Sophie's World mentioned, as did my AP Psychology textbook, the study of parapsychology. Which is a fancy word for a field of 'science' that investigates paranormal phenomena.
If my title didn't give you a hint, I consider it to be a bullshit field. Either Sophie's World or my Psych book1 mentioned James Randi's One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, in which all someone has to do to win one million dollars is provide the slightest proof of the smallest feat of the paranormal. It's been running since the 60's2, and of the hundreds of people to try, no one has ever won.
The basic idea is for people to stop going "HOLY SHIT! THAT GUY CAN TALK TO GHOSTS!," and to instead go "Neat trick. Now do it when science is watching." Most applicants do well in the first stage, where they can pull whatever tricks they want, but then proceed to fail once they have to follow guidelines and rules3.
My main reason for thinking parapsychology is a crock is the lack of evidence for psychic mumbo jumbo, and the sheer number of hoaxes. I think the whole of idea of believing in ghosts or psychics or remote viewings or Santa without proof is just stupid. We have sense organs and a brain to process information with, why not use it4?
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1 I don't know, or care which one it was. One of them did it, and so now it is part of this blog.
2 I think. The idea for it might have started in the 60's while the Million Dollar challenge developed later. It's late and I don't care about such fine details.
3 Even better, the applicants get to help design the tests they'll be doing. Their failures are completely in their own hands.
4 Kierkegaard and his leap of faith can suck it...
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