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"William James used to preach the "will to believe." For my part, I should wish to preach the "will to doubt."... What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite." Bertrand Russell PSEUDOSCIENCE vs. SCIENCE by ALICIA VAN COUVERING I’d like to start this essay with the following sentence: “Never in the history of the world have so many humans been so willing to accept “weird things.” It would start my essay off with a bang; it would make the whole thing seem dramatic and relevant and would smooth out the thesis I would like the present. But the rest of my essay would suffer; my premise would be completely wrong. Probably fewer people believe in “weird things” (i.e., the paranormal, the superstitious, the religious, magical and scientifically untrue) today than ever before; there is more science today than there ever has been. It is true that Religions, myths, superstitions, mysticisms, cults, New Age ideas, and nonsense of all sorts have penetrated every nook and cranny of both popular and high culture. Beliefs in things like Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster, clairvoyance, fairies, emotions in plants, pyramid power and the Bermuda Triangle abound, and no