Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice Volume 4 | Issue 1 Article 7 Summer 2008 A Student’s Guide to Studying Weird Things Frank Trocco Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/jppp Recommended Citation Trocco, Frank (2008) "A Student’s Guide to Studying Weird Things," Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1 , Article 7. Available at: https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/jppp/vol4/iss1/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@Lesley. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@Lesley. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Trocco: A Student’s Guide to Studying Weird Things 65 A Student’s Guide to Studying Weird Things Frank Trocco . popular ideas of our time that have little or no scientific support include dowsing, the Bermuda Triangle, poltergeists, biorhythms, creationism, levitation, psychokinesis, astrology, ghosts, psychic detectives, UFOs, remote viewing, Kirlian auras, emotions in plants, life after death, monsters, graphology, crypto-zoology, clairvoyance, mediums, pyramid power, faith healing, Big Foot, psychic prospecting, haunted houses, perpetual motion machines, antigravity locations, and, amusingly, astrological birth control. (Shermer, p. 274) A student walked into my office recently and excitedly told me that she wanted to study the “Starchild.” I had no idea what she was talking about. The Starchild, she explained, is a remarkable 900 year-old skull, found in Mexico about seventy years ago. One researcher, Lloyd Pye, believes it is from “some sort of human-alien hybrid,” the result of the human race evolving through “off-world intervention.” I invited her to have a seat.