How Superstition Won and Science Lost
Author | : John C. Burnham |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 381 |
Release | : 1987-01-01 |
Genre | : |
ISBN | : 9780783756592 |
Download How Superstition Won and Science Lost Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download How Superstition Won And Science Lost PDF full book. Access full book title How Superstition Won And Science Lost.
Author | : John C. Burnham |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 381 |
Release | : 1987-01-01 |
Genre | : |
ISBN | : 9780783756592 |
Author | : John Chynoweth Burnham |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 390 |
Release | : 1987 |
Genre | : Medical |
ISBN | : |
John Burnham studies the history of changing patterns in the dissemination, or "popularization," of scientific findings to the general public since 1830. Focusing on three different areas of science -- health, psychology, and the natural sciences -- Burnham explores the ways in which this process of popularization has deteriorated. He draws on evidence ranging from early lyceum lecturers to the new math and argues that today popular science is the functional equivalent of superstition.
Author | : Alexandra Bruce |
Publisher | : Red Wheel Weiser |
Total Pages | : 354 |
Release | : 2009-09-01 |
Genre | : Body, Mind & Spirit |
ISBN | : 9781934708514 |
The expanded companion book to the #1 documentary film about 2012! The 2012 meme has evolved beyond any debates about the relevance of the Maya Long Count calendar to the lives of contemporary human beings. 2012 is about us on planet Earth at this time. December 21, 2012: will the world really change forever on this date, the end of a 5,125-year calendar last used over a thousand years ago? Certainly Hollywood would like you to think so. Indeed, a not-so-small industry has arisen around the date, hawking everything from t-shirts to teleseminars. Clearing a path between fantasy and reality, Alexandra Bruce surveys the entire 2012 landscape, asking questions such as: Is the Earth losing its Mojo? How did 2012 come to mean "The End of Time"? Did psychedelics facilitate the Maya "Cosmovision"? Should we worry about Earth Crustal Displacement? What the hell is "Planet X"? Uniquely amongst a vast array of 2012 literature, this book features interviews with the leading experts—including Graham Hancock, John Major Jenkins, Daniel Pinchbeck and many others—and insightful, detailed analysis of the broad spectrum of opinion, debate, research and myth regarding the most compelling "end times" prediction of the 21st century.
Author | : Robert L. Park |
Publisher | : Princeton University Press |
Total Pages | : 241 |
Release | : 2008-09-22 |
Genre | : Religion |
ISBN | : 1400828775 |
Why the battle between superstition and science is far from over 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.
Author | : Stuart A. Vyse |
Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
Total Pages | : 329 |
Release | : 2013-11 |
Genre | : Medical |
ISBN | : 019999692X |
In this fully updated edition of Believing in Magic, renowned superstition expert Stuart Vyse investigates our tendency towards these irrational beliefs.
Author | : Stuart Vyse |
Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
Total Pages | : 169 |
Release | : 2020-01-23 |
Genre | : Social Science |
ISBN | : 0192551329 |
Do you touch wood for luck, or avoid hotel rooms on floor thirteen? Would you cross the path of a black cat, or step under a ladder? Is breaking a mirror just an expensive waste of glass, or something rather more sinister? Despite the dominance of science in today's world, superstitious beliefs - both traditional and new - remain surprisingly popular. A recent survey of adults in the United States found that 33 percent believed that finding a penny was good luck, and 23 percent believed that the number seven was lucky. Where did these superstitions come from, and why do they persist today? This Very Short Introduction explores the nature and surprising history of superstition from antiquity to the present. For two millennia, superstition was a label derisively applied to foreign religions and unacceptable religious practices, and its primary purpose was used to separate groups and assert religious and social authority. After the Enlightenment, the superstition label was still used to define groups, but the new dividing line was between reason and unreason. Today, despite our apparent sophistication and technological advances, superstitious belief and behaviour remain widespread, and highly educated people are not immune. Stuart Vyse takes an exciting look at the varieties of popular superstitious beliefs today and the psychological reasons behind their continued existence, as well as the likely future course of superstition in our increasingly connected world. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Author | : Elise Broach |
Publisher | : Henry Holt and Company (BYR) |
Total Pages | : 272 |
Release | : 2011-06-21 |
Genre | : Juvenile Fiction |
ISBN | : 1429975008 |
It's summer and the three Barker brothers—Simon, Henry, and Jack—just moved from Illinois to Arizona. Their parents have warned them repeatedly not to explore Superstition Mountain, which is near their home. But when their cat Josie goes missing, they see no other choice. There's something unusually creepy about the mountain and after the boys find three human skulls, they grow determined to uncover the mystery. Have people really gone missing over the years, and could there be someone or some thing lurking in the woods? Together with their new neighbor Delilah, the Barker boys are dead-set on cracking the case even if it means putting themselves in harm's way. Here's the first book in an action-packed mystery series by a New York Times bestselling author. Missing on Superstition Mountain is a Publishers Weekly Best Children's Fiction title for 2011.
Author | : Sophie Chiari |
Publisher | : Edinburgh University Press |
Total Pages | : 322 |
Release | : 2017-11-22 |
Genre | : Literary Criticism |
ISBN | : 1474427847 |
How can multicultural governance respond to our increasingly complex migratory world?
Author | : Steven Goldberg |
Publisher | : NYU Press |
Total Pages | : 230 |
Release | : 2000-10 |
Genre | : Religion |
ISBN | : 0814731058 |
American religion, Steven Goldberg claims, has fallen into a trap. Just at the moment when it has amassed the political strength and won the legal right to participate effectively in public debate, it has lost its distinctive voice. Instead of speaking of human values, goals, and limits, it speaks in the language of science. In the United States, science has extraordinary influence and respect. American religious leaders seeking prestige for their point of view regularly couch their responses to technological developments, or defend their faith, in scientific terms. They claim, for instance, that medical studies demonstrate the power of prayer, that science validates the Bible, including its account of creation, and that patenting the genetic code is dangerous because genes are the essence of who we are. But when ministers, priests, and rabbis expound on double-blind studies and the genetic causes of behavior, they do not elevate religion, Goldberg maintains, they trivialize it. Seduced by Science examines how, by allowing scientific discourse to set the terms of the debate, American religious leaders facilitate religion's move away from its more appropriate and important concerns of values, morality, and humility. Science can tell us a lot about what is but precious little about what ought to be and our religious leaders often miss the chance to add an important voice from a faith-based perspective to the public debate that follows scientific advances. Discussing the most recent and pressing collisions between science and religion-such as the medicinal benefits of prayer, the human genome project, and cloning-Goldberg raises the timely question of what the appropriate role of religion might be in public life today. Tackling the legal aspects of religious debate, Goldberg suggests ways that religious leaders might confront new scientific developments in a more meaningful fashion.
Author | : R. Townsend |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 0 |
Release | : 2002-04 |
Genre | : Religion |
ISBN | : 9780759693913 |
Archaeologists and others have been digging up the Holy Land for many years seeking lost information about Jesus. They should look instead at the words he claimed will not pass away. They are in the book, THE END OF SUPERSTITION.