Reviewed: Debunked!
Georges Charpak and Henri Broch
The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2004
I know you pretty well: Sometimes you are extroverted, affable and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, cautious and reserved. You need others to like and admire you, yet you are apt to be critical of yourself. And you are a person who possesses a substantial untapped potential that you haven't exploited for your own benefit.
Aren't you amazed with my telepathic abilities?
Debunked! by Nobel Prize winner Georges Charpak and physics professor Henri Broch reveals the tricks of the trade that keep palmreaders and amateur magicians in business. Using the sentences above, one of the authors of the book conducted an experiment and found that 69 percent of his students judged the description of their personality to be accurate. Entertaining and amusing, Debunked! begins by exposing some basic magic tricks such as walking on broken glass and levitating in the air. Charpak and Broch go beyond the basic parlor tricks, however, and demonstrate how pseudoscientists use simple science, statistics and psychology to dupe an audience. Writing for a general audience, Charpak and Broch use basic math and simple scientific arguments to support their explanations of the paranormal and beyond. While I found some of the examples enlightening — you'll never see me reading a horoscope again — some readers may not be convinced by all of the book's arguments. If you are a strong believer in ESP or telekinesis — especially if you are a Matrix fan who is still trying to bend that spoon with your mind — you may consider Charpak and Broch to be more opinionated than convincing.
In their conclusion, Charpak and Broch acknowledge that readers should not abandon their beliefs. A couple of sentences later, they warn readers, “But remember, only idiots never change their minds.”
Elizabeth Clements