Rating: 
Summary: Worth reading, but barely
Review: The title is what attracted me at first; who doesn't want to know the answer to that question? I found the first half of the book to be informative and interesting, particularly the section on the 25 faulty deductions that lead to the illogical. I have two complaints, however. First, Shermer uses a tactic employed by many people who want you to believe what they believe: it's the old, "I used to believe THIS, but then I had a revelation, and now I believe THAT." I've read this in Christian fundamentalist literature, and it's a barely veiled attempt to get us all on the bandwagon. It sounds as contrived coming from a skeptic as it does from a "true believer." Second, the section on Holocaust deniers was mediocre at best. I didn't know much about these revisionists beforehand and after reading this section I knew a little more, but I didn't understand them any better. It was actually arranged something like a rogues' gallery of revisionists, more of a "Who believes weird things" than "Why they believe it..." I'd recommend this book for people interested in acquiring discrete tastes of controversial topics, but don't expect an answer to the question Shermer's title challenges us with. Perhaps that's why Shermer renamed his latest book from "Why People Believe in God" to "How We Believe." It's a different approach and maybe one that's easier to answer.
Rating: 
Summary: A great book that distinguishes Skepticism vs. Cynicism
Review: This book is a pleasure to read--I couldn't put it down! It is direct, insightful, and humorous. One of the author's main themes is that healthy skepticism does NOT go hand in hand with cynicism. This is a refreshing and optimistic attitude given the present-day clash between over-zealous believers and dismissive skeptics. The book explains why both of these attitudes are dangerous. On one hand, blind belief goes beyond harmless superstition and gullibility: it often encourages ignorance. For example: teaching creationism alongside evolution in biology classes. The pretext for this is "democratizing" science teaching and letting the students "decide for themselves." Should we also let them vote on whether the Earth goes around the Sun vs. the other way around? After all this would be just as blatant a disregard for evidence. On the other hand, dismissive skepticism breeds muted complacency on the part of scientists and others who could take a stand against the noisy perpetuation of ignorance and all the dangers that lurk with it. While the book stops short of calling for activism in this area, it gives us guidelines for "baloney detection" (a term borrowed from another great book by Carl Sagan: "The Demon Haunted World"). This is a great book, and I can't wait to read Mr. Shermer's next book "How We Believe."
Rating:
Summary: A book with some great highlights, but a few flaws.
Review: I really can't add a whole lot to what has been said by prior reviewers. I think that they pretty much nailed it on the head. But here's my take anyway. The first 1/3 of the book is excellent and a must read. As mentioned before, the list of logical errors and fallacies is great food for thought. The second 1/3 is still very interesting, although Shermer doesn't really back up his claims about the feedback loop concept which he uses to describe cult accusations. Unfortunately, this book doesn't provide enough information to prove his hypotheses, and although it has an extensive bibliography, I don't have the time to read all these other books. The final 1/3 of the book, on creation and the holocaust, is really the worst. The creation section is readable, but he spends too much time complaining about the creationists methods and not enough analysing why they believe what they do. The holocaust section is really the worst. His arguments are really not convincing. They are basically, "Everyone knows the Holocaust happened so, the deniers are wrong." I actually do believe it happened, but I don't think that Shermer could have convinced me if I did not. Basically, the book is a fun read, its well written and often humorous, but I think Shermer gets a little too carried away on some subjects. I would reccomend it to anyone, with the caveat that the end is a tad boring and unbeleivable.
Rating: 
Summary: Trojan horse for true irrationality -- humanist philosophy
Review: The book doesn't explain why people believe weird things, define what weird is, or make clear what the author believes is far, far weirder. For better takes, see "The Universe Next Door"(Sire), "Modern Degenerates"(Jones), "New Atheism and the Erosion of Freedom"(Morey). The book's Skepticism is a selective defense of the status quo. Consider this list: A)Darwinian biology (derived political science (Marx) and the eugenic/racial science of Hitler's National-Socialists (NAZI's) and Margaret Sanger) B)Freudian psychological science C)Anthropological science (Margaret Mead) D)Economic science (John Maynard Keynes) E)Sexual behavior science (Alfred Kinsey) Shermer critiques none of these, though the ideas summarize the 20th-century. Each was revolutionary scientific understanding. Each is still carefully built into day-to-day beliefs of most people. After decades, it was discovered B-E above were scientific frauds. "A", while originally legitimate science, was foundation for political/social theories that darkened the century with 100+ million deaths and the enslavement of billions. It is gradually being turned into a modern fraud, as contradicting knowledge accumulates, but is swept under the rug. Freud constructed a model of human psychology revolving around sex, even as he found it necessary to kick his wife out of bed to sleep with his sister-in-law. Now dismissed as the product of his emotional problems, Freudian psychology continues to influence. Margaret Mead went to Somoa, reporting a paradise where "celibacy was meaningless","marriages form and dissolve easily","casual homosexuality was the usual form of relations...". 1920's intellectuals thrilled to the realization of their compulsions and elimination of Original-Sin. Thus was invented "cultural-relativism". In the 1980's, it was learned Mead (married) couldn't speak Somoan and fabricated her account to relieve guilt over lesbian affairs. Keynes developed deficit economics (spend today, shift payment to future generations) which funded the welfare state and is accumulating trillions in unpaid debt. Based on what has come to be realized as a homosexual vision of a childless future, Keynes writings describe his desire to make heterosexual culture pay for marginalizing the "good life" of homosexuality. Keynseian science was eagerly accepted because it expanded government control. Kinsey's 1948 book on sexual behavior was perhaps the most carefully built scientific fraud. Drawing on captive populations of prisoners, many incarcerated for sex crimes, he constructed a statistical model of human sexual behavior, then projected it onto the public. He then concealed the nature of the sample population. It was a shock to most (delight to others) that science showed those behaviors were "normal", kicking off the 60's sexual revolution. All to legitimize Kinsey's personal interests. See "Kinsey, Sex and Fraud"(Reisman). And Darwin, father of them all. Defining a human being as a soulless bit of matter produced by random occurences, lacking divine nature, he laid the ground-work for Marx who correctly saw Darwinism as the foundation for atheistic materialism. Nazism is another logical extension of Darwin; why shouldn't evolution be advanced by weeding out people based on scientific (natural) criteria? Survival of the fittest justifies any result, being circular reasoning. Thus comes eugenics and abortion; if a fetus is a bit of matter unrelated to God, why would it have any "right" to exist? Human rights are based on the biblical idea that man is made in the image of God thus has intrinsic worth. There is no other basis. (One reason the idea of human rights translates poorly into countries lacking Christian backgrounds.) Darwin defined reproduction as life's purpose, energizing Freud and the others. Darwinism, as science, is lousy thinking. See "Mere Creation"(Dembski), "Darwin's Black Box"(Behe), and "Genesis Question"(Ross). The author accepts the weirdest beliefs, quoting Kinsey, unaware the research was discredited. Why is a "baloney detector" be so uniformly turned askew? The author writes: "The flaw in pure skepticism is that when taken to an extreme ... it cannot stand. If you are skeptical of everything, you must be skeptical of your own skepticism." WPBWT rejects purity. The baloney detector can point anywhere but at science-wrapped Skepticism. But there are two aspects of science: method (testing ideas) and philosophy (a set of assumptions; the idea all is 100% material in cause). The METHOD of science is biblical and common-sense, producing helpful tools. The PHILOSOPHY of science is problematic. It helps the method by forcing identification of all material causes. But a non-material cause is unrecognizable, and science spins in circles--the provisional nature of scientific knowledge. The materialistic assumption of science-philosophy is attractive to some. Previously, everyone was accountable to God. If materialism is true, that goes away (because God & souls wouldn't exist). It releases one from moral accountability to a higher power. Thus the Trojan horse: "Science (the method) makes Sony Walkmans and so many things possible, but can't find water-dowsers. Thus, science (the materialistic philosophy) must be correct." This is a seductive logical fallacy. Here are truly weird beliefs the book implicitly promotes: 1. There are no absolutes. (The statement claims absolute knowledge, contradicting itself. Are there no absolutes or there are people who PREFER there be no absolutes?) 2. Everything is relative. (Contradicts itself, being another absolute assertion of truth even as it claims there are none.) 3. We can't know anything with certainty. (Asserts an absolute truth as it claims one is not possible. Self-refuting. 4. What a person believes is the result of social, psychological or chemical conditioning. (Then that belief is also the result of such conditioning.) 5. There is no truth. (If true, the statement is an example contradicting it's assertion. Another impossible statement that excludes itself.) 6. Only empirically verifiable or falsifiable statements have any meaning. (This idea cannot be verified, and prohibits itself from being assumed true, thus is impossible.) While Holocaust-deniers, UFO-abductees & witch-crazed may be in error, they cannot be as wrong as the author, whose underlying beliefs can't be expressed without contradiction by the end of the sentence. They are beliefs of desire, not reality. The book advances the dementia of humanism in the disguise of rationality, by attacking simple error and hoping no one dares looks at those doing the critique...
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I have ever read.
Review: This book is absolutely wonderful, seldomly have I come across a book that argues its points so clearly and effectively. The author not only offers empathy and understanding towards why we as humans might want to believe things which might in the end not turn out to be true, but he also manages to debunk certain ideas without hurting our egos. It was surprising finding a couple of things that I had thought were true and in fact weren't...that made me like the book even more. Great reading!
Rating:
Summary: Wake up and THINK
Review: An interesting, fun read. It's hard to imagine how you could believe such, well, weird things. It also shows people not to confuse skepticism with cynicism.
Rating:
Summary: Worth Reading!
Review: I liked several things about this book. The author presents many of the most common reasoning mistakes that people make. He also writes intelligently and critically about the arguments of others without attacking them personally. And he shares information that he's gained by being on the "front line" in arguments with creationists, deniers of the Holocaust, and others. This book did not come from "Ivory Tower" mental gymnastics. Shermer keeps the book interesting. I was disappointed with the book's lack of breadth. The title belies the book's content. Much of it focuses on creationism and the denial of the Holocaust. I hope that Shermer follows this one with a book that addresses a wider variety of topics. Overall, I enjoyed reading this book.
Rating:
Summary: Some interesting content, but incoherent and mistitled.
Review: This book would be better titled, "Some Weird Things People Believe and Why I Think They're Wrong." Several times I came away from sections feeling the case for the critiqued belief system was stronger than I did going in. Shermer seems to make a lot of the same flawed arguments against the "weirdos" that he criticizes them for using. There's interesting stuff in here, but it isn't stitched together in any kind of coherent way, and there are no great insights to be had. Save your time and money.
Rating:
Summary: interesting but uneven
Review: As noted in other reviews, one problem with Mr. Shermer's book is that he spends little time discussing precisely WHY people believe "weird things"; in writing this book he evidently spoke directly with at least a few proponents of, for example, creationism and Holocaust denial, and presumably he could have easily spared a few minutes in his conversations to ask them "why?", but such answers are not given. While most of the subject matter is fairly interesting, Mr. Shermer's coverage is rather uneven. He devotes little attention to such subjects as Edgar Cayce (whose life involved much more than ESP tests, regardless of how skeptically one regards it) and false allegations of satanic cult abuse (a subject I was really interested in hearing more about from an objective perspective), yet gives three chapters each to creationism and Holocaust denial (without, as noted, using this space to provide much insight or, in the case of these latter two, most dangerous doctrines, the ultimate costs of allowing them to spread unchallenged). The penultimate chapter, dealing with religio-physics, seemed to come out of nowhere; it might have been better dealt with in conjunction with creationism, a line of thought which, although I do not subscribe to it, I am sure has somewhat more depth to it than is shown here. A lack of depth characterizes most of Mr. Shermer's discussions, in fact; going into further detail about memory regression, alien abductions, and other such phenomena (including the New Age religion(s), which Mr. Shermer criticized (calling them "nonsense," a word I don't think he would have applied to most other religions) but never actually DISCUSSED) would have made the book more than just another primer on such topics and possibly cast some new light on, as the title says, "why." I could never regard any book that provided me with previously unfamiliar information (I didn't know that the Nazis had considered forcing the Jews to emigrate to Madagascar, for example.) as completely without merit, but WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS did not live up to what it could have been. Sagan's THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD and Gardner's FADS AND FALLACIES handled the task better.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Introduction to Skepticism
Review: This book opened my mind to the wonders of rational thought. I recommend it to anyone who believes in the paranormal. It could have gone into more detail as to how people can avoid unfounded beliefs, but overall, an excellent book.
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