Bunk. Pseudo science. Garbage research. These are just a few of the many colorful names and phrases that get tossed at people in the field of paranormal studies. The offenders are plentiful in the scientific community, and it has unfortunately been ongoing for years.
For whatever reason, studying the paranormal seems to really get under the skin of many scientists. Since the first seance was held by gaslight, men and women in lab coats have been calling for our heads. Admittedly, in many cases they have been right. The popular psychics and mediums of those days, and even now, are mostly, if not all, frauds and scam artists. But when the playing field is moved from this realm and into the world of personal experience, I feel it crosses a line.
The fact is, for many years and in many cultures, strange things have been reported by rational and intelligent people. Everything from the apparition of a deceased loved one to Bigfoot to UFOs have been witnessed and documented time and time again. The scientists say it is impossible. There are no such thing as ghosts and there is no giant ape creature wandering the wooded areas of the Pacific Northwest. We are the only intelligent life form. Us. Earthlings.
But what if they’re wrong? Scientists say that ghosts and the paranormal cannot be proven legitimate because instances of their existence cannot be recreated in a laboratory. First of all, paranormal experiences are not a constant. It is not like adding one part oxygen to two parts hydrogen to create water. There are no formulas or chemical compounds to balance out.
Secondly, and even more important to this argument, is the fact that the inability to recreate an experience in a controlled setting is not proof of its nonexistence. Simply put, just because I cannot prove to you that something happened, doesn’t mean it did not.
Think of the innumerable pieces of our biology that make up the human body. Our skin, our blood, our heart, and our brain, for instance. Under controlled settings in labs the world over, scientists have succeeded in creating likenesses to certain parts of our anatomy. Pacemakers, artificial limbs, and much more have granted some people a better quality of life. However, try as they might to recreate the human heart itself or to faithfully reproduce living tissue, they have failed. Does this mean our hearts and skin do not exist? Are they fallacies of our collective imaginations because they cannot be recreated in a lab using chemicals and test tubes?
Furthermore, the experience of being human itself is a uniquely personal thing. I wake up each day, breathe air in and out, walk, talk, and feel. I think, speak, eat and laugh. In other words, I exist. I am in control of my own human experience. And though I can describe in great detail my thoughts when it comes to each part of my experience, I cannot describe anyone else’s. In fact, it is a hallmark of the philosophy of ages that, though we are sure of our own human experience, we can never be sure of that of others.
Think of that. It’s quite fascinating. I can tell you what I am thinking and feeling right now but how can I prove that you are? Or vice versa? I cannot. But we each have faith that we are indeed having our own experiences, don’t we?
So this is my challenge to the scientific community. In any lab, and in any controlled environment you see fit, sit across from me and prove my experience. Recreate it. The simple truth is, it is impossible. For now, so too is recreating what those in the paranormal community refer to as a ghost or apparition. But be that as it may, it simply does not mean that it isn’t real. And until we can verify the existence of consciousness inside the human body, we'll be hard pressed to prove it exists outside of the human body.
For far too many years, far too many people have reported seeing things; strange things. Things that aren’t supposed to be real. Ghosts, monsters, aliens. Is every report factual? Of course not. But, likewise, is every case fraudulent? Even the most closed minded dismissive would have to admit that there must be something to at least a few of these stories, right? Not everyone can be crazy, can they?
Science and the paranormal have been at odds for years. But, in truth, we can and should learn from each other. From scientists, paranormal investigators can learn techniques for collecting evidence and how to properly research specific claims of activity. But from the paranormal community, I believe scientists can learn a far more valuable lesson: the benefit of keeping an open mind.
Thanks for reading.
Comments
thank you for the interesting article. for the sake of discussion, however, i don't think that science claims that all phenomena which cannot be re-created in a laboratory therefore do not exist. many observable phenomena cannot re-created in that way, and yet are still considered scientifically valid. i believe the problem with the paranormal in general, from the viewpoint of science at least, is that the paranormal phenomena themselves are not even observable under any sort of controlled circumstances. if the phenomena cannot even be observed, real problems obviously arise. human consciousness itself, however, although mysterious, can be observed - i can speak to you and you speak back (if you are so inclined), i can witness your responses to stimuli, etc. some may say that ghosts are observable in this way - but I have yet to see one instance of a ghost, or any other paranormal phenomena, which could be verified in the same way as human consciousness. i'm out of space.
Interesting point. It may be subject matter for a future article. If you look at a lot of skeptical analysis of the paranormal, paranormal recreation is one of the major things mentioned, as is observation, etc. Yes, you can witness my response to stimuli, but I can witness someone's reactions to something "paranormal" and it is not considered evidence.
Well lets remember when Einstein gave us relativity, everyone thought he was crazy. Because at the time technology wasn't there to prove his theory. Slowly they proved it, over and over and today they have even proven his theory on future time travel. In time people will understand the Paranormal Science, the theories we come up with today maybe proven in the not so near future. Good article...
Thanks, Jason, for the comment. Einstein was certainly a brilliant mind, and the theory of relativity that he refined and progressed revolutionized science. I'm not sure his time travel theories have really been proven, however, since (at least to my knowledge) no one has traveled to the future. I think I understand your point, though. Thanks again!
hey everyone good morning wow this awesome new article about science & paranormal etc. thanks bill green connecticut sasquatch researcher. please email me if you had a possible sighting of sasquatch or footprints at billgreen2009@yahoo.com
Remember that when science was in it's hey day and moving forward. The church was a major factor in daily life. This is where I believe the paranormal took a step backwards. Spiritual items were to be handled by the church and therefore science did not advance it's studies on the paranormal. Ghost were considered spirits, right? Today things are different, were are trying to advance the science of the paranormal and we are now hundreds of years behind todays science. We have alot of catching up to do.
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This whole article is based on a strawman argument and panders to those who already believe in the paranormal. There are many points in this very article that detail why science calls many investigations “bunk”. It’s not the CLAIMS that science has a problem with, it’s the lack of critical thinking and the casting aside of the scientific method.
Strawman argument: Jason says, “The scientists say it is impossible.”
Um, no, they don’t Jason. They say ‘We cannot reproduce it in a lab, for whatever reason, so we cannot study it. So we neither accept or deny the paranormal. We don’t know until we have more evidence.’ Far from having closed minds, scientists are free to say, ‘We don’t know.’
It is the faith-based paranormal believers who have closed minds and who scream from the rooftops how they’re right without a doubt and science is being unreasonable. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to hear paranormal believers say, ‘I think I saw (insert), but I could have been mistaken.' Cont.
Continued ~ ? Instead we almost always hear, “No one can make me believe I didn’t see Bigfoot.’ Now how, exactly, is that keeping an open mind? Hmm?
Jason says ~ “the fact that the inability to recreate an experience in a controlled setting is not proof of its nonexistence”
More strawman. Again….science has never claimed they have proof of non-existance. A negative cannot be proven in the first place. Furthermore, the burden of proof is on the claimant.
Your challenge to scientists is a no brainer. Their answer would be, ‘We currently have no way of testing your experience to a reliable degree, so we will not confirm or deny it.’ And that’s the same thing they do with the paranormal.
Sure, when science is pressed to hazard a guess, science may arrive at, for instance, “There is little chance that Bigfoot exists given the lack of fossil record, the apparent lack of food supply for a breeding population and the dubious soft evidence so far.”
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Compare the advances made by using the scientific method with the accomplishments of paranormal investigators. Any reasonable person will arrive at the correct answer.
I think you miss the point of the article. Or perhaps the blame is mine for not stating it clearly enough.
Please continue to view my work, as I fully intend on writing in the future about the closed-minded believer. This is something I have been just as outspoken about.
However, I did find it hilarious that you said my entire argument is based on a strawman argument, which you then duplicated yourself with the strawman argument about the paranormal investigator in your comment.
Seems as if your inability to keep an open but doubting mind about science caused you to fall into the same trap as so many of the paranormal investigators you railed against. Typical.
Well I'm glad you got a chuckle. However, I'm confused. Where is my strawman again? If you're referring to my statement of comparison between the accomplishments of science vs. paranormal investigators, I see no strawman. Paranormal investigators, whether UFOlogists, Bigfoot hunters or ghost hunters, claim advancements all the time. They claim proof with EVP readings, cold spots, exposed UFO government files, Bigfoot DNA ect... And what have all those claims helped or advanced in reality?
And, off the top of my head and suing Bigfoot as an example, many mainstream scientists have and are investigating or lending support. Goodall, Krantz, Meldrum ect.. But that is not really what believers want. They want blind acceptance and unearned respect. Paranormal investigations are unaccredited, unsupervised and lacking academic review. And "typical" can go both ways.
You just did it again.
But I do want to thank you for your argument. This will help me to be a more careful writer in the future, as I certainly do not want to give the impression that I am creating the strawman argument.
If you view my work in the future, you will find that I am quite outspoken both about both the closed mind dismissives and the open minded believers. I feel they are two sides of the same coin.
And as far as your argument about those that claim advancements based off EMF readings, cold spots and the like, I have just as much disdain for those as you do. Believe me. This is a field I love very much. And "progress" based on that kind of data is not advancing our cause any at all. So on that we can certainly agree.
However, I am early in my Examiner tenure and had to start somewhere. I will be lambasting the true believers in the near future.
Fair enough. But for future reference, I would like to know where my strawman is.
"A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position."
Going by this definition, where is my strawman? Thanks.
Historically speaking, prominent scientists believed in the paranormal. Energy continues. It does not die it just changes form. Einstein, Tesla, Bell, and more. Big guns who believed in science and the paranormal. For the person who thinks the church got in the way, please consider that some of our biggest leaps in science came through the church. The big bang theory was posed by a Catholic Priest, George LeMaitre. The theory of heliocentricity from Copernicus (no one is certain if he was a priest or not), later expanded upon by Gallileo who invented the telescope. Both deeply religious men. The fairly new science "Neuro-Theology" has done very interesting things in the realm of science and the paranormal. For instance recreating the experience of a supernatural entity via magnets. Some say this proved ghosts (and God) do not exist. However, those in this particular science say if they recreate the experience of eating an apple pie, it does not prove the pie never existed.
Energy does continue MaxMarie. But too often that is used by the religious or paranormal believers as code for proof of the soul and life after death. As in, 'When we die our energy lives on - our souls continue'. There is no need to make this connection. Our physical bodies do become another form of energy. Consciousness (or the "soul") is a product of the energy of our living bodies, not energy itself. A thought is the product of the enrgy of the brain, but is not energy itself.
I see the strawman most times you mention "the paranormal investigator," then create a generalization based on him to base your argument off of.
Well Jason, the article is titled 'Science vs. the Paranormal'. I described the basic paranormal investigators (not you personally) accomplishments and stances using the attributes they've used to describe themselves. So it's lost on me where I've held up a lesser position of the paranormal investigator in order to refute it while purposely never addressing the original and 'real' position. But I look forward to more articles from you. Your flow, pace and word choice makes for a good read.
Hobie - Did you skip several words of what I'd written on purpose? Scientists like Einstein, Tesla, Bell believed in a life after due to their studies of energy. So it's not just paranormal investigators or religious people who believe this.
Faith-based paranormal investigators are few and far between, Hobie. I am one myself. And I love science. I have no doubt that science will some day shed more light on the paranormal.
Do not lump people of real faith together with those of false faith. Those who doubt fear science.
Oh I didn’t skip it. I just didn’t address it because it was an argument from authority. But if you want I will address it. The scientists you mentioned actually make my point for me. Science has an open mind. Far from not wanting to know, science craves more knowledge. Science doesn’t have a problem with the paranormal, it has a problem with many of the paranormals lack of testable, repeatable subjects – not the subjects themselves. And science does not claim to have proof of anything’s “nonexistence”. We can throw personal opinions of scientists who believe in life after death and those who do not back and forth all day.
Note: I'm a believer in the paranormal, but I can see why science has problems with the current evidence for it.
Anecdotal evidence is still evidence - but it's not considered good evidence.
That's why in a court case forensic data trumps eyewitness testimony. Science and the Law both view human testimony as inherently error prone, and not without reason.
What science wants is verifiable data - this is currently something we have very little of with regards to the paranormal.
hobie - i just thought i'd comment that you totally were strawman-ing the paranormals back there.
"I described the basic paranormal investigators (not you personally) accomplishments and stances using the attributes they've used to describe themselves. "
which paranormal investigators, stances, and attributes are you referring to here? From looking through your previous posts, I guess it would be the ones from your first post...
"It is the faith-based paranormal believers who have closed minds and who scream from the rooftops how they’re right without a doubt and science is being unreasonable."
Call me cynical, but this seems pretty similar to holding "up a lesser position of the paranormal investigator in order to refute it while purposely never addressing the original and 'real' position"?
And what is the real position? Well, how about one which isn't being defined off-the-bat as "close-minded" and "screaming." That'd might be a start.
cheers.
Lol! Please. The ‘reports’ from the preponderance of investigators are very similar. They have a habit of complaining that their evidence is not being taken seriously. Their websites have a habit of blocking or banning critics under the guise they were being rude. Many of their “instruments” are hardly instruments. Many have been exposed as frauds. I have not misportrayed them, I've been easy on them. I’ve investigated enough myself to be confident in my assessment. Not only that, it’s not a strawman because the articles author did not describe the paranormal investigators position, so there was no original position for me to misrepresent. Mine is the initial assessment here of the majority of investigators and I feel it to be more than accurate. All that equals no strawman. The strawman is Jasons concerning sciences’ well-known common knowledge stance.
ok. first of all, the article did, i believe, present an unspoken, fairly commonly held position of 'those paranormal investigators,' namely, that paranormal phenomena exist. but perhaps with all the name-calling of those supporting it, that somehow got lost...
"THEY have habit of complaining that their evidence is not being taken seriously"
"THEIR websites..."
"Many of THEIR “instruments”..."
"I have not misportrayed THEM..."
who is the "they" here? the entire paranormal field? those dang lying liars who lie? if so, perhaps your argument, rather than being strictly strawman, is best styled as simply an ad hominem attack. neither are supposed to function, however, as i'm sure you're aware, to refute the underlying premise held by those lying liars espousing it - namely, that paranormal phenomena exist.
i not sure why you can't see that. i'm also not saying that paranormal phenomena DO exist. i'm just saying name-calling isn't the best way to get your point across.
p.s. below, i conflated the article's premise with that held by the paranormal community at large - i think the article leans more towards saying "paranormal phenomena MAY exist," rather than making any broader proclamations.
as such, the strawman-ing, i suppose, wasn't directed so much at the author as it was at the paranormal community in general. maybe that will clear things up.
cheerio.
On what basis do you found your declaration that most if not all psychics and mediums are fake?
In the early days of spiritualism, many either eventually confessed to fakery or were found to be committing fraud. Famed magician Harry Houdini did a great deal of work to shed light on fraudulent mediums, for instance.
In today's era, so-called psychics and mediums have been shown over and over to rely on cold reading techniques and a gullible audience. See James Randi for detailed analysis.
Now, to be clear, my contention is not that all professed psychics and mediums are phonies; though it is my opinion that most if not all of the popular ones are.
I do believe that some are more intuitive than others and may even possess a special gift. I have met only one person who has impressed me in that regard and she is not interested in fame or money at all. This will probably be fodder for a future article.
I hope you'll continue reading. Thank you for your comment.
Ya know...I really liked your article. I'm not here to get into a big discussion about it, just to agree with you. Doctors didn't realize there was such a thing as germs until they decided they lost less patients when they washed their hands in between seeing them and through science figured out why this was so. Maybe "scientific proof" will one day extend it's boundaries, eh?
It's certainly possible, Erin. Thanks for writing.
Dude wrote ~ “who is the "they" here? the entire paranormal field? those dang lying liars who lie?”
I clearly wrote the preponderance of them, not all. This is my opinion based on all of the paranormal topics I have read intently throughout the years. Since I have not written an essay with references, my opinion should be taken by the discerning reader as that, an opinion. But the material with which I arrived at this opinion is all over the web for anyone who would like to do their own research.
Dude wrote ~ “…perhaps your argument…is best styled as simply an ad hominem attack.” I have not named called. As for ad hominem, there would be great difficulty discussing the subject of paranormal investigations without mentioning the tactics, lack of results and behavior those who investigate them – particularly when the article at least touches on the struggle between paranormal investigations vs. science and is actually titled so.
Jason thanks for replying.
Yes it is true many are profiting from fraudualence and turning the whole thing into a circus. I have witnessed firsthand those who claim to be mediums, and are completely exploiting the vulnerable. It's embarassing to the real genuine mediums and gives us a bad reputation that's all. Just nice to know you do recognise that there are mediums out here, who do not seek fame or money and use their abilities for the right reasons. Without the ego.
Yes i shall keep reading - and i also listen your radio shows which i enjoy.
Regards fron Ireland.
It's no wonder why many "ghost hunters" don't get much respect from the scientific community. They mostly do stuff like record audio, analyze, then conclude the speech-matching patterns on clips are the result of discarnate human speech! There is no evidence to support this, whatsoever. The field is plagued with pseudo-believers that will take any seemingly anomalous evidence and give it a paranormal label. This is why they get little scientific respect.
Mike, Founder Quantum Paranormal
hobie-thank you for not dismissing my concerns out of hand this time, as i felt you did previously. sometimes the empty sarcasm of the internet can get to people.
you are, of course, entitled to your opinion. i share quite a bit of it. a lot of people, inside the paranormal field and out, are fed up with poor practices and outright fraud (which are there and documented, as you say). and there are also assuredly close-minded people in the community who cannot be reasoned with. however, i have a background in science, and grew up in a house of science professors - and my experience has shown me there is a lot of close-mindedness amongst practitioners in that field as well, especially concerning the spiritual/paranormal/religious matters. concerning the paranormal, a scientific, rational approach is definitely needed for these claims to be seriously. personally, i see movement in that direction; not all paranormal investigators are charlatans, nor all scientists blind. peace, dud
Ditto dude...peace.
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