Assignment: Pseudoscience
Choose a popular pseudoscience phenomenon (e.g., graphology, astrology, gluten-free diets for autism, ESP, repressed memories) and evaluate it using the principles discussed in Stanovich's How to Think Straight About Psychology.
In your assignment, you should:
1) Briefly describe the pseudoscience phenomenon that you are focusing on (feel free to cite one or two online sources for illustrative purposes);
2) Explain what makes the phenomenon pseudoscientific, drawing on principles discussed in the Stanovich text; make sure to also discuss what makes it scientific (or appear to be scientific!);
3) Discuss why people tend to believe in this phenomenon (again, drawing on principles from Stanovich);
4) Apply principles described in Stanovich to explain the routes through which scientific research on this phenomenon could proceed, and the strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches.
Imagine you are writing an educational article about psychology and pseudoscience, aimed at the educated lay person with minimal background in psychology. Your writing should reflect your understanding of and ability to apply the concepts from throughout the Stanovich text. Of course you will not be able to discuss all the issues raised by Stanovich but should focus on those that you feel are most relevant to the pseudoscientific phenomenon you have chosen.
I recommend that you choose a topic early so that, as you read Stanovich, you can make notes about how you will apply the concepts you are reading about to your chosen topic. In this way, you will have an outline of your assignment by the time you finish reading Stanovich, and you will just need to weave the various components together before submitting the assignment.
Please attend to the following:
1. Your assignment should be 1500 (minimum) to 1750 (maximum) words; you will need to write concisely.
2. Use 12 point Times New Roman font (or similar), double-spacing, one inch margins, and type the paper in Word (if you do not have Word on your home computer, transfer it to Word on one of the campus computers before submitting on Moodle).
3. Use APA format for citations, references, title page, page numbering, paragraphs spacing, margins, font, formatting for any sub-headings.
4. Usually, page numbers are only given for direct quotations from a source. However, I would like you to refer to page numbers in Stanovich each time you are applying one of the principles from the book.