Chapter 1 is all about psychology and scientific thinking. It describes a lot of the scientific basis behind psychology and what makes it so interesting. In addition, this chapter talks about a type of science called pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is defined as a set of claims that seem to be scientific, but aren't. Examples of pseudoscience can include psychics, astrology, fortune telling, etc. It can be easy to believe many of the claims made by pseudoscience, but many it's important to recognize the difference between real science and pseudoscience. Toward the end of the chapter, we learn a little bit about the history of psychology. It describes how psychology came about and includes a brief timeline of the major events in the history of psychology. The book points out several people that have played major roles in psychological studies and what areas of psychology each person specialized in. It ends with a description of how psychology affects our everyday lives.
To me, the section on pseudoscience was most interesting. It's amazing that many of these "sciences" are so widely believed by the public. If people just took the time to search for a little bit more evidence behind certain claims that they're buying into, they would realize just how ridiculous things like fortune telling are!
Why do you think so many people believe these things? Is it just not taking the time to find evidence?