Hardcore skeptics and diehard believers...

Age : 31 Joined : 12 Oct 2007 Posts : 254

... which ones are the worse?
In my humble opinion both the former and the latter have wrought immense damages to a serious and honest study of the paranormal.
Skeptics seem bent on coming up with quick "logical" answers, no matter how ridicolous and childish they appear or on waging their all-out war against true believers, making them looking even more clownish and exalted than they really are.
Believers on the other hand do not accept compromises and will go to unbelievable length to prove their point: it's always the work of Satan, it's always reptiloids from Omicron Persei VIII. They hate skeptics with the sincere, burning zeal of the crusader and do not seem to have much sympathy for the open-minded researcher either. This in the end alienates many well-meaning scientific researchers and bears to a premature end many potentially interesting investigations.
Many of you know of my more than passing interest in the animal mutilation phenomenon. Well, I can assure you that skeptics and believers have done their very best to hamper investigations by private scientific researchers and investigators.
Believers will downplay evidence point to "earthly" causes, like infections, predators or even toxicological evidence showing high concentrations of well-known chemicals that should not be there. It's ridicolous, it's the Little Green Men from Mars and, being far more advanced than we are, they do not use earthly chemicals.
Skeptics will simply look the other way (remember Galileo's telescope?) when confronted with hard evidence like perfectly executed pathological procedures, carcasses wedged among trees where no leopard is supposed to exist or dead cows avoided even by vultures and coyotes because of the "strange, chemical smell".
It's ridicolous, it's the farmer trying to get money out of the vandalism clause of his insurance policy or a lone attention seeker.
I think you'll all agree that investigation and debate would be much less difficult without these two groups constanly moaning and trying to get to each others' throats.
_________________
Fas: Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum.

Totally agree there Mauro, extremes of either skeptism or blinkered belief are not positions from which a serious study of any subject can be carried out. But the paranormal does seem attract factions from both camps affraid

Joined : 30 Jan 2008 Posts : 138

I couldn't agree more - you can apply exactly the same approach to hauntings and the like, where skeptics/ cynics claim it's all down to imagination and fraud, whereas believers would have you believe that some grand yet baseless orb-centric crap is at play.

Joined : 01 Feb 2008 Posts : 69

Very interesting discussion topic Cool

. However, it is perhaps a somewhat loaded view. I agree that both extremes are unhelpful. However, I rarely, if ever, encounter really hard skepticism of the sort hinted at above. Don’t get me wrong, I have encountered it – but not as often (in fact no where near as often) as the die-hard believers. My more specific points are;

Joined : 01 Feb 2008 Posts : 69

Joined : 05 Feb 2008 Posts : 163

Forget about belief and skepticism and simply adopt a scientific approach. I mean real science, not posing with EMF meters and infra-red thermometers! Most of the people who use those things haven't a clue what they're measuring or how to use them.

Subject: Re: Hardcore skeptics and diehard believers... Tue 05 Feb 2008, 6:19 pm

Joined : 30 Jan 2008 Posts : 138

Joined : 01 Feb 2008 Posts : 69

[quote="matt.h"][quote="Ophiel"]

Age : 31 Joined : 12 Oct 2007 Posts : 254

Joined : 30 Jan 2008 Posts : 138

My problem with Randi is that his ultimate agenda is cynical, in that he often appears to operate on the negative assumption that paranormal phenomena do not exist and can all be disproved by current scientific theories or plain fraud.

I have a similar gripe with Dawkins, espcially the pseudo-science he was peddling in his last Channel 4 series. I have many problems with claims made by dowsers, but to portray that experiment of Chris French's as in any way capable of answering those problems was deliberately misleading.

Joined : 01 Feb 2008 Posts : 69

Joined : 01 Feb 2008 Posts : 69

Joined : 30 Jan 2008 Posts : 138

Suffice to say I don't agree about Randi and his sort, an opnion I feel is easily evidenced by a read through his writing for Prometheus books - so let's not start another argument Wink

I'm sure the French experiment was a very rigorous exercise in testing people's inability to detect water in plastic boxes on a village green. Yet the tone of the programme seemed to me to be an attempt to expound apparent "myths" such as dowsing conclusively, and in that spirit the French experiment was shown to be proof that dowsing didn't exist and was founded on misconceptions.

Yes, the experiment showed up the people tested as the kooks they quite possibly were. Yes, perhaps dowsing is a complete misconception. However, the format of the experiment failed to recreate the conditions in which dowsing phenomena appear to occur, and as such should not be taken as providing conclusive evidence for or against these apparent phenonema.

I suppose you can link its failings to the current trend in some quarters of parapsychology for location-based study rather than lab-based. Of course, such study is flawed because there are so many variables, but this doesn't mean abstracted experiments like French's should be taken as any more authoritative.

Hell, even Dawkins himself (see the current copy of Fortean Times) admitted that the programme was an exercise in promulgating his own vew rather than to make new findings!

Joined : 05 Feb 2008 Posts : 163