When I teach pseudoscience such as healing touch to my students in
research methods and a first year seminar called "why do people believe
weird things" they are convinced (once they see the evidence) that it
does not work. However, there is always a sizable minority of students
who think that it should still be offered by hospitals (or other
settings such as colleges) because "it probably does no harm" or "it
offers hope". So even when people know that treatments are bogus they
see relatively few costs of promoting bogus treatments. So you both have
to convince people that it doesn't work and that it is costly to promote
such treatments.
Last year I had my first year students write a persuasive essay (one
page, in class) in which they either argued for or against having
astrological charts in the campus paper. Students knew (we discussed it
at length) that astrology is made up (in fact, the roommate of one of
the students was the one who made it up and freely admitted making it
up), The vast majority of students argued that astrology was harmless
fun that carried no consequences. A few students argued that a college
paper should not promote false beliefs (even if it was in the
entertainment section of the paper).
Marie
Gerald Peterson wrote:
Frank LoSchiavo and K. L. Roberts (2005) have utilized pseudoscientific claims to teach research methods (See Teaching of Psych 32(3), 177-179 and it sound like you could integrate this campus event in your class(es. See if you could develop some criterion, see also what your bio and physics family have to say (they will often be sadly ignorant about how to test for psych confounds, but may nevertheless be useful).
All in all, an opportunity to educate the campus community and show the way to implement more careful thinking/reasoning. Just a thought...GAry
Gerald L. (Gary) Peterson, Ph.D.
Professor, Psychology
Saginaw Valley State University
University Center, MI 48710
989-964-4491
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Marie Helweg-Larsen, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology
Dickinson College, P.O. Box 1773
Carlisle, PA 17013
Office: (717) 245-1562, Fax: (717) 245-1971
Webpage: www.dickinson.edu/~helwegm
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