My reactions to reading this in 1992.

An interesting book on a variety of topics.

I’m not that interested in paranormal mental powers, but I did find the debunking of a “psychic” detective interesting. As I suspected, when two original documented facts are examined, the psychic abilities pretty much vanish in the light of reality.

I enjoyed James Randi’s Project Alpha in which he gave parapsychologists plenty of rope to hang themselves. As with most things in life, the articles showing the statistical fallacies of most parapsychology studies reveal that details count.

My main interest is in cryptozoology, fringe archaeology, and pseudosciences and there was plenty on their history and practice: the possibly genetic basis of palmistry (a number of genetic defects with behavioral implications do manifest themselves in palm and fingers -- but not like palmistry says), a detailed look at the Shroud of Turin and alleged photographs of the Loch Ness monster’s flipper, wacko archaelogy which postulates Phoenicians-Libyans with all kinds of feats like establishing naval academies in California and exploring Polynesia, the nonevidence for a lunar influence on homocide, a method of recreating the Nazca drawings (sans space brother supervision), bizarre Creationist claims (condensing canopies of water yielding Noah’s flood), and Philip Klass’ explanation of the forensic limits of hypnosis in UFO cases. ( )