Science education is the best protection we have against being exploited by pseudoscientific claims. Every day, somewhere in the media, someone is claiming a wondrous feat or product that “defies known science.”

There is the psychic John Edward, talking to dead people using a sixth sense when science says there are only five. There are people levitating when we teach that forces need to be balanced for us to remain stationary. There are UFO sightings and aliens, crop circles and reports of ghosts, astrology and water divining. Explaining these phenomena in simple scientific terms can add relevance and interest to education.

Reports of UFO sightings enable us to differentiate between a skeptic and a cynic. Like most people, I would love to still be alive if contact is made with an alien intelligence. What could be more exciting? As a scientist and skeptic, I acknowledge the possibility, but I require some evidence before believing that contact has been made. Cynics dismiss aliens and UFOs as rubbish. Skeptics want to know more.

The Shroud of Turin is a great theme for explaining carbon dating techniques and hence the whole concept of half-lives. The Bermuda Triangle is a lovely example of the nature of evidence – a paranormal effect explained using anecdotal evidence alone, when there is no actual data to support the claim.

Then there is the language of science. Its abuse is rampant. Asking for the research papers and evaluating them is solid and important science that we need to be able to do for ourselves.

I do psychic readings using the psychology of human desires, generalities couched in specific-sounding terms, and statistics where I tell people things I “couldn’t possibly have known.” I claim science. Others claim psychic powers. I have a public claim out to replicate, using science alone, anything a psychic can do.

All this is fun and adds to the relevance of science education in the “new age,” but there is a serious side as well. John Edward’s TV show has a disclaimer that says that the show is “for entertainment purposes only.” He had people in the midst of grief, crying for the cameras, “for entertainment purposes only.” Some claim that clairvoyants using this mysterious sixth sense solve murders that the police could not manage with their mere five senses. Again, tragedy and grief is exploited for entertainment. Are there arrests as a result of these amazing insights using senses science does not acknowledge? No, and there is a reason why not.

Skepticism is simply a desire to believe in things that are real. Skepticism is applying scientific method to what we are told. Cynicism is the rash dismissal of all new ideas. We want skepticism without the cynicism.

Science is not all about the ancient discoveries of dead white guys. It is about the awesome world we live in right now. We don’t need to have it embellished with claims of the paranormal. What science teaches us - from the birth of a child, to the human brain, to the incredible dimensions of space - is way, way more astounding than anything the “new age” offers.