Университеты США вводят курсы по псевдонауке и смерти для развития критического мышления

By Maryam Ahmed, The Dallas Morning News DALLAS — Bryan Lovelace walked into class plagued with psychic visions. He slowly took off his glasses, revealing the mix of fear and concern in his eyes. His students looked on in bewilderment, first at each other, then at their professor. Lovelace had an accident on his e-bike over the weekend, he told his students, and messages from the beyond had been popping into his mind ever since. “I want to see if you all can help me make sense of this,” Lovelace said. He rubbed the back of his head like his skull would come apart if he didn’t hold it together. “Somebody is trying to reach out to someone in this class.” The students were invested now. Maybe this was a little out of the ordinary for their typically upbeat professor, but they listened intently as Lovelace tried to narrow the field. “This person that’s in class today has had a traumatic experience involving water,” he said, his eyes squeezed shut as he absorbed the message. He pieced together a few other scraps of extradimensional information — a scar above the left knee, a significance around the number 2, a blue car parked nearby. As far as psychics go, Lovelace is a pretty shoddy one. His source for these visions was not an otherworldly being, but a very tangible book called “The Hard Facts of Cold Reading,” which psychics and charlatans alike use to amaze a crowd. But Lovelace’s performance was less about amazement and more about critical thinking. “My hope is that students will think for themselves,” Lovelace said. “That’s the whole point of the course.” Lovelace teaches a class called “Science, Skepticism and Weird Behavior” at the University of North Texas, and psychic readings are par for the course. He uses ghosts, paranormal activities and magic to get students thinking about how they decide what’s real and what’s not. Beneath the otherworldliness of the course title lies lessons on logical fallacies, how to judge evidence and being skeptical of the world. In the 18 years Lovelace has taught “Weird Behavior,” enrollment has swelled from a few dozen students to now hundreds every semester. “The course name is clickbait. It gets students to sign up for the course,” he said. “It’s really ingenious. I took the course, and it changed the way I view the world.” Every college has its fair share of weird or — to use a kinder alternative — niche courses. The University of Texas at Dallas has multiple classes about honeybees. UT Arlington has a course on theatrical weaponry. Even Harvard University has a Harry Potter course. But where students might see an easy A or a fun class, professors see unique ways to foster critical thinking and open mindedness. “We have to make sure our brains aren’t playing a trick on us,” Lovelace said. “There’s a process you can go through, and if people learn that process, it’ll make them a better lawyer, it’ll make them a better doctor, it’ll make them a better journalist.” Atlantis and ancient aliens In a classroom at Southern Methodist University, Matthew Boulanger dives into every genre of conspiracy theory in his “Fantastic Archaeology” course. He puts a magnifying glass over already-debunked conspiracy theories to introduce students to evaluating evidence Students engage with ancient alien civilizations, Atlantis and other pseudoscientific claims, including ones with political implications. For instance, Boulanger touches on the fringe claims that Western Europeans were the first people to settle in the Americas, which some white supremacist movements have latched on to. “It’s a long stretch to get from archeology to an obscure, somewhat bold claim to white nationalism, but yet it’s there,” Boulanger said. “It’s part of my responsibility as a professor to at least give students the skills to look at that and say, ‘why should I listen to a podcaster about ancient archeology?’” Oftentimes, the conversation gives way to topics that are not as black and white. In 2020 and 2021, the lessons Boulanger imparts became especially relevant amid discussions of vaccine denial and the spread of COVID-19. “A lot of students had firsthand experience with many of the pseudoscientific claims made at that time,” he said. “During COVID, much of the class was spent (discussing these topics), not because I wanted to go there, but because the students were asking about it.” Over the years, Boulanger has found his students will critically analyze any piece of text put in front of them but will struggle to confront their own longstanding beliefs about the world. “If they want to believe in ancient aliens, I’m OK with that,” Boulanger said. “But if they use those critical thinking skills when voting in the next presidential election … ultimately, that’s where I hope students get.” Death Pots Lovelace’s and Boulanger’s courses have the potential to segue into uncomfortable topics, but for other courses, they make up the entire syllabus. In SMU professor Brian Molanphy’s case, he teaches an entire course about one of the hardest pills to swallow: death. His course, “Death Pots,” is a ceramics course that explores the concept of death across cultures, with pottery as a medium. Students look at different types of urns — “the most ubiquitous death pot” — and cups, which, in some cultures, can signify a transition when drunk from. Every spring, Molanphy takes his students out to an East Texas wood kiln for a hands-on application of the texts they’ve been studying in the course. Students fire up their artwork, but there is always a risk of some artwork being lost. “(The) transition of earthen materials through fire (is) as good a representation of death as any other,” Molanphy said. Although mostly art students take the course, Molanphy said the class is designed for students of all disciplines. Given that death is a universal part of the human experience, any student can gain something meaningful out of the exploration of death across cultures and art. “Knowledge of mortality drives us to create beauty,” Molanphy said. “I hope that students gain or refine their passion for creating their artwork or for the artwork of others.” © 2026 The Dallas Morning News. Visit www.dallasnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.