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Summary

What is the space within which donors operate? And what is the scale of the space in which donors operate? These questions matter in considering how to situate the emergence of capacity as a problem of development and its evolution into a project of development encompassing many different issue areas. This situating involves not only an examination of the ideological environment from which the issue of capacity was born but also scrutiny into the transformation of the actual development space— the institutions and actors— that both produce and establish agendas and frameworks for projects and also serve as vessels for the implementation of the policies of donors, which in USAID's case is the US government.

Later on in this book, I trace the evolution of transnational militant networks of resistance in conjunction with the integration of military and development activities during the Cold War. While Western donors cultivated transnational humanitarian and military networks to contain the Soviet influence coming from Afghanistan, Arab financiers also capitalized on the construction of a transnational infrastructure to support radical Islamic elements of the Afghan struggle against the Soviets. This period of Western funding of transnational networks to bifurcate the communist threat coming from the state established and legitimized the relationships of transnational militant resistance that evolved into the present-day campaign of Global Jihad stemming from the region.

The space in which donors produce knowledge, collaborate, facilitate relationships, and create agendas transcends national boundaries of operation and encompasses a multitude of actors and organizations operating on various scales. Broadly speaking, the scale of donor operation is extensive, but it is also limited. Through access to Pakistani state officials and Mujahideen leaders, the scale of donor operation during the Cold War extended into Afghanistan without donors ever having to establish relationships with the Soviet-occupied central government or even most of the Mujahideen leaders. Pakistan's ISI, through their relationships with militant leaders, granted the Pakistani state access to subnational spaces and transnational scales of operation across Afghanistan and Pakistan. This access was previously also granted to European humanitarian groups working directly with Mujahideen leaders during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Traditional Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donor institutions and agencies, such as the USAID, have been unable to develop sustainable relationships with operators in subnational and transnational spaces that harbor networks of resistance and militancy.

Summary

The God hypothesis is a myth [and] a myth is not a good explanation, and widespread encouragement of this particular myth undercuts a correct understanding of the Universe's and [humankind's] origin, nature, and destiny.

— Michael Scriven, Primary Philosophy (1966)

The best explanation for why there has been so far no convincing, independently verifiable evidence for supernatural phenomena, despite honest and methodologically sound attempts to verify them, is that these phenomena probably do not exist. Indeed, the absence of evidence, where such evidence is expected to be found after extensive searching, is evidence of absence.

To declare the study of supernatural phenomena out of bounds to scientific investigation imposes artificial constraints on scientific inquiry [and] denies science the noble task of purging false beliefs from the public sphere [and] the opportunity to discover aspects of reality that may have significant worldview implications.

— Yonata Fishman, Can Science Test Supernatural Worldviews? (2009)

It is not controversial that science does not recognise ancestor spirits, astral intelligences, demons […] ghosts, gods […] and the like. There is no reason to doubt that the listed entities and powers will not be recognised by any future science […] we have enough securely established science to rule out that future science will […] recognize the listed entities and powers.

— Graham Oppy, Naturalism and Religion (2018)

Reality stubbornly refuses to be bent to our desires or ideologies. Reality does not yield to wishful thinking.

— Douglas Futuyma, Science on Trial (1982)

The “thou shalt not speak ill of religion” stance, discussed in Chapter 1, is associated with another problematic conviction on the part of many scholars, namely that religious and supernatural phenomena are not amenable to scientific analysis. The widely held opinion is that science and religion have different aims and realms of inquiry. Science is relegated exclusively to the investigation of physical phenomena and the search for naturalistic mechanisms based on an a priori commitment to methodological naturalism. Religion, in contrast, is consigned to addressing questions relating to ultimate meaning and ethical values that presumably only religion can address.

Science and Religion: Non-Overlapping Magisteria?

The idea that religion and science have separate domains is not new. However, the most explicit contemporary formulation of this idea appears in the work of the late evolutionary paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould.

Summary

2015. Cancun, Mexico. It's March, and the beaches are teeming with college students on spring break. Yet my interlocutors and I find ourselves not outside, enjoying the sunshine, but rather in a cavernous, overly air-conditioned ballroom. Here, at the Third Scientific Conference held jointly with the Committee on Science and Technology of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, experts and government delegates gather around posters presenting scientific research. The posters are on diverse topics, ranging from the use of GIS to monitor the impact of goat grazing on soil health in Mongolia to a smartphone application that would connect farmers with peers on the next farm or halfway around the world to share sustainable techniques over video. The conference participants are animated, but the question remains: how might these innovative ideas translate into concrete guidance for policymakers combatting desertification on a global scale?

This 2015 Scientific Conference in Cancun was the third iteration of an attempt to make the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) more relevant by shoring up its Committee on Science and Technology (CST). This initiative arose out of reviews of the convention as it neared its 10 years of implementation, amid critiques that the convention was not living up to expectations. These critiques in particular focused on the CST as being a contributor to “institutional weaknesses.” This chapter examines successive redesigns of the science advice committee undertaken between 2007 and 2017, bringing in particular the “body of knowledge” to the fore.

Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought

The 1994 UNCCD defines desertification as “land degradation in arid, semiarid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities” (Article 1). In advance of the negotiation of this text, the term “desertification” was already contested, notably among scientists. As documented in Chapter 2, the question of challenges faced in arid zones was already the focus of an advisory committee as early as 1951 within UNESCO (the UN Educational, Social and Cultural Organization). The more recent institutionalization of the problem of “desertification” is commonly traced back to the 1977 UN Conference on Desertification (UNCOD), organized in response to droughts in Africa leading up to the early 1970s.

Summary

The success of the Marshall Plan in reconstructing the war-ravaged infrastructure of Europe gave birth to an optimism about the ability of such programs to develop the untamed and unproductive areas of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This optimism also provided a new challenge for (development) institutions… Worldwide frontiers offered these institutions both a chance to flex and build their technical muscles as well as a rationale for institutional survival. Thus, the development industry was born.— A DAI evaluation on the role of capacity building in development administration for integrated rural development projects (Honadle 1981, 2)

The history of international development of Afghanistan and Pakistan yields important lessons for the future of aid. Development assistance to both countries has been defined by geopolitical dynamics and Western attempts to contain global and transnational threats. This foreign policy strategy has yielded forms of bilateral assistance that integrates military strategy with development strategy, culminating in the emergence of new forms of multilateral military – development planning schemes to build the state. At the same time, the global agenda for aid calls for the integration of human rights into development agendas, prompting development agencies and institutions to establish strategies to advance human rights as a development objective. Within this context, capacity development has emerged as a cornerstone of global development strategy. In the previous chapter, I placed the progression of international development within the context of the political and economic reality of insurgency and transnational militancy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, tracing the evolution of transnational networks of resistance alongside the integration of development and military strategy.

I trace the transformation of the security– development nexus from a conflation of economic assistance and military aid as a single bilateral assistance package to Pakistan in the 1980s to contain the Soviet threat from Afghanistan and maintain a US presence in the region to the present-day integration of military and development assistance through counterinsurgency strategy and the innovation of PRTs in Afghanistan. I distinguish between the various forms of the security– development nexus as combining military and development aid as:

Summary

This project examines the transformation of the concept of capacity from roughly the last decade of the Cold War until the present (1977– 2017)— a span of 40 years. In unpacking this transformation of capacity within the policies and practices of donors, perhaps the most striking aspect upon review of these frameworks is that one might not have any idea of where we are in history or of the context surrounding the relationships between donors and recipients or “beneficiaries” when reading them. There are, of course, references to containing the Soviet threat, developing the emerging markets of post-Soviet countries, and now references to violent extremism and terror— but we do not see these references in capacity development methodology or the conceptual design of projects. This very methodology for change— to build capacity— is seemingly devoid of any deeper engagement with the societies targeted for transformation. Capacity development both as a method and in practice is distinct from the identification of capacity (or lack thereof) as a source of state stability and fragility.

The processes and sites of capacity development are largely abstract even as there are significant shifts in the macro-historical context as well as in project design to assess, monitor, and evaluate programs. As Roxborough (2012) remarks upon review of the US Field Army Manual FM 3-07 on stabilization, in spite of calls for the necessity of the analysis of local social and cultural environments in design and execution to cultivate local ownership, there is little actual instruction on how to do so. I argue that this is in part due to a “trained incapacity” of the donor, inhibiting the donor's ability to recognize the distance between agenda-setting elites and kinship-based groups in subnational spaces. Instead, donors conceptualize capacity in discrete units— usually skills based (e.g., management, entrepreneurship, technical, or vocational-based skills) and designed to build relationships to expand the operational reach of the state. These so-called beneficiaries of capacity development are hoped to be the carriers of networks into subnational spaces, cultivating local linkages with the state and, by extension, with the broader system of state, regional, and global markets.

Summary

How local national staff managed to implement project activities in these areas (… with only a token security apparatus and no functional district government) … is still an open question … The explanation given, that they were able to leverage local knowledge and contacts, is in and of itself not a sufficient explanation. How they leveraged local knowledge and contacts is more to the point. This has not been sufficiently answered to allow for practical lessons learned and to help in establishing best practices for program delivery in insurgent controlled areas ….

— USAID Stability in Key Areas (SIKA) Final Performance Evaluation (USAID 2015b, 2)

Now the great desire of the trans-border tribesman is, I take it, to maintain his religion and his independence. The British Government have not the smallest desire to interfere with either … The policy of the Government of India towards the trans-border men is very simple, and it is this. We have no wish to seize your territory or interfere with your independence. If you go on worrying and raiding and attacking, there comes a time when we say, This thing must be put an end to: and if the tribes will not help us do it, then we must do it ourselves. The matter is thus almost entirely in your own hands. You are the keepers of your own house. We are ready enough to leave you in possession. But if you dart out from behind the shelter of your door to harass and pillage and slay, then you must not be surprised if we return quickly and batter the door in.

— Lord Curzon, British viceroy and governor-general of India (1898– 1905) (Curzon 1906, 422)

This project addresses a series of complex questions around how concepts such as capacity gain salience in donor spaces, the foreign policy priorities of donor states, and the rise of transnational militancy. By examining the transformation of capacity within the example of USAID frameworks and projects, I expose conceptual and discursive shifts that mask the political project of development, particularly as it pertains to threats to global security. Capacity development is now a permanent part of the lexicon of the development space.

Summary

The Tribal Areas Development Project (TADP) has the opportunity to assist in the development of an area of the world relatively untouched for centuries. The tribals abide by a law of their own. They have resisted the advances of other cultures, from the Greeks (under Alexander the Great) to the British. Only in the last three decades has the geographically inaccessible area of the tribal areas reduced … If USAID is successful in TADP, it will be a “first of its kind.” … The problem, then, is how to overcome the constraints of working in FATA while respecting the centuries-old tribal culture and established political autonomy.— USAID evaluation (Williams and Rudel 1988, 142)

What does it actually mean to build capacity in Afghanistan or Pakistan? This question is at the heart of the work of development. There are few cases in the world where a global collision of capitalist and communist projects coalesced with the struggles of postcolonial statehood to create a perfect storm of transnational infrastructure enabling the globalization of terrorism. The situation(s) of Afghanistan and Pakistan reveal an epicenter of global, transnational, and national religious, political, and economic intersection that challenges the very notions of governance that the international system is dependent upon.

Development does not exist in a vacuum. Attempts to consider contextual factors in project design and to make development initiatives locally owned processes, while laudable, are dwarfed by the reality of how development assistance coexists alongside military aid, political alliances, and foreign occupation. These greater macro-relationships between nations engaged in global conflict impact the meso-and micro-level institutional and organizational relationships that make up the so-called partnerships of development. They impact who can be considered a partner, a beneficiary, and where capacity needs to be built.

Projects of development cannot actually be divorced from the transnational tribal conflicts that challenge the structures of market and statehood. Both states have toiled through these struggles of statehood as recipients of development aid. The objective of this chapter is to situate the capacity project within this complexity in order to parse out its meaning and function as a project of development. This chapter is divided into five sections in an attempt to coherently consolidate the complexity of the challenges facing the development of capacity in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Summary

As long as people believe in absurdities, they will continue to commit atrocities.

— Voltaire, Questions sur les miracles (1765)

Baloney, bamboozles, careless thinking, flimflam, and wishes disguised as facts are not restricted to parlor magic and ambiguous advice on matters of the heart. Unfortunately, they ripple through mainstream political, social, religious, and economic issues in every nation.

— Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World (1995)

The simple fact of the matter is that every religious belief in every culture in the world is demonstrably untrue. Regardless of whether the religious practices are organized communally or ecclesiastically, regardless of whether they are mediated by shamans or priests, regardless of whether the intent is manipulative or supplicative … all such practices are founded upon nonfalsifiable or falsified beliefs concerning the paranormal.

— James Lett, Science, Religion, and Anthropology (1997)

Most rational people reject supernatural claims by the founders of recently developed religions, sects, and cults such as Mormonism, the Christian Science Church, Scientology, Peoples Temple, Order of the Solar Temple, and Heavens Gate because details about how those belief systems originated are well-known. These religions, like all others, also claim supernatural origins, cosmic significance, as well as espousing mysteries and miracles. However, the deceitful character and motives of the creators of these dogmas are wellknown. For this reason, aside from the indoctrinated, few others will accept their supernatural truth claims and cosmic significance. Yet, the assertions and tenets of these recently created religions are no different and no less implausible than those associated with the older, established faiths. These also claim celestial significance and promote beliefs in divine appearances, talking fiery bushes, seas parting, people transmuted into globs of salt, serpents that hold conversations and engage in conspiracies, global deluges, angelic visitations, virgin births, the dead coming back to life, and other miraculous and supernatural happenings.

Why are these beliefs not treated with skepticism in the same way as Scientology, Mormonism, and the others mentioned? A significant reason is that these religions have been around for thousands of years and no contemporary eyewitnesses were present when they were formulated (Coyne 2015: 83).

"Religion, Supernaturalism, the Paranormal, and Pseudoscience" provides a comprehensive rejoinder to the challenges posed to science, scientific anthropology, evolutionary theory and rationality by the advocates of supernatural, paranormal, and pseudoscientific perspectives and modes of thought associated with the current rise of irrationalism, antiintellectualism, and emboldened religious fundamentalism and violence. Drawing upon H. Sidky’s scientific anthropological background and ethnographic field research of supernatural and paranormal beliefs and practices in several cultures over three decades, the book answers several important questions: Why do humans have a proclivity for the supernatural and paranormal thinking? Why has humanity remained shackled to sets of ideas inherited from a violent past that have no basis in reality and which bestow an illusionary solace, promote bloodshed, endless cruelties and fervent hatreds, and have come at a high cost? Why have ancient superstitions been held as sacred, inviolate truths while other aspects of the archaic belief systems of which they were a part have long been discarded? Why have not humans outgrown religion and paranormal beliefs?

Summary

If this Jesus were trying to convince anyone of his powers, then surely he ought to have appeared first to the Jews who mistreated him— and to his accusers— indeed to everyone, everywhere. […] When he was punished, everyone saw; yet risen from the tomb, almost no one.

— Celsus, On the True Doctrine (circa 185 CE)

The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead is the story of an apparition, such as timid imaginations can always create in vision, and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been told of the assassination of Julius Caesar, not many years before; and they generally have their origin in violent deaths, or in the execution of innocent persons.

— Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (1795)

Why did [Jesus] not show conclusively, before hostile witnesses, the reality of his triumph over death […] thus proving the divinity of his mission, and of saving future generations from infinite difficulties and perplexities? […] If the object of Jesus was the salvation of the world, why should he have concealed from the world the divine ratification of his claims?

— Charles Gorham, The First Easter Dawn (1908)

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we are in the domain of religious romance, not of religious history.

— Ernest William Barnes, The Rise of Christianity (1948)

There are no actual witnesses to the greatest miracles of Christianity, namely that a risen Jesus walked out of the tomb in which his lifeless body had been placed. These events are a product of imagination. The belief that he rose from the dead originates from reports by his disciples that they had seen visions of their rabbi alive after his execution. For this reason, the ancient historian Robin Lane Fox (1986: 379) states that early Christianity was “born from visionary experience.” Accounts of this event, however, were not recorded by the disciples or anyone else at the time and come down as second-and third-hand reports by others of what these individuals may have experienced.

Adding to these difficulties, as Ehrman (2014: 135) has summed it up, is the fact that these reports contain contradictions and are at variance with each other in numerous crucial details (see below).

Summary

But the work in parapsychology does more than refute materialism. It is more, too, than a new method of solving problems. There are, at least, still other definite implications and possibilities. Since this new science has penetrated the physical barrier that has hidden man's true nature from the scientists of the past, it has literally become the science of the spiritual aspect of nature.

— Joseph Banks Rhine, New World of the Mind (1953)

Parapsychological investigations tend to undermine [the] “physicalist” view of the world and, thus, to remove one of the obstacles to religious belief […]. Parapsychological research seems to reveal a world in which it is more reasonable to suppose that God and the supernatural play a part.

— Robert Thouless, “Implications for Religious Studies” (1977)

Often our brains can mislead us, and can lead us to believe that we have had a paranormal experience even when no such thing has happened. Indeed, even if there is no such thing as a paranormal phenomenon, human information processing works in such a way that we are all likely from time to time to have experiences that seem for all the world to be paranormal.

— James Alcock, Parapsychology as a “Spiritual Science” (1985)

Not only have [parapsychologists] failed to discover significant new facts, but by nagging away at the few facts they thought were already in the bag, they have slowly but surely taken away the credibility even from those.

— Nicholas Humphrey, Leaps of Faith (1999)

The term “paranormal” was adopted by researchers during the first half of the twentieth century to define the subject matter of the emergent field of parapsychology (Thouless 1942). Parapsychology represents the continuation of the scientific search for ghosts, spirits, and the soul that started in 1882 with the formation of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in Britain. The counterpart of this organization was the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR), established in the United States in 1884 (Beloff 1977: 4– 16; Kurtz 1985b: 192– 209).

Summary

Here then we are first to consider a book, presented to us by a barbarous and ignorant people, written in an age when they were still more barbarous, and in all probability long after the facts which it relates, corroborated by no concurring testimony, and resembling those fabulous accounts, which every nation gives of its origin.

— David Hume, Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding (1748)

A book that really came from the all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect creator of the universe would be unimaginably brilliant. […] Each point made each idea expressed would be inarguable and stunning. […] It would blow us away. It would be impossible to put down. It would touch each of us personally, regardless of our ages, our education, or our experiences.

— Marshall Brain, How “God” Works (2014)

All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention— of barbarian invention— is to read it.

— Robert Ingersoll, Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll (1907)

The three major world religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, possess revealed texts, the Old Testament, The New Testament, and the Qur'an. These are the purported written records of God's communication to humans by way of a selected emissary, messiah, prophet, vatic, and so forth. While humans are involved in the transmission process, the ultimate author of these books is claimed to be none other than God himself.

These mighty tomes are the basis of the theological “argument from Scripture” for the existence of God. Given that this is part of the arsenal theists and religious apologists employ in their invectives against naturalism and science, claims about the miraculous nature, inerrancy, and supernatural origins of these books are legitimate issues for scrutiny according to the tradition of systematic skepticism in science.

Proposed Evidence of the Divine Origins of Sacred Texts

How do we know that these books are of divine origins? First, the very fact that such texts exist becomes proof for the reality of their supernatural author. In other words, if God does not exist, then how can the existence of the holy book be explained? What this involves, of course, is the question-begging assertion that God wrote the book; therefore, the book is evidence that God exists.

Summary

I've had to go a long way. I've given up just about everything. I've cut every tie: I've burned every bridge. I've turned my back on the world. I can't afford to doubt. I have to believe. And there isn't any other truth.

— Dr. Armstrong, a disappointed Sananda cult member (1956)

Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view.

— Leon Festinger et al., When Prophecy Fails (1956)

Hardly had the report arrived from Aleppo that Elijah had appeared in the Old Synagogue there, and Elijah walked streets of Smyrna. Dozens, even hundreds, had seen him: he was the anonymous beggar asking for alms, as well as the as the invisible guest, at every banquet.

— Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Șevi (1973)

The stunning speed with which this belief has spread in the absence of a scintilla of evidence should capture the attention of all historians who have struggled to explain and reconstruct the development of early Christian beliefs in the resurrection and the empty tomb.

— David Berger, The Rebbe, the Messiah and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference (2008)

As discussed in the previous chapter, two concurrent processes came into play to generate the resurrection beliefs of the early Christians: (1) grief hallucinations; (2) the psychological process involved in coming to terms with the disconfirmation of deeply held beliefs. In this chapter, I shall look specifically at how the Jesus cultists came to terms with their shattered dreams and disappointment after the unexpected execution of their rabbi and how these efforts contributed to the development of Christianity.

Seeing the apparition of Jesus was a powerful force that convinced the cultists what they already anticipated based on their background beliefs that their teacher had been glorified and ascended to heaven to remain with the Most High but would shortly after that return to inaugurate the Kingdom of God on earth.

Summary

The scholarship presented in this book is in line with an ongoing trend of turning to international negotiations as sites of study in global environmental politics (O'Neil and Haas 2019). In this work, I rely on mixed qualitative methods, including participant observation, elite interviews and document analysis.

As a participant observer, I have attended the meetings of expert institutions as well as of the policymaking forums to which they provide advice (the latter are most often called “Conference of the Parties” or “COP”). I carried out fieldwork between 2002 and 2015, and the bulk of it while working as a writer and editor on a team producing the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB). The Bulletin describes itself as “a neutral, authoritative and up-to-the-minute record of ongoing multilateral negotiations on environment and sustainable development.” 1 In practice, the Bulletin, hosted under the auspices of a nonprofit organization based in Canada, contracts with Secretariats to provide reports of the meeting and then fields a team of consultant writers to observe and record the events. ENB team members are often graduate students, though some are also freelance consultants, and they follow a structured reporting protocol that yields a succinct summary of a day's or a week's proceedings. In some ways, the work unfolding within ENB teams is akin to that carried out through collaborative event ethnography (Corson et al. 2014; Duffy 2014). My participant observation through this affiliation has afforded me extensive access to formal and informal negotiation sessions, to the text as it is negotiated and to negotiators and administrators themselves.

I supplemented this participant observation with a series of interviews of key participants drawn from stakeholder groups in the meetings I observed. These participants included: experts serving on the institutions providing the advice, delegates negotiating the terms of the institution, delegates receiving the advice and administrators overseeing the organization of these expert institutions. I further bolstered my in-person research and cross-checked my findings through document analysis. Rather than drawing only on published, final-version documentation of proceedings, I tracked the evolution of negotiated text through the more ephemeral paperwork that circulates in the halls of the meeting.

Summary

When governments and societies lose the capacity for critical thinking, the results can be catastrophic— however sympathetic we may be to those who have bought the baloney.

— Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World (1995)

There […] is a price we pay when we tolerate flawed thinking and superstitious beliefs. […] Thinking straight about the world is a precious and difficult process that must be carefully nurtured. By attempting to turn our critical intelligence off and on at will, we risk losing it altogether, and thus jeopardize our ability to see the world clearly. Furthermore, by failing to develop our critical faculties, we become susceptible to the arguments and exhortations of those with other than benign intentions.

— Thomas Gilovich, How We Know What Isn't So (1991)

At the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century, a large proportion of the American public does not know that the earth orbits the sun in a year-long cycle. Over half of the people are unaware that dinosaurs died before the appearance of humans, and about as many affirm that the earth was created during the Bronze Age (Otto 2016: 224). Astonishingly, an equal number of our citizens believe in the existence of ghosts, extraterrestrial beings, paranormal monsters, alien abductions, Bigfoot, hauntings, demonic possession, angels, miracles, and so forth (Chapman University Survey of American Fears 2018; Smith 2010: 22– 23). This mostly scientifically illiterate public seems to lack the rudimentary skills to distinguish between contending claims to knowledge. We now live in a scary and confusing “post-truth” era of disinformation, “fake news,” “counter-knowledge,” “weaponized lies,” conspiracy theories, magical thinking, and sheer irrationalism (Sidky 2018).

Even the paragons of our political system are unashamedly declaring that it is impossible to distinguish between fact and opinion, that for every fact there is “an alternative fact,” that truth is whatever people want it to be, and that science is just another story (Otto 2016: 175– 76; Sidky 2004: 394– 412, 2007a). These political doyens have normalized anti-science rhetoric and irrationalism in US politics. Their main objective is to circumvent input from scientific experts and exclude scientific studies from the policymaking process, thereby jeopardizing the ability of the United States to cope with current and future public health and environmental problems (Carter et al. 2019; Otto 2016: 29).

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Chapter Two - Development Agendas and Donor Spaces: How Capacity Gained Salience

Summary

Preface

Chapter Three - Can Science Say Anything About Religion and the Supernatural?

Summary

5 - Getting the Science (Committee) Right: Knowledge and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification

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Chapter Six - The Battle for Power in Disabling Environments: Statecraft and Developing Capacity in Afghanistan and Pakistan

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Chapter Three - Capacity in Development Policy and Practice: The Quest for Performance Excellence in the Governance of Disabling Environments

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Chapter Seven - Developing Capacity to Manage Global Threats: Statemaking, the Militarization of Development, and Human Rights Approaches

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Chapter Five - The Capacity Project in “AfPak”: Development Experiments, Subnational Spaces, and Transnational Networks

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Chapter Seventeen - Conclusions: Why Religious and Paranormal Beliefs Persist and Their Dangers

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Religion, Supernaturalism, the Paranormal and Pseudoscience

Chapter Fifteen - The Post-Resurrection Appearances in the New Testament

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Chapter Four - Ghostly Rappings, the Science of the Soul, and the Religious Nature of the Paranormal

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Chapter Ten - Books Authored by God? Sacred Texts as Evidence of the Supernatural

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Dedication

Glossary

Acknowledgments

Chapter Sixteen - Coping with Failed Prophesy: A Socio-Psychological Explanation for the Rise of Christianity

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Contents

Appendix: Methods

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Introduction

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