Bass and Davis), 205

creationism, 248–49

Crichton, Michael, 98

crime, 12–13

crime rate, 32

murder at work, 43

in schools, 35

Culture of Fear, The (Glassner), 44

Darwin, Charles, 51

Dateline, 37

Davis, Laura, 205

Dawes, Robyn, 195, 200, 270

Dawkins, Daryl, 93

Dean, John, 203–204, 228

decisions

how we simplify, 167–82

relation to beliefs, 13

Descartes, René, 51

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, The, 271

diagnosticity of a test, 170–71

Diana, Princess of Wales, 136

diffusion of responsibility, 221–22

Dineen, T., 271

Discovery Channel, 32, 46

disease, variability of, 59–60

Dixon, Jeanne, 134, 136

dowsing, 26, 34

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 30–31

draw-a-person test, 125–26

drug use, 32, 34, 178

Duvall, David, 172

economic forecasting, 148–50

Economist, 149

efficient market hypothesis, 144–45

Ehrlich, Paul, 153

Einstein, Albert, 51, 67, 159

Eisenhower, Dwight, 17

Entine, Jon, 191

ESP, 12, 29, 34, 40, 81, 90–91, 156

Euripides, 53

Evans, Michael, 149

evolution, 74–75

expectations

effect on judgments, 105–106

effect on perceptions, 103–106, 116–17

experimental method, 68–71

confounding variables, 73

double-blind studies, 70

importance of controls, 69–71

importance of randomization, 71

extraordinary claims, requiring extraordinary evidence, 46–48

extraterrestrials, 29, 49

facilitated communication, 27–28, 42

fairies, 30, 49

faith, 83, 236

FBI, 170

Federal Reserve, 148

firewalking, 55

Fischoff, Barruch, 192

Fleishman, Martin, 73–74

flesh-eating bacteria, 34

Forer effect, 63, 137

Fox television, 33

framing effects, 183–87

Asian disease example, 183–84

France, Anatole, 215

Frank, Mark, 105

Franken, Al, 158

Frazier, Kendrick, 71

Fridson, Martin, 139

Futures (magazine), 152

Future Shock (Toffler), 153

Gallico, Paul, 191

Gallup poll, 29, 40

gamblers fallacy, 91–95

Gardner, Martin, 241

Genovese, Kitty, 221

ghosts, 11, 46–48, 117

Gilovich, Thomas, 92–93, 105, 135, 145, 237

Glassner, Barry, 35

Glick, Peter, 109

Graham, Benjamin, 146–47

graphology, 30, 126

gremlins, 45, 49, 55

Gretzky, Wayne, 97

group decision-making, 226–31

accuracy of, 230–31

group polarization, 228–29

groupthink, 227–28

Hahneman, Samuel, 56

Haldeman, Robert, 203–204

Halloween, 43

hallucinations, 12, 110–11, 117

Buerger's disease, 115–16

Charles Bonnet syndrome, 114

fantasy-prone personalities, 111

hypnogogic and hypnopompic, 12, 111, 117

International Census of Waking Hallucinations, 110

and mass hysteria, 111–13

monkey man, 20, 112

REM sleep, 110

sleep paralysis, 110–11

halo effect, 104

Hastie, Reid, 230

haunted houses, 29

Head Start, 79

Hennis, Timothy, 211–12

heuristics, 167–82

anchoring and adjustment, 179–82

availability, 176–79

availability and the media, 177–79

benefits of, 182

conjunction fallacy, 174–75

definition, 167

disregarding sample size, 173–74

neglecting base rates, 169–71

representativeness, 168–76

Hewitt, Don, 37–38

hindsight bias, 191–93

Hines, Terence, 244–45

hippocampus, 274–75

History Channel, 32

Hitler, 134, 227

homeopathy, 12, 56–57

homosexuality, 43, 124–25

hot hand, 92–95

and the Boston Celtics, 92–93

and the Philadelphia 76ers, 92–93

Hussein, Saddam, 156

hypnosis, 22, 201, 202, 205–206

hypotheses

conflict with well-established knowledge, 56–57

consider alternatives, 54

definition of, 72

reasonableness of, 54

simplest explanation, 55–56

testability, 55

individuals versus groups, 199–200

intelligent design, 249

interviews, 195–96

intuitive judgments, 195–98

college admission decisions, 195–96

parole board decisions, 197

of professionals, 197–98

versus statistical models, 196–98

intuitive physics, 77

Iraq war, 136, 156, 227–28

Irving, Janus, 227

Irving, Julius, 92

Jensen, Michael, 140

Jillette, Penn, 81, 85, 97

Jung, Carl, 96

Jurassic Park (Crichton), 98

Kahneman, Daniel, 180, 184

Kelly, Jim, 97

Kennedy, John F., 134, 227

Kennedy, Michael, 21

Ketcham, Katherine, 202

Kimmel, Admiral, 155

King, Martin Luther, Jr., 134

Kosinski, Jerzy, 104

Langer, Eileen, 194

Learning Channel, 32

Letterman, David, 136

levitation, 39

Liddy, Gordon, 204

lie detector test, 160–61, 171

Lies, and the Lying Liars who Tell Them (Franken), 158

Loftus, Elizabeth, 194, 202, 207–208, 212

loss aversion, 186–87

lunar landing hoax, 33

Mack, John, 31, 90, 218

Madey, Scott, 135

Malkiel, Burton, 122–23, 141–42, 143, 145, 147, 239

Mander, Alfred, 236

Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, The (Sacks), 115

mass hysteria, 20, 111–13

McCartney, Paul, 46–47

McCloskey, Michael, 77

McLaine, Shirley, 30

Meehl, Paul, 270

memory, 201–14

childhood sexual abuse, 21–22, 201, 204–208

creating new, 22, 204

effect of suggestive questioning, 22, 204–209, 235

eyewitness court testimony, 211–13

flashbulb memories, 203

misattribution, 210–13

people's view of, 22, 202

reconstruction, 22, 208–209

repressed memory 22, 201, 204–208

space shuttle Challenger explosion, 203

mental accounts, 187–91

Microsoft, 153

Midler, Bette, 223

Milgram, Stanley, 216–17

misperceptions, 19–20, 101–17, 234

effect of desires, 19–20, 106–109

effect of expectations, 19–20, 103–106

hallucinations, 12, 103, 110–11, 114, 116–17, 234

mass hysteria, 20, 111–13

motion blindness, 113–14

neurobiological problems, 113–16

Mozart effect, 79

murder, 34

in the workplace, 43

mutual funds, 18–19, 140–44

Myers, David, 265

My Life and Prophecies (Dixon), 136

Nash, John, 110

National Institutes of Health, 60

National Science Board, 71

near-death experience, 12

negative data, paying attention to, 126–28

Neisser, Ulric, 203

neural structures, 116

New England Journal of Medicine, 37

Newton, Isaac, 75

New York Times, 152, 178

Nickell, Joe, 33, 241, 253

Nixon, Richard, 203–204, 217, 227

Norman, Greg, 172

Nostradamus, 133–35

obedience, 215–18

Oberg, James, 45, 52

Occam's razor, 56, 86, 94, 96, 117

Ofshe, Richard, 207

Old Farmer's Almanac, 151

operant conditioning, 98–99

Orne, Martin, 206

overconfidence, 193–95

oversimplifying, 20–21, 167–82, 234–35

paradigm, 75

paranormal beliefs, 28–34, 39–40, 46–48, 90–91

parapsychology, 39–40

Parcells, Bill, 97

pareidolia, 109

Pauling, Linus, 218

Pearl Harbor, 155

pedophiles, 43

peer review, 72–74

Penfield, Wilder, 110

penis-shrinking panics, 20, 112–13

Penn and Teller, 81

perception, 101–17

and judgment, 101

neurobiological problems, 113–16

religious influences, 107

seeing what we expect, 103–106

seeing what we want 106–109

Persinger, Michael, 110

Phaedrus, 101

Phantom Gasser of Mattoon, 111–12

placebo effect, 59–60, 69–70

planning fallacy, 193

Pons, Stanley, 73–74

Popper, Karl, 55, 163, 233

Population Bomb, The (Ehrlich), 153

prediction, 133–54

economic forecasting, 148–50

psychic, 133–37

stock market, 138–48

technological trends, 152–53

weather, 150–52

why we can't predict, 153–54

pseudoscience, 39–40

compared to science, 80–82

pseudoscientific thinking, 15, 40–44

psychics, 14, 42–43, 61–65, 133–37

talking with the dead, 61–65

psychology of judgment and decision-making, 15

Psychology Today, 67, 241–42, 248

Ramachandran, V. S., 114, 116

Randi, James, 31, 33, 38, 65, 97, 241

one-million-dollar challenge, 31

random processes, misperceiving, 93–95

RCA, 152–53

Reagan, Nancy, 14, 136

Reagan, Ronald, 30, 210

Regan, Donald, 30

regression to the mean, 19, 144, 172–73

reliability of evidence from others, 223–26

remote viewing, 32–33

repressed memory, 22, 201, 205–208

Rhine, J. B., 39

Rorschach inkblot test, 123–26

Exner comprehensive system, 255

Rosa, Emily, 58

roulette, 13, 87–89, 91–92, 95, 96

Russell, Bertrand, 28, 45, 52, 233

Sacks, Oliver, 115

Sagan, Carl, 40, 49, 51–52, 55

Salem witch trials, 208

satanic rituals, 113

SAT scores, 130–32

Schacter, Daniel, 213, 214

Schick, Theodore, 50, 53, 236

schizophrenia, 110

Schnaars, Stephen, 152

schools, public versus private, 129–30

science, 67–83

consensus view, 76–77

definition of, 71–72

definition of theory, 74

difference between pseudoscience, 80–81

error correcting mechanism, 72–73

facts are provisional, 74

how it operates, 72–74

how it progresses, 74–77

public's misperceptions, 77–80

and skepticism, 51–53, 81

thinking like a scientist, 82–83

Seinfeld, Jerry, 124

self-esteem, 12–13, 32, 68, 129

self-fulfilling prophecies, 164

SETI project, 52, 80

sexual abuse, 21–22, 201, 204–208

shark attacks, 34–35, 176

Shaw, George Bernard, 25

Sherden, William, 141–43, 151, 153, 154

Shermer, Michael, 33, 60, 64, 72, 86, 90, 91, 97, 157, 239

simplifying strategies, 20–21, 167–82

Simpsons, The, 210

60 Minutes, 37, 160–61

Skeptic magazine, 60

skeptics and skepticism, 16, 33, 51–53, 81

definition of, 16, 51–52

importance of skeptical thinking, 51–53

Skeptics Society, 239

Skinner, B. F., 98

Snyder, Mark, 160

Speer, Albert, 227

spiritualism, 49

Sports Illustrated jinx, 173

Stahl, Leslie, 37–38

Standard & Poor's 500, 13, 140–43

Stanovich, Keith, 32, 75, 79

statistics, 16–18, 233–34

stereotyping, 175–76

stock market, 13, 119–23, 138–48

beating the market, 140

Black Monday, 145

chartists, 120–22

dart board contest, 142

effect of frequent trades, 143–44

Forbes honor role funds, 142

fundamental analysis, 146–47

gurus, 143

mutual fund performance, 140–43

predicting, 138–48

technical analysis, 120–23

why we can't predict, 144–46

stories versus statistics, 16–18, 233–34

subliminal tapes, 67–68

superstition, 97–100

and coincidence, 98–99

in sports, 97–99

Survivor (television show), 85

Thaler, Richard, 189

therapeutic touch, 25–26, 57–60

things come in threes, 53–54

Thoreau, Henry David, 167

Time, 35

Toffler, Alvin, 153

Tomlin, Lily, 11

Travel Channel, 32

Tversky, Amos, 92, 180, 184

Twain, Mark, 119, 132, 138

20/20, 34, 37

US Food and Drug Administration, 36

U.S. News & World Report, 35

Vallone, Robert, 92

Vaughn, Lewis, 50, 53, 236

Vyse, Stuart, 100

Wallace, Mike, 37–38

Wall Street Journal, 18, 142, 152

warm reading, 64–65

Washington Post, 178

Watergate, 203–204, 227, 228

weather forecasting, 150–52

Climate Analysis Center, 150–51

Old Farmer's Almanac, 151

World Meteorological Organization, 150

Wegener, Alfred, 76

weird beliefs, 28–35

Wells, Gary, 213

Woods, Tiger, 172

World Trade Center disaster, 108, 133–35, 203

face of devil in smoke, 108

and Nostradamus, 133–35

Zener cards, 39, 70, 90