This article was originally published at the defunct Skepticblog.org on Sep 11, 2013.
An archived version is available here
Story time is a big deal at the Loxton household. For years, my young son and I have been working through a stack of some of the great adventure novels, just as my dad used to read poetry to me and my brothers. I’m delighted by my son’s edge-of-his-seat immersion in the worlds of hobbits and pirates and talking lions.
On other nights, we lie awake talking about ideas. As Carl Sagan once said, “Kids can understand some pretty deep things.”1 My son has long since discovered the irresistible trick of asking fascinating questions about those deep things right after I turn off the lights. I’m a sucker every time. Recently, our conversation turned to “true” ghost stories related by his young colleagues on the playground.
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