New Study Shows College Students Believe
More in Paranormal
January 23, 2006 (written by Haunted
Poker)
This month, Skeptical Inquirer of all places will
release findings that show results of a new poll
conducted that follows up on a 2001 nationwide Gallup
Poll. The topic: Belief in the paranormal. The study
took place using a sample of 439 college students who
answered questions about psychic phenomena, ESP,
telepathy, life after death, and hauntings.
Surprisingly, and contrary to results in the Gallup
Poll, this study showed that seniors and graduate
students were more likely to believe in paranormal
phenomena than freshman. The general conclusion is that
as education increases, belief in the paranormal
also increases. Scientists conducting the polls
concluded that the public belief that college is a
harbor for skepticism may be false. Another convoluted
theory is that the intellectual tend believe in the
supernatural because they can easily defend what they
believe in.
Personally, I think that this is a great story. It shows
that, contrary to many closed-minded skeptics beliefs,
the paranormal isn't just for the naive, uneducated, and
the gullible. Worldly and scholarly individuals are
believing more in the paranormal because of greater
public awareness, research, and the greater ability of
technology to capture evidence. Take "belief" in
extraterrestrial beings, for example. I can remember as
short as 10-20 years ago most scientists wouldn't
believe that our universe was populated with other
beings. With the new ability of our telescopes to detect
extra-solar planets and calculating the sheer odds of
finding a habitable planet in the cosmos, most
scientists now believe that it would be amazing if we
were alone in the universe.
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