Preface

1. Introduction: Close Encounters with the Strange

The Importance of Why / Beyond Weird to The Absurd / A Weirdness Sampler

2. The Possibility of the Impossible

Paradigms and the Paranormal / Logical Possibility versus Physical Impossibility / The Appeal to Ignorance / The Possibility of Esp / Theories and Things / On Knowing the Future

3. Looking for Truth in Personal Experience

Seeming and Being / Perceiving: True or False? / Perceptual Constancies / The Role of Expectation / Looking for Clarity in Vagueness / The Blondlot Case / "Constructing" UFOs / Remembering: Do We Revise the Past? / Judging: The Habit of Unwarranted Assumptions / Against All Odds / Selective Attention / The Limits of Personal Experience

4. Relativism, Truth, and Reality

We Each Create Our Own Reality / Reality is Socially Constructed / Reality is Consituted by Conceptual Schemes / Facing Reality

5. Knowledge, Belief, and Evidence

Babylonian Knowledge-Acquisition Techniques / Propositional Knowledge / Reasons and Evidence / Expert Opinion / Coherence and Justification / Sources of Knowledge / The Appeal to Faith / The Appeal to Intuition / The Appeal to Mystical Experience / Astrology Revisited

6. Evidence and Inference

Denying the Evidence / Confirmation Bias / The Availability Error / The Representativeness Heuristic / A Little Logic

7. Science and Its Pretenders

Science and Dogma / Science and Scientism / Scientific Methodology / Confirming and Confuting Hypotheses / Criteria of Adequacy / Testability / Fruitfulness / Scope / Simplicity / Conservatism / Creationism, Evolution, and Criteria of Adequacy / Parapsychology

8. How to Assess a ¿Miracle Cure¿

Personal Experience / The Variable Nature of Illness / The Placebo Effect / Overlooked Causes / The Doctor¿s Evidence / The Appeal to Tradition / The Reasons of Science / Medical Research / Types of Studies

9. Case Studies in the Extraordinary

The Search Formula /

Step 1: State the Claim /

Step 2: Examine the Evidence for the Claim /

Step 3: Consider Alternative Hypotheses /

Step 4: Rate, According to the Criteria of Adequacy, Each Hypothesis

Dowsing / UFO Abductions / Communicating with the Dead / Near-Death Experiences

Appendix:

Informal Fallacies / Unacceptable Premises / Begging the Question / False Dilemma / Irrelevant Premises / Equivocation / Composition / Division / Appeal to the Person / Genetic Fallacy / Appeal to Authority / Appeal to the Masses / Appeal to Tradition / Appeal to Ignorance / Appeal to Fear / Insufficient Premises / Hasty Generalization / Faulty Analogy / False Cause

In each chapter:

Study Questions

Suggested Readings

Notes