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| Foreword | |
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| Preface | |
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| Introduction: Close Encounters with the Strange | |
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| The Importance of Why | |
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| Beyond Weird to the Absurd | |
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| A Weirdness Sampler | |
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| Notes | |
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| The Possibility of the Impossible | |
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| Paradigms and the Paranormal | |
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| Logical Possibility Versus Physical Impossibility | |
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| The Possibility of ESP | |
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| Theories and Things | |
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| On Knowing the Future | |
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| Summary | |
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| Study Questions | |
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| Evaluate These Claims | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| Field Problem | |
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| Critical Reading and Writing | |
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| Notes | |
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| Arguments Good, Bad, and Weird | |
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| Claims and Arguments | |
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| Deductive Arguments | |
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| Inductive Arguments | |
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| Enumerative Induction | |
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| Analogical Induction | |
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| Hypothetical Induction (Abduction, or Inference to the Best Explanation) | |
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| Informal Fallacies | |
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| Unacceptable Premises | |
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| Begging the Question | |
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| False Dilemma | |
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| Irrelevant Premises | |
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| Equivocation | |
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| Composition | |
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| Division | |
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| Appeal to the Person | |
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| Genetic Fallacy | |
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| Appeal to Authority | |
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| Appeal to the Masses | |
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| Appeal to Tradition | |
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| Appeal to Ignorance | |
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| Appeal to Fear | |
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| Straw Man | |
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| Insufficient Premises | |
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| Hasty Generalization | |
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| Faulty Analogy | |
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| False Cause | |
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| Slippery Slope | |
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| Statistical Fallacies | |
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| Misleading Averages | |
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| Missing Values | |
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| Hazy Comparisons | |
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| Summary | |
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| Study Questions | |
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| Evaluate These Claims | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| Field Problem | |
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| Critical Reading and Writing | |
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| Notes | |
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| Knowledge, Belief, and Evidence | |
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| Babylonian Knowledge-Acquisition Techniques | |
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| Propositional Knowledge | |
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| Reasons and Evidence | |
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| Expert Opinion | |
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| Coherence and Justification | |
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| Sources of Knowledge | |
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| The Appeal to Faith | |
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| The Appeal to Intuition | |
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| The Appeal to Mystical Experience | |
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| Astrology Revisited | |
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| Summary | |
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| Study Questions | |
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| Evaluate These Claims | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| Field Problem | |
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| Critical Reading and Writing | |
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| Notes | |
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| Looking for Truth in Personal Experience | |
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| Seeming and Being | |
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| Perceiving: Why You Can't Always Believe What you See | |
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| Perceptual Constancies | |
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| The Role of Expectation | |
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| Looking for Clarity in Vagueness | |
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| The Blondlot Case | |
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| "Constructing" UFOs | |
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| Remembering: Why You Cant Always Trust What You Recall | |
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| Conceiving: Why You Sometimes See What You Believe | |
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| Denying the Evidence | |
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| Subjective Validation | |
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| Confirmation Bias | |
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| The Availability Error | |
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| The Representativeness Heuristic | |
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| Anthropomorphic Bias | |
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| Against All Odds | |
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| Anecdotal Evidence: Why Testimonials Can't be Trusted | |
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| The Variable Nature of Illness | |
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| The Placebo Effect | |
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| Overlooked Causes | |
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| Scientific Evidence: Why Controlled Studies Can be Trusted | |
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| Summary | |
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| Study Questions | |
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| Evaluate These Claims | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| Field Problem | |
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| Critical Reading and Writing | |
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| Notes | |
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| Science and Its Pretenders | |
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| Science and Dogma | |
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| Science and Scientism | |
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| Scientific Methodology | |
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| Confirming and Refuting Hypotheses | |
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| Criteria of Adequacy | |
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| Testability | |
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| Fruitfulness | |
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| Scope | |
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| Simplicity | |
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| Conservatism | |
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| Creationism, Evolution, and Criteria of Adequacy | |
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| Scientific Creationism | |
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| Intelligent Design | |
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| Parapsychology | |
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| Summary | |
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| Study Questions | |
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| Evaluate These Claims | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| Field Problem | |
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| Critical Reading and Writing | |
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| Notes | |
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| Case Studies in the Extraordinary | |
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| The Search Formula | |
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| State the Claim | |
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| Examine the Evidence for the Claim | |
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| Consider Alternative Hypotheses | |
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| Rate, According to the Criteria of Adequacy, Each Hypothesis | |
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| Homeopathy | |
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| Intercessory Prayer | |
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| UFO Abductions | |
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| Communicating with the Dead | |
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| Near-Death Experiences | |
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| Ghosts | |
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| Conspiracy Theories | |
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| Climate Change | |
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| Summary | |
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| Study Questions | |
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| Evaluate These Claims | |
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| Field Problem | |
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| Critical Reading and Writing | |
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| Notes | |
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| Relativism, Truth, and Reality | |
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| We Each Create Our Own Reality | |
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| Reality is Socially Constructed | |
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| Reality is Constituted by Conceptual Schemes | |
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| The Relativist's Petard | |
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| Facing Reality | |
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| Summary | |
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| Study Questions | |
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| Evaluate These Claims | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| Field Problem | |
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| Critical Reading and Writing | |
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| Notes | |
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| Credits | |
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| Index | |