3. Ibid., p. 149.
4. Ibid., p. 233.
5. Ibid., pp. 212–13.
6. Janelle Brown, “Nostradamus Called It! Internet Conspiracy Theorists Are Having a Field Day after the Attacks,” Salon, September 17, 2001, http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2001/09/17/kooks/index.html (accessed November 1, 2010).
7. Randi, Mask of Nostradamus, p. 223.
CHAPTER 9: “I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES.”
1. Harris Poll, “What People Do and Do Not Believe In,” Harris Interactive, December 15, 2009, http://www.harrisinteractive.com/vault/Harris_Poll_2009_12_15.pdf (accessed March 11, 2011).
2. Jonathan C. Smith, Pseudoscience and Extraordinary Claims of the Paranormal (West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), p. 130.
CHAPTER 10: “NASA FAKED THE MOON LANDINGS.”
1. Guy P. Harrison, “The Last Moonwalker,” Caymanian Compass, August 9, 2002, pp. A12–13.
2. Ibid.
3. Frank Newport, “Landing a Man on the Moon: The Public's View,” July 20, 1999, Gallup News Service, http://www.gallup.com/poll/3712/landing-man-moon-publics-view.aspx (accessed November 13, 2010).
4. Mary Lynne Dittmar, “Engaging the 18–25 Generation: Educational Outreach, Interactive Technologies, and Space,” Dittmar Associates, 2006, http://www.dittmar-associates.com/Publications/Engaging%20the%2018–25%20Gpdate~web.pdf (accessed January 26, 2011).
5. “Apollo 11 Hoax: One in Four People Do Not Believe in Moon Landing,” Telegraph, July 17, 2009, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/5851435/Apollo-11-hoax-one-in-four-people-do-not-believe-in-moon-landing.html (accessed January 3, 2011).
6. California Academy of Sciences, “American Adults Flunk Basic Science,” ScienceDaily, March 13, 2009, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090312115133.htm (accessed March 11, 2010).
7. Steve Crabtree, “New Poll Gauges Americans' General Knowledge Levels,” Gallup News Service, July 6, 1999, http://www.gallup.com/poll/3742/new-poll-gauges-americans-general-knowledge-levels.aspx (accessed January 1, 2011).
CHAPTER 11: “ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS WERE HERE.”
1. Nancy White, interview with the author, March 21, 2011.
2. Carl Sagan, The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (New York: Penguin, 2007), p. 129.
3. Penn State University, “How Were the Egyptian Pyramids Built?” ScienceDaily, March 29, 2008, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080328104302.htm (accessed March 28, 2011).
4. Erich von Däniken, Chariots of the Gods (Berkley, CA: Berkley Trade, 1999), p. 87.
5. Ibid., p. 96.
6. Ibid., p. 65.
7. Ibid., p. 73.
CHAPTER 12: “UFOS ARE VISITORS FROM OTHER WORLDS.”
1. Read about the Drake equation on SETI's website: http://www.seti.org/drakeequation.
2. Linda Lyons, “Paranormal Beliefs Come (Super) Naturally to Some,” Gallup News Service, November 1, 2005, http://www.gallup.com/poll/19558/paranormal-beliefs-come-supernaturally-some.aspx (accessed January 3, 2011).
3. Antonio Regalado, “Poll: Mexicans Express Belief in Spirits, Not Science,” January 5, 2011, http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/01/poll-mexicans-express-belief-in.html?ref=hp (accessed June 9, 2011).
4. Steve Crabtree, “New Poll Gauges Americans' General Knowledge Levels,” Gallup News Service, July 6, 1999, http://www.gallup.com/poll/3742/new-poll-gauges-americans-general-knowledge-levels.aspx (accessed January 1, 2011).
5. Mark Lewis, interview with the author, September 7, 2011.
6. Stephen Webb, If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens…Where Is Everybody? (New York: Copernicus Books, 2002), p. 30.
7. Stephen L. Macknic and Susana Martinez-Conde, Sleights of Mind (New York: Henry Holt, 2010), pp. 11–12.
8. D. J. Simons, C. F. Chabris, “What People Believe about How Memory Works: A Representative Survey of the U.S. Population,” PLoS ONE 6, no. 8: e22757.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022757, http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022757 (accessed August 11, 2011).
9. The video is available at www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/videos.html.
10. Philip Plait, Bad Astronomy (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2002), pp. 202–204.
11. Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, The Invisible Gorilla and Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us (New York: Crown, 2010), pp. 8–10.
12. Paul Davies, The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010), p. 19.
13. Andrew Fraknoi, “An Astronomer Looks at UFOs: A Lot Less Than Meets the Eye,” Skeptical Inquirer 33, no. 1, January/February 2009, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/astronomer_looks_at_ufos_a_lot_less_than_meets_the_eye (accessed January 5, 2011).
14. Seth Shostak, interview with the author, April 6, 2011.
CHAPTER 13: “A FLYING SAUCER CRASHED NEAR ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO, IN 1947 AND
THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS ALL ABOUT IT.”
1. “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer in Roswell Region,” Roswell Daily Record, July 8, 1947.
2. B. D. Gildenberg, “A Roswell Requiem,” Skeptic 10, no. 1 (2003): 60–61.
3. Ibid., p. 61.
4. Ibid., p. 62.
5. Ibid., p. 63.
6. Charles Berlitz and William L. Moore, The Roswell Incident (New York: Berkley Books, 1980).
7. Joe Kittinger, interview with the author. Quoted in Guy P. Harrison, “I Was the First Man in Space,” Caymanian Compass, October 26, 2001. The complete interview with Joe Kittinger can be read at http://www.spaceguy.8k.com/custom.html, under the heading “I Was the First Man in Space.”
8. Ibid.
9. Gildenberg, “Roswell Requiem.”
10. Air Force Web Information Service, “The Roswell Report: Case Closed,” US Air Force, June 24, 1997, http://www.af.mil/information/roswell/index.asp (accessed February 22, 2011).
11. Kittinger, interview.
12. Jonah Lehrer, “Ads Implant False Memories,” Wired, May 25, 2011, http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/05/ads-implant-false-memories/ (accessed July 4, 2011).
13. Frank Newport, “What If Government Really Listened to the People?” Gallup News Service, October 15, 1997, http://www.gallup.com/poll/4594/What-Government-Really-Listened-People.aspx (accessed January 11, 2011).
14. Linda Lyons, “Paranormal Beliefs Come (Super) Naturally to Some,” Gallup News Service, November 1, 2005, http://www.gallup.com/poll/19558/paranormal-beliefs-come-supernaturally-some.aspx (accessed March 15, 2011).
CHAPTER 14: “ALIENS HAVE VISITED EARTH
AND ABDUCTED MANY PEOPLE.”
1. Frank Newport, “Americans More Likely to Believe in God Than the Devil, Heaven More Than Hell,” Gallup News Service, June 13, 2007, http://www.gallup.com/poll/27877/Americans-More-Likely-Believe-God-Than-Devil-Heaven-More-Than-Hell.aspx (accessed November 3, 2010).
2. Susan A. Clancy, Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), pp. 28–29.
3. Ibid., p. 33.
4. Kat McGowan, “Past Perfect,” in “The Brain,” special issue, Discover (Fall 2010): 69–70.
5. Clancy, Abducted, p. 59.
6. Elizabeth Loftus, interview with the author, March 27, 2011.
7. Clancy, Abducted, p. 35.
CHAPTER 15: “ASTROLOGY IS SCIENTIFIC.”
1. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths,” Pew Forum, December 9, 2009, http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/Many-Americans-Mix-Multiple-Faiths.aspx (accessed March 10, 2011).
2. Time Staff, “Good Heavens! An Astrologer Dictating the President's Schedule?” Time, May 16, 1988, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,967389–1,00.html (accessed March 10, 2011).
CHAPTER 16: “ALL SCIENTISTS ARE GENIUSES
AND SCIENCE IS ALWAYS RIGHT.”
1. These examples are taken from “Not Even Wrong,” in “Genius,” special issue, Discover (Wint
er 2011): 94–95.
2. “VP: US Conducted 17 Types of Experiments on Guatemalans,” Latin American Herald Tribune, January 15, 2011, http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=373723&CategoryId=23558 (accessed January 15, 2011).
CHAPTER 17: “THE HOLOCAUST NEVER HAPPENED.”
1. Guy P. Harrison, “Band of Brothers,” Caymanian Compass, September 7, 2001, p. A19.
2. Guy P. Harrison, “Embraced by Evil,” Caymanian Compass, December 5, 2002, pp. 15–16.
3. Guy P. Harrison, “Defying Hitler's Evil,” Caymanian Compass, August 8, 2003, p. A16.
4. Guy P. Harrison, “Stronger Than Evil,” Caymanian Compass, March 5, 2004, pp. A25–26.
5. Michael Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things (New York: MJF Books, 1997), p. 190.
6. Ibid., p. 212.
7. Ibid., p. 214.
8. Nick Wynne, interview with the author, March 27, 2011.
CHAPTER 18: “GLOBAL WARMING IS A POLITICAL ISSUE AND NOTHING MORE.”
1. Nathanial Gronewold and Christa Marshall, “Rising Partisanship Sharply Erodes US Public's Belief in Global Warming,” New York Times, December 3, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/12/03/03climatewire-rising-partisanship-sharply-erodes-us-public-47381.html (accessed October 19, 2011).
2. Ibid.
CHAPTER 19: “TELEVISION NEWS GIVES ME AN ACCURATE VIEW OF THE WORLD.”
1. Benjamin Radford, Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003), p. 69.
2. Ibid.
3. Daniel Gardner, The Science of Fear (New York: Dutton, 2008), p. 250.
4. Ibid., pp. 250–51.
5. Chris Hedges, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (New York: Nation Books, 2010), p. 44.
CHAPTER 21: “BIOLOGICAL RACE DETERMINES SUCCESS IN SPORTS.”
1. Michael Jordan, Driven from Within (New York: Atria, 2006), p. 33.
CHAPTER 22: “MOST CONSPIRACY THEORIES ARE TRUE.”
1. Thomas Hargrove, “Third of Americans Suspect 9–11 Government Conspiracy,” Scripps News, August 11, 2006, www.scrippsnews.com/911poll (accessed July 22, 2011).
2. Jon Hamilton, “Psst! The Human Brain Is Wired for Gossip,” Morning Edition, May 20, 2011, http://www.npr.org/2011/05/20/136465083/psst-the-human-brain-is-wired-for-gossip (accessed June 28, 2011).
CHAPTER 23: “ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE IS BETTER.”
1. Pride Chigwedere, George R. Seage III, Sofia Gruskin, Tun-Hou Lee, and M. Essex, “Estimating the Lost Benefits of Antiretroviral Drug Use in South Africa,” Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome 49, no. 4 (December 1, 2008): 410, http://www.aids.harvard.edu/Lost_Benefits.pdf (accessed December 1, 2008).
2. Ibid., p. 414.
3. Richard L. Nahin, Patricia M. Barnes, Barbara J. Stussman, and Barbara Bloom, “Costs of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) and Frequency of Visits to CAM Practitioners: United States, 2007,” National Health Statistics Report 18 (July 30, 2009), http://www.cdc.gov/NCHS/data/nhsr/nhsr018.pdf (accessed March 3, 2011).
4. Ibid., p. 3.
5. A. Malik and S. Gopalan, “Use of CAM Results in Delay in Seeking Medical Advice for Breast Cancer,” European Journal of Epidemiology (August 18, 2003), http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=12974558 (accessed March 6, 2011).
6. V. A. Luyckx, V. Steenkamp, and M. J. Stewart, “Acute Renal Failure Associated with the Use of Traditional Folk Remedies in South Africa,” Ren Fail (January 27, 2005), http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15717633 (accessed March 6, 2011).
7. Elizabeth Mendes, “In US, More Than 8 in 10 Rate Nurses, Doctors Highly,” Gallup News Service, December 13, 2010, http://www.gallup.com/poll/145214/rate-nurses-doctors-highly.aspx (accessed January 12, 2011).
8. Nany Shute, “Desperate for an Autism Cure,” Scientific American, October 2010, p. 81.
CHAPTER 24: “HOMEOPATHY REALLY WORKS,
AND NO SIDE EFFECTS!”
1. University of Abertay Dundee, “Homeopathy Is ‘Dangerous and Wasteful,’ Bioethics Expert Argues,” ScienceDaily, May 9, 2011, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110509065749.htm (accessed July 7, 2011).
2. Bruce Hood, The Science of Superstition: How the Developing Brain Creates Supernatural Beliefs (New York: HarperCollins Paperback, 2010), p. 157.
3. Ben Goldacre, Bad Science (New York: Faber and Faber, 2010), p. 35.
4. Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst, Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine (New York: W. W. Norton, 2008), p. 93.
5. Laura Donnelly, “Homeopathy Is Witchcraft, Say Doctors,” Telegraph, May 15, 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/alternativemedicine/7728281/Homeopathy-is-witchcraft-say-doctors.html (accessed December 10, 2010).
6. Katelyn Catanzariti, “Homeopath, Wife Jailed over Baby's Death,” Sydney Morning Herald, September 28, 2009, http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/homeopath-wife-jailed-over-babys-death-20090928-g8w4.html (accessed January 22, 2011).
7. Richard Oakley, “Call for Stricter Checks on Therapists,” Sunday Times, June 19, 2005, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article535014.ece (accessed January 1, 2011).
8. “Healer Dies after Letting Cut Foot Rot,” Metro, November 17, 2008, http://www.metro.co.uk/news/405720-healer-dies-after-letting-cut-foot-rot (accessed March 15, 2011).
9. Yusuke Fukui and Akiko Okazaki, “Homeopathy under Scrutiny after Lawsuit over Death of Infant,” Asahi Shimbun, September 6, 2010, http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201008050254.html (accessed January 20, 2011).
10. Pallab Ghosh, “Homeopathic Practices ‘Risk Lives,’” BBC News, July 13, 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5178488.stm (accessed January 22, 2011).
CHAPTER 25: “FAITH HEALING CURES THE SICK
AND SAVES LIVES.”
1. The problem of unhealed amputees has its own site at http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/god5.htm.
2. Guy P. Harrison, “God Is in This Place,” Caymanian Compass, November 19, 1993, pp. 10–11.
3. Terrence Hines, Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003), pp. 346–48.
CHAPTER 26: “RACE-BASED MEDICINE IS A GREAT IDEA.”
1. American Anthropological Association, “Statement on ‘Race,’” May 17, 1998, http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm (accessed February 1, 2011).
2. Kenan Malik, “Is This the Future We Really Want? Different Drugs for Different Races,” TimesOnline, June 18, 2005, www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article534565.ece (accessed January 11, 2011).
3. Charles N. Rotimi, “Are Medical and Nonmedical Uses of Large-Scale Genomic Markers Conflating Genetics and ‘Race’?” Nature Genetics, October 2004.
4. Jonathon Marks, interview by the author, February 2009.
5. National Human Genome Research Institute, “The Human Genome Project Completion,” April 14, 2003, updated October 30, 2010, http://www.genome.gov/11006943 (accessed March 3, 2011).
6. Emily Singer, “The $30 Genome?” Technology Review, June 7, 2010, http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/25481/ (accessed November 10, 2010).
7. “Backgrounders from the Unnatural Causes Health Equity Database,” from Unnatural Causes…Is Inequality Making Us Sick? pp. 9–10, www.unnaturalcauses.org (companion website for documentary; accessed November 6, 2010).
8. Ibid., p. 10.
CHAPTER 27: “NO VACCINES FOR MY BABY!”
1. Paul A. Offit, Book TV, C-Span2, January 27, 2011.
2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Update: Measles,” August 28, 2008, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5733a1.htm (accessed February 12, 2011).
3. Paul A. Offit, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All (New York: Basic Books, 2010), p. 92.
4. Paul A. Offit, Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure (New York: Columbia University Press, 2
010), p. 24.
5. Offit, Deadly Choices, pp. 94–96.
6. Michael Specter, Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives (New York: Penguin Press, 2009), p. 72.
7. Andy Coghlan, “Autism Rises Despite MMR Ban in Japan,” New Scientist, March 5, 2005, www.newscientist.com/article/mg18524895.300-autism-rises-despite-mmr-ban-in-japan.html (accessed January 15, 2011).
8. Specter, Denialism, p. 71.
9. United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), “Vaccines Bring Seven Diseases under Control,” http://www.unicef.org/pon96/hevaccin.htm (accessed January 17, 2011).
10. Offit, Deadly Choices, p. ix.
11. Paul A. Offit, interview with the author, April 14, 2011.
12. Offit, Deadly Choices, p. ix.
13. Ibid., p. xviii.
14. Ibid., p. 37.
15. World Health Organization, “Influenza,” March 2003, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/2003/fs211/en/ (accessed April 2, 2011).
16. Shawn R. Browning, interview with the author, March 3, 2011.
17. Offit, Autism's False Prophets, p. 247.
18. Specter, Denialism, p. 97.
19. Sarah Bruyn Jones, “Whooping Cough Outbreak in Floyd County Blamed on Lax Vaccinations,” Roanoke Times, April 6, 2011, http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/282419 (accessed April 11, 2011).
CHAPTER 29: “MY RELIGION IS THE ONE THAT'S TRUE.”
1. Steven Prothero, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know—And Doesn't (New York: HarperOne, 2007), p. 5.
2. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “US Religious Knowledge Survey,” September 28, 2010, http://pewforum.org/other-beliefs-and-practices/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey.aspx (accessed November 27, 2010).
CHAPTER 30: “CREATIONISM IS TRUE AND EVOLUTION IS NOT.”
1. Guy P. Harrison, “The Dinosaur Hunter,” Caymanian Compass, September 14, 2001, p. B6.
2. Guy P. Harrison, “Lucy in the Sky,” Caymanian Compass, August 23, 2002, p. A11.
3. Frank Newport, “Four in 10 Americans Believe in Strict Creationism,” Gallup News Service, December 17, 2010, http://www.gallup.com/poll/145286/Four-Americans-Believe-Strict-Creationism.aspx (accessed January 3, 2011).
4. Tim White, interview with the author. Quoted in Guy P. Harrison, “Who's Your Daddy?” Caymanian Compass, October 17, 2003, p. A16.
50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True Page 43