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Mensa lecture Nov. 14
‘Why Smart People Believe Weird Things’

By LORETTA DEMKO
T&D Correspondent  Sunday, November 12, 2006

7 comment(s) | Default | Large

COLUMBIA – UFOs. Alien visits. Near-death experiences. Telekinesis. Even with scientific evidence to the contrary, why do people continue to believe?

This is the topic on which Dr. Shane R. Thye will be speaking at the Central South Carolina Mensa dinner meeting at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 14.

Thye received a bachelor’s degree in experimental psychology and a PhD from the University of Iowa. He has been a professor of sociology at the University of South Carolina for eight years. He teaches a course titled, “Sociology of the Paranormal.”

“During the course, students investigate various scientific claims and what counts as evidence in science,” Thye said. “A basic assumption that scientists make is that the speed of light limits travel.”

The course explores these and other issues through the study of the scientific method, statistics, physiology and biology, he said.

“Ninety-two percent of adult Americans believe in some form of the paranormal,” Thye said.

As a social psychologist, Thye is interested in beliefs and perceptions. He devoted the focus of his master’s degree thesis to a particular belief. He became interested in pyramid power. This is the belief that objects enclosed in a pyramid shaped object would be preserved.

“This helps to explain why the pharaohs were buried in them,” Thye said.

His lecture Tuesday, “Why Smart People Believe Weird Things,” will include a discussion of such topics as UFOs, alien life forms, daytime TV psychics such as John Edwards, psychics and clairvoyance.

The Mensa dinner meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the Grecian Gardens Restaurant at 2312 Sunset Blvd. in West Columbia. The meeting is open to the public.

T&D Correspondent Loretta Demko can be reached by e-mail at eeshtenem@yahoo.com. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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7 comment(s)
The following comments are reader submitted. They do not represent the views of The T&D or Lee Enterprises.

adnama wrote on May 11, 2007 5:41 PM:

" i believe in telekinesis.. i can bend spoons with my mind. afterwards i have an major headac and i only show sertain people this because the people get over excited...and want me to do more.. "

Steve wrote on Nov 17, 2006 9:35 PM:

" I agree with Scrooge about the paranormal: 'You don't believe in me,' observed the Ghost. 'I don't,' said Scrooge. 'What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?' 'I don't know,' said Scrooge. 'Why do you doubt your senses?' 'Because,' said Scrooge, 'a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!' "

James wrote on Nov 14, 2006 5:43 PM:

" What is the point in arguing whether something exists or not if you can't show that it is a reproducible phenomena? And keeping in mind that our senses may be fooled, we are all ultimately prisoners of our own flawed perception. Acceptance of that allows all possibilities, but only if they are consistant. I am currently doing my Ph.D in chemistry and have no worries what so ever about theories that people come up with, as long as there is reasonable evidence to back it up. And by reasonable i mean i am a prisoner, and as such both you (if you exist) and i (if i exist) must take that into account. "

Zorbuddha wrote on Nov 14, 2006 3:24 PM:

" There's a difference between believing and being open to all possibilities. "

Don Lytle wrote on Nov 14, 2006 3:01 AM:

" "Experiencers are believers" is not quite accurate. Having had the experience, one gains knowledge. Belief is an opinion. Knowledge is certainty. I have seen an unexplainable (through our current knowledge) aerial phenomenon. I do not believe that such things exist: I know that they exist. That does not keep me from being skeptical of the purported experiences of others. Nor does it make me less skeptical of "easy" explanations such as "swamp gas" or extraterrestrials. "

P Terry Hunt wrote on Nov 13, 2006 12:43 PM:

" '. . . pyramid power. This is the belief that objects enclosed in a pyramid shaped object would be preserved. “This helps to explain why the pharaohs were buried in them,” Thye said.' This would only be true if the Ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids also held this belief, which as far as I am aware became popular in the modern era only after someone claimed that razor-blades kept under a cardboard pyramid mysteriously regain sharpness. (In fact such fine edges do slowly regain sharpness due to a degree of 'molecular memory', which is why wealthier Victorian gentlemen had sets of cutthroat razors, one for each day of the week.) Pyramids were built for only a relatively short span of Ancient Egyptian history; they were preceded and succeeded by non-pyramidal 'mastabas', or by excavated chamber-like tombs. This suggests that 'life-preservation' was not a motive for buildng pyramids: perhaps their sheer imposing appearance, like artificial mountains, was not unimportant. If Dr. Shane R. Thye did, or can, cite contemporary Egyptian records of such a belief, I will stand corrected and be most interested. P Terry Hunt "

Lekatt wrote on Nov 12, 2006 5:09 PM:

" People believe in the things they personally experience, and don't pay much attention to scientists who say these things can't happen because they can't scientifically measure them. There is more to this world than anyone suspects. Believers are experiencers and non-believers are non-experiencers. It is simple. When skeptics have a near death experience they become believers. Enough said. Love "



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