How To Scoff at Psychic Phenomena Intelligently

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Different eras call for different life skills.  In the 1950's, apparently it was important to know how to at least sound as if you knew something about the object of your ridicule. The title of this post is actually the title of the original article from which the following is an excerpt (brackets are my own thoughts...it's probably terribly rude to 'interrupt', but I just couldn't help it):

Do you believe in ghosts, communicating with the dead, or seeing into the dim future? It's the fashion for sensible, logical people to laugh at such ideas.  The idea of talking to people thousands of miles away was once scoffed at, too. [Yes, I can see how belief in ghosts, channeling, and psychic powers and belief in telephones are nearly identical] Intelligence, not superstition, will provide the true answer...

 If you're an uncritical scoffer you have plenty of company... 

....you'll say spooks are contrary to the laws of nature and anyone who  says he's had dealings with them must be kidding himself. That's unscientific, however, and, according to Dr. Curt J. Ducasse, retired chairman of the philosophy department of Brown University, you're "only displaying the inverted credulity which assumes that there are no limits whatever to the possibilities of deception." In other words [good- an interpretation... because I have NO idea what Dr. Ducasse just said] you can be too incredulous, which is about as unintelligent and unscientific as the kind of hook-line-and-sinker credulity that swallows every scrap of supernormal manifestation as established truth.

To sum up the rest of the article: When you're preparing to "scoff" at something, make sure you've learned enough about it to sound like you know something about it and actually considered belief in it at one time or another.  Then your scoffing has achieved the status of critical, intelligent scoffing.  To aid with intelligent scoffing at "psychic phenomena", the magazine also includes about 10 pages explaining the science of psychic studies, presumably for the scoffers-in-training to study.

From: Pageant Magazine, October 1956