CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by The University of Nebraska, Omaha University of Nebraska at Omaha DigitalCommons@UNO Biology Faculty Publications Department of Biology 2-9-2018 Reducing Pseudoscientific nda Paranormal Beliefs in University Students Through a Course in Science and Critical Thinking James A. Wilson University of Nebraska at Omaha, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/biofacpub Part of the Biology Commons Recommended Citation Wilson, James A., "Reducing Pseudoscientific nda Paranormal Beliefs in University Students Through a Course in Science and Critical Thinking" (2018). Biology Faculty Publications. 90. https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/biofacpub/90 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Biology at DigitalCommons@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Biology Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Sci & Educ https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-018-9956-0 ARTICLE Reducing Pseudoscientific and Paranormal Beliefs in University Students Through a Course in Science and Critical Thinking James A. Wilson1 # The Author(s) 2018. This article is an open access publication Abstract This study measured the relationship between student’s religion, gender, and pro- pensity for fantasy thinking with the change in belief for paranormal and pseudoscientific subjects following a science and critical thinking course that directly confronted these subjects. Student pre-course endorsement of religious, paranormal, and pseudoscientific beliefs ranged from 21 to 53%, with religion having the highest endorsement rate. Pre-course belief in paranormal and pseudoscientific subjects was correlated with high scores in some fantasy thinking scales and showed a gender and a religion effect with females having an 11.1% higher belief across all paranormal and pseudoscience subcategories. Students’ religion, and frequen- cy of religious service attendance, was also important with agnostic or atheist students having lower beliefs in paranormal and pseudoscience subjects compared to religious students. Students with either low religious service attendance or very high attendance had lower paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs. Following the critical thinking course, overall beliefs in paranormal and pseudoscientific subcategories lowered 6.8–28.9%, except for superstition, which did not significantly change. Change in belief had both a gender and religion effect with greater reductions among religious students and females. 1 Introduction Paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs are common in modern American culture (Musella 2005), often being referenced in television and movies, social media, books, and advertising. Although there is no universally agreed upon definition of paranormal and pseudoscientific subjects, they have one feature in common: they are not supported by empirical evidence and they seemingly violate the known laws of the universe. Paranormal beliefs are beliefs/entities/ processes that, if true, would violate the basic limiting principles of science (Tobacyk and * James A. Wilson [email protected] 1 Department of Biology, University of Nebraska-Omaha, Allwine Hall 114, Omaha, NE 68182-0040, USA J. A. Wilson Milford 1983) and include elements of traditional religion, psychic/ESP, witchcraft, spiritual- ism, monsters and ghosts, and precognition.1 The paranormal also includes the domain of the so-called supernatural. This article does not make a distinction between paranormal and supernatural beliefs, except that supernatural might refer more to beings (like gods or ghosts) whereas paranormal can include both beings as well as mysterious processes like ESP or psychic healing. Pseudoscience is any subject that is unsupported by empirical evidence and seemingly violates the known laws of science, but uses scientific language to masquerade as valid science with examples including whole body Bdetoxification,^ magnet therapy, cupping, astrology, creationism, and homeopathic medicine (Shermer 1997). In addition, pseudoscience may also include unsubstantiated fears of subjects that might warrant some genuine concern under the right conditions. For example, fear and opposition of GMOs that are based solely on the belief that they are inherently bad without evidence to back up that fear would qualify as pseudo- science, but concern over the ecological implications of genetically modified foods based on evidence would not. On the surface, it would not seem to be detrimental for someone to believe in such scientifically unsupported subjects; however, there can be a direct cost to individuals (i.e., loss of money or refusal of known medical treatments; Nahin et al. 2009)and indirect costs to society from credulous citizens. Costs to society from credulous citizens can take different forms and propagate through many social subjects. With respect to belief in conspiracy theories, people who hold these beliefs are less likely to engage in politics (Jolley and Douglas 2014), have poor health practices (Ford et al. 2013; Gaston and Alleyne-Green 2013; Oliver and Wood 2014b), and are more likely to exhibit racist attitudes (Baer 2013; Swami 2012) and political violence (Bilewicz et al. 2013). People who subscribe to alternative medicine are less likely to vaccinate their children (Downey et al. 2010; Jones et al. 2010) or utilize treatments or medicines known to be effective (Utinans and Ancane 2014). All of these behaviors represent a socially destabilizing force, and potentially a widespread health hazard. Counteracting unsupported beliefs, by teaching critical thinking and promoting science literacy, is therefore important to the stability and health of society. Surveys over the last 20 years have consistently shown that belief in paranormal and pseudoscientific subjects remains high among the American public (Gallup and Newport 1991;Orenstein2002; Rice 2003). These surveys have shown that half of Americans endorse at least one conspiracy theory (Oliver and Wood 2014a) and that 73% of Americans believe in at least one paranormal subject (Stark 2012), with belief across paranormal subjects ranging from 25 to 50% (Anderson 1998; Gallup and Newport 1991;Nisbet1998; Wilson 2001). Of even more concern is the concomitant scientific illiteracy (unable to correctly identify basic scientific principles) that may be associated with increased paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs (McLeish 1984). However, the relationship between science literacy and reduced paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs remains unclear, as other studies have found no connection (Walker et al. 2002; Ryan et al. 2004). 1 Belief subcategories are defined as follows: psychic/ESP includes belief in extra-sensory abilities supposedly derived from the brain including telepathy, telekinesis, clairvoyance and clairaudience, mind reading, or empathic connections to the dead; witchcraft is the ability to alter reality by performing a ritual, casting spells, or creating charms; spiritualism is a belief in communicating directly with the dead through a medium; monsters and ghosts are so-called hidden creatures in the world like bigfoot, yeti, and the Loch Ness monster and ghosts are the disembodied souls of the dead who return to Earth; and precognition is the ability to know something before it happens. Reducing Pseudoscientific and Paranormal Beliefs in University Students... Compared to the USA, European countries seem to have a lower average rate of paranormal belief; however, these beliefs can still reach high levels for certain subjects. For example, paranormal beliefs among Scandinavian youth are typically low (Harraldsson and Houtkooper 1996) with Finnish college students typically showing a disbelief in paranormal subjects and uncertainty in traditional religious beliefs (Tobacyk and Pirttilä-Backman 1992). However, approximately 15% of Swedish high school students still showed a belief in superstitions and had high (77%) belief in precognition (Sjödin 2002). Similarly, Icelandic students showed disbelief in all paranormal subjects except precognition (Tobacyk and Milford 1983). Latvian students also showed a general disbelief in all paranormal subjects, with the exception of women having slightly higher belief in traditional religious beliefs (Utinans et al. 2015). Several belief surveys have been developed to measure aspects of how in control a person feels about their life, how willing someone is to incorporate magical thinking, or how open someone is to accepting subjects based purely on belief. For example, how much someone feels in control of their own destiny (internally driven control) versus being at the mercy of external forces (external control; locus of control); whether magical forces influence their life (magical ideation), how completely engrossed someone becomes in fantasy situations (movies, stories, etc.; absorption); and whether a person interprets random events as pertaining directly to them (referential thinking). High scores on any of these tests have been associated with increased paranormal belief and may provide the basis for someone’s natural tendency to believe in these subjects. Several studies have found a link between belief in paranormal and pseudoscientific subjects and psychological tests that measure a person’s willingness to accept external forces that affect their life (Newby and Davis 2004; Hergovich