be skeptical of skeptics (part 2)
Sorry I have been so delinquent in posts of late. Got busy at home and work, then got sick. Still have that audio from our summer jaunt at OSR to go over, but in the meantime, humor me as I flesh out some more of our views on this whole ghost thing.
Before I begin, however, I must say that I agree more with this article than I did the last one I reviewed. When it comes to ghost hunting, in my opinion, there is zero room for psychics and/or mediums. Why? Because their talents are as unproven as the unproven phenomena you're investigating -- I trust you can see the flaw in this methodology. To prove a psychic is really speaking to a ghost, you would first have to prove the ghost was there to speak to. To my way of thinking, if the Sealed House does prove that ghosts exist -- and develops a way to "catch" them -- then that information could be later used to test a psychic. Unfortunately, it doesn't work the other way around.
ANYway ... Back to the task at hand: Responding to the skeptical beliefs that irk me most...
"One cannot draw a conclusion from lack of knowledge" -- PRECISELY. Yet the skeptics do exactly that, by claiming ghosts don't exist because there is NO EVIDENCE. Sounds like a conclusion drawn from a lack of knowledge to me. The key is to COLLECT EVIDENCE and see if it proves or disproves the theory, which is what the Sealed House will do. What you don't do, in science, is say, "Well, we've got no evidence of that, so it can't be real. No point testing it."
Also, "...only unexplained, possibly later being solved..." always means to skeptics "not a ghost." This is bias going into the "experiment" and thus negates its scientific validity outright. If the "scientific" inquiry doesn't allow that one of the possible explanations IS a ghost (or some heretofore completely unknown phenomenon that has generically been called a ghost), then it's not a valid experiment -- it's just as bad as the believers claiming every EMF bleep is a ghost. "Unexplained," by definition, means no conclusion can be definitively drawn -- which means it could as easily be a ghost as not.
The part about what a scientific inquiry does is exactly true and is exactly what the Sealed House will do. And yet not one investigation by a skeptic has gone into it with the attitude from the last sentence, despite their constant attempts to claim that they are scientific -- but to be fair, nor has a single believer gone into it like this.
Having said that, a true scientific approach to a haunting DOES begin with unproven, seemingly contradictory notions, just as most scientific theories do. If you are truly just following where the evidence leads you, then you have to allow that a ghost -- a phenomenon heretofore completely unexplained by science -- may indeed exhibit some contradictory characteristics. Sort of like quantum entranglement -- which is the other point of the Sealed House: Why is it okay to for quantum physicists to try and prove quantum superposition (that something can be in two places at once), but it's not okay to think that a nonmaterial entity could interact with the material world?
source:
Before I begin, however, I must say that I agree more with this article than I did the last one I reviewed. When it comes to ghost hunting, in my opinion, there is zero room for psychics and/or mediums. Why? Because their talents are as unproven as the unproven phenomena you're investigating -- I trust you can see the flaw in this methodology. To prove a psychic is really speaking to a ghost, you would first have to prove the ghost was there to speak to. To my way of thinking, if the Sealed House does prove that ghosts exist -- and develops a way to "catch" them -- then that information could be later used to test a psychic. Unfortunately, it doesn't work the other way around.
ANYway ... Back to the task at hand: Responding to the skeptical beliefs that irk me most...
One cannot draw a conclusion from a lack of knowledge. Besides, an event may not be unexplainable at all, only unexplained, possibly later being solved (e.g., a slamming door might have been caused by a draft or may have been a prank).
"One cannot draw a conclusion from lack of knowledge" -- PRECISELY. Yet the skeptics do exactly that, by claiming ghosts don't exist because there is NO EVIDENCE. Sounds like a conclusion drawn from a lack of knowledge to me. The key is to COLLECT EVIDENCE and see if it proves or disproves the theory, which is what the Sealed House will do. What you don't do, in science, is say, "Well, we've got no evidence of that, so it can't be real. No point testing it."
Also, "...only unexplained, possibly later being solved..." always means to skeptics "not a ghost." This is bias going into the "experiment" and thus negates its scientific validity outright. If the "scientific" inquiry doesn't allow that one of the possible explanations IS a ghost (or some heretofore completely unknown phenomenon that has generically been called a ghost), then it's not a valid experiment -- it's just as bad as the believers claiming every EMF bleep is a ghost. "Unexplained," by definition, means no conclusion can be definitively drawn -- which means it could as easily be a ghost as not.
The scientific approach to hauntings does not begin with the unproven, seemingly contradictory notion that entities are at once nonmaterial and quasi physical. Rather, in scientific inquiry one seeks to gather, study, and follow the evidence, only positing a supernatural or paranormal cause when all natural explanations have been decisively eliminated. Investigation seeks neither to foster nor debunk mysteries but instead to solve them.
The part about what a scientific inquiry does is exactly true and is exactly what the Sealed House will do. And yet not one investigation by a skeptic has gone into it with the attitude from the last sentence, despite their constant attempts to claim that they are scientific -- but to be fair, nor has a single believer gone into it like this.
Having said that, a true scientific approach to a haunting DOES begin with unproven, seemingly contradictory notions, just as most scientific theories do. If you are truly just following where the evidence leads you, then you have to allow that a ghost -- a phenomenon heretofore completely unexplained by science -- may indeed exhibit some contradictory characteristics. Sort of like quantum entranglement -- which is the other point of the Sealed House: Why is it okay to for quantum physicists to try and prove quantum superposition (that something can be in two places at once), but it's not okay to think that a nonmaterial entity could interact with the material world?
source:
- Investigative Files: Ghost Hunters; Joe Nickell; Skeptical Inquirer; May 2006