THE GHOST POST (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Gatie]

just as they cannot disprove paranormal phenomenon so too can't I prove it exists...it's a stalemate discussion, one in which both sides are in the same position.

Sure you can prove it exists. Develop a rigorous, scientifically valid, peer-reviewed experiment which proves paranormal activity has occurred and I'll be the first one to congratulate you on the finding of the millenia. There's a huge difference between proving something exists and proving it doesn't exist. Proving it exists is as simple as finding it and documenting it with scientific rigor. Proving it doesn't exist means you have to search infinite incidences of space/time to check it's not there, which is impossible.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Come on you and I both know it amounts to the same thing at the end of the day, there are far greater minds than mine who've studied this subject day and night for decades and they still can't prove with absolute certainty that ghosts exist and likely never will.


Believers are just as unable to prove anything beyond a shadow of a doubt where there is absolutely no question of it.


And assuming that they do finally develop equipment to prove once and for all that spirits exist do you think that the skeptics will then leave it alone and accept it? I doubt it. Things like this are discussed for so long and so many theories are developed and tossed around that I doubt skeptics will be able to even recognize the truth when it's finally presented to them.


No, It'll probably take them being dragged up the walls and across the ceiling like JoBeth Williams in Poltergeist for them to finally admit it lol.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Yes science certainly has a nasty reputation for rejecting new ideas that are rigorously proven through the scientific method. Stuff like . . . uhhhh . . . astrophysics, the atom, nuclear fission, fusion, relativity, Newtonian Laws, Thermodynamics, electricity, radiation, the Assembly Line, internal combustion engines, the Coelocanth, Giant Squids . . .



Need I go on?


I think you would do well to see this vid from the other thread:

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Well my point is they haven't proved it yet after decades of investigative study and the day they do I'll be just as surprised as you and I'll be even more surprised if the skeptics then throw up their hands and say "well shit, I guess ghosts do exists after all"


Damn I'm starting to sound like a skeptic, see what you people are doing to me?

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Originally Posted by Inspector Hammer!

I for one hope they do prove all sorts of things; telepathy, group think, ghosts, etc. I just don't let my hopes get in the way of scientific logic. As I've said in other threads . . . Scientists love to play the "What if?" game, it's why we became scientists in the first place. However, unlike the self-described "believers," we have to play it by the rules.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Hey, me too, I would be ecstatic if they could prove those things, more power to them if they can one day.

 

[Will_B]

Originally Posted by Jeff Gatie


I for one hope they do prove all sorts of things; telepathy, group think, ghosts, etc. I just don't let my hopes get in the way of scientific logic. As I've said in other threads . . . Scientists love to play the "What if?" game, it's why we became scientists in the first place. However, unlike the self-described "believers," we have to play it by the rules.

Touching on Hammer's earlier comment about the burden of proof that the "believer" is required to present as evidence to the non-believers, evidence "to the existence of whatever the person is claiming to have seen whether it be aliens, ghosts or what have you", I can't help but think of this illustration:


Give a caveman a compact disc. He'll probably think it's a mirror until you pop it into a player and play him a song (before leaving in your time machine, after having given him the disc as a souvenir). It will take that caveman, or rather, some descendants who are smarter than him, approximately 10,000 years to discover it's encoded with Justin Bieber songs. And yet, the burden of proof is supposedly his, simply because some other cavemen don't want to be bothered unless his report is accompanied by proof? My word! In his case, he's even got the CD right there in his hand! It isn't his fault that it will several thousand years until microscopes are invented which might detect the spiral of pits in which the music is encoded. Another few hundred years for someone to crack the code as being a binary code. Another few hundred years after that for someone else to invent the laser. And a few dozen years after that for someone to finally prove that indeed, it wasn't a mirror, and the caveman who all the skeptic cavemen laughed at was pretty close to the truth when he said that the round mirror made horrible singing noises when placed in a magic box.


There is simply no way that an average person can be expected to develop the tools required to "prove" pretty much anything out of the ordinary. Heck it would be a challenge for most people to prove more than that fire causes water to boil.


Skeptics are lazy, irresponsible people, who claim they are protecting society from irresponsible people. And maybe they are, along the way. But their baby-and-the-bathwater approach is a lazy, easy position.

 

[Will_B]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inspector Hammer!
... Why is it so difficult to understand? It isn't complicated, why is it so wrong for a believer to ask skeptics to prove that certain phenomenon doesn't exist yet they can ask believers to prove they do?...

I'll accept the rationale that you can't prove a negative. The offense is not that skeptics refuse to prove the negative, their offense is that they sometimes refuse (quite strongly) to allow that what they believe may be incomplete.


Skeptics sometimes proclaim that something odd, as described, "violates known scientific laws".


Which is irrelevant of course, since things only need to obey the laws of nature; they don't need to obey current scientific laws (theories).


The problem with skeptics -- not with scientists, but with skeptics who view science as a church rather than a process -- is that they sometimes offer up "scientific laws" as if they were sacred and immutable, rather than as actively changing with new information.

It's easier to think of the laws as sacred and immutable if you refuse to listen to people's experiences without being given heaps of accompanying proof.

 

[RobertR]

Originally Posted by Will_B




Touching on Hammer's earlier comment about the burden of proof that the "believer" is required to present as evidence to the non-believers, evidence "to the existence of whatever the person is claiming to have seen whether it be aliens, ghosts or what have you", I can't help but think of this illustration:


Give a caveman a compact disc. He'll probably think it's a mirror until you pop it into a player and play him a song (before leaving in your time machine, after having given him the disc as a souvenir). It will take that caveman, or rather, some descendants who are smarter than him, approximately 10,000 years to discover it's encoded with Justin Bieber songs. And yet, the burden of proof is supposedly his, simply because some other cavemen don't want to be bothered unless his report is accompanied by proof? My word! In his case, he's even got the CD right there in his hand! It isn't his fault that it will several thousand years until microscopes are invented which might detect the spiral of pits in which the music is encoded. Another few hundred years for someone to crack the code as being a binary code. Another few hundred years after that for someone else to invent the laser. And a few dozen years after that for someone to finally prove that indeed, it wasn't a mirror, and the caveman who all the skeptic cavemen laughed at was pretty close to the truth when he said that the round mirror made horrible singing noises when placed in a magic box.

That's a pretty flawed analogy, Will. Why would the caveman assume that the disc was the source of the sound? All he knows is that the "magic box" made sound when the disc was put in it. For all he knows, the disc could serve the same function as food, or simply be an offering to the Singing God. He would have talked about the "magic box", not necessarily the disc as the sound source. Of course it would be natural and reasonable for the other cavemen to want to see and hear the box, and of course it would be natural and reasonable for them to be skeptical unless the box was there. If someone claimed that he saw an antigravity machine, but all he had was an object that was placed in the machine before it worked, wouldn't you be skeptical, and want to see the machine? By the way, the people best equipped to figure out the purpose and workings of the object would be those following scientific principles--in other words, skeptics.

 

[RobertR]

Originally Posted by Will_B
... Why is it so difficult to understand? It isn't complicated, why is it so wrong for a believer to ask skeptics to prove that certain phenomenon doesn't exist yet they can ask believers to prove they do?...

I'll accept the rationale that you can't prove a negative. The offense is not that skeptics refuse to prove the negative, their offense is that they sometimes refuse (quite strongly) to allow that what they believe may be incomplete.


Skeptics sometimes proclaim that something odd, as described, "violates known scientific laws".


Which is irrelevant of course, since things only need to obey the laws of nature; they don't need to obey current scientific laws (theories).


The problem with skeptics -- not with scientists, but with skeptics who view science as a church rather than a process -- is that they sometimes offer up "scientific laws" as if they were sacred and immutable, rather than as actively changing with new information.

It's easier to think of the laws as sacred and immutable if you refuse to listen to people's experiences without being given heaps of accompanying proof.


[/QUOTE]


You're completely mischaracterizing how skeptics view scientific laws. All we're saying is that if you're going to claim some phenomenon that appears to act against our understanding of one or more of them, you are obligated to provide extraordinarily convincing evidence of your claim. Contrary to what you said, any scientist making an extraordinary claim (such as cold fusion, for example) knows that he must document it, and that his claim is, must be, and should be, subject to verification and scrutiny.



Person A: I have a machine that produces more energy than it uses.


Skeptic: Such a machine violates the laws of thermodynamics. Show me the machine, and provide extraordinary proof that it does what you say, subject to scrutiny by engineers, scientists, and others trained to detect fraud.


Person A: How dare you make such a demand. You are lazy and irresponsible, and view your so-called laws of thermodynamics as sacred and immutable.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Person A: I have a machine that produces more energy than it uses.


Skeptic: Such a machine violates the laws of thermodynamics. Show me the machine, and provide extraordinary proof that it does what you say, subject to scrutiny by engineers, scientists, and others trained to detect fraud.


Person A: How dare you make such a demand. You are lazy and irresponsible, and view your so-called laws of thermodynamics as sacred and immutable.

Here's the problem with that, there is a world of difference from your example and trying to prove the existence of the paranormal, to prove that your machine does what person A claims one needs only take it apart, analyze it and figure out how it works, that's a far cry from trying to prove something that even with all of the technology we have now still hasn't been proven because of any number of variables, some or most still unknown.


Hell the technology needed to find, document and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that ghosts exist might not even exist yet and won't for another hundred years.


That's asking a whole hell of a lot of the believer.


Let's say I'm a complete moron, I mean someone who never finished school and drools in his Lucky Charms, okay, and I come here and say that I just saw a ghost and I believe they exist, it's absolutely unreasonable to ask me to come up with a battery of tests and criteria to prove it as I would be mentally incapable of doing so, does that sound fair to you guys?


My point is, the burden of proof should not rest solely on the shoulders of the one making the claim because 9 times out of 10 they are average Joe's who know nothing of science, it should rest on those who have both the equipment, know how and experience to take what the witness said and run with it to prove what they claimed.


Scientists and Parapsychologists are working on it, right now as I type this they are toiling away at trying to prove the existence of the paranormal, working their fingers to the bone to try and prove there are indeed spirits...why get on the average persons back to prove it when they clearly can't?


BTW I got a chuckle that you used Justin Bieber in your example, I can't stand that kid, I think that even a caveman would think his music is shit lol.

 

[RobertR]

Originally Posted by Inspector Hammer!


Let's say I'm a complete moron, I mean someone who never finished school and drools in his Lucky Charms, okay, and I come here and say that I just saw a ghost and I believe they exist, it's absolutely unreasonable to ask me to come up with a battery of tests and criteria to prove it as I would be mentally incapable of doing so, does that sound fair to you guys?


.....the burden of proof should not rest solely on the shoulders of the one making the claim because 9 times out of 10 they are average Joe's who know nothing of science, it should rest on those who have both the equipment, know how and experience to take what the witness said and run with it to prove what they claimed.

You're right, it wouldn't be fair to ask someone with no scientific knowledge to design the test. Unfortunately, though, you’ve just made a strawman argument. I’ve never heard of skeptics demanding that the person claiming the paranormal phenomenon be the one to come up with the “battery of tests” and criteria to prove his claim. It’s the skeptics who come up with those. I’ll cite my post from the other thread again. The woman had to do nothing but demonstrate her power. Simple. End of story. No demonstration of her scientific knowledge, no test design, NOTHING. Just show what she can do. The skeptics behaved exactly the way you said you wanted them to. I don't see how any reasonable person could possibly think the skeptics were "unfair".

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I hear what your saying but I've seen it happen, just sayin'.


Some skeptics don't use the logic you've cited and asks the one who made the claim to prove it no matter who they are.

 

[Will_B]

Originally Posted by RobertR I’ve never heard of skeptics demanding that the person claiming the paranormal phenomenon be the one to come up with the “battery of tests” and criteria to prove his claim. It’s the skeptics who come up with those.

You are the first person I've heard who has said the burden of proof rests with someone else, other than the person who made the claim! Thank you for that. I hope it catches on. But what I've seen for years in interviews is that a person will share what they've seen (or perceived, since maybe it was all in their head), and in the chair opposite will be a skeptic who will state that the person has not provided any proof and therefore must be ignored. They don't say "what the person says may be true, and research may bear it out."

 

[Jack Briggs]

You know, I would suggest transferring this discussion over to "The Skeptic Thread," because that's what is being discussed here. Let the ghost lovers continue their discussion and let the critical thinkers continue theirs. And, of course, dialogue between the two camps is encouraged (as long as it's civil). (I do admit, though, this particular discussion is more interesting at the moment!)

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

This thread is a lot of fun but if you'll excuse me I'm gonna go watch A Christmas Carol, you know, the classic story about three unprovable phenomena that are possible byproducts of high EMF fields (or even a bit of bad beef or an underdone potato) teaches a nasty old skeptic the true meaning of Christmas?

 

[Will_B]

Originally Posted by RobertR
Contrary to what you said, any scientist making an extraordinary claim (such as cold fusion, for example) knows that he must document it, and that his claim is, must be, and should be, subject to verification and scrutiny.

I agree with that-- if it is a scientist making the claim, he needs to provide peer reviewed proof. But in situations where ordinary people are simply reporting what they've seen, those people should not be held to that standard, not at all. Their only responsibility is to share what they perceived, so that others with more knowledge from different disciplines can explore the possibilities. It would be cruel and unfair to, say, lambast someone for describing what they've seen. I am glad we seem to be coming to some kind of agreement on that.


I recall that Whitley Strieber was nearly driven to suicide by the attacks he endured from CSICOP after he dared to write about his "alien"-like experiences, even though he spent hundreds of pages saying he didn't know what it really was, only what it seemed to him to be, and what it might mean if it is what it seems to be. At the time, the skeptics were calling people like him liars. Lately it seems the skeptics simply call them mistaken, which I guess is an improvement, though I don't think skeptics have really shaken the image of arrogance.

 

[Will_B]

Originally Posted by Jack Briggs

You know, I would suggest transferring this discussion over to "The Skeptic Thread," because that's what is being discussed here. Let the ghost lovers continue their discussion and let the critical thinkers continue theirs. And, of course, dialogue between the two camps is encouraged (as long as it's civil). (I do admit, though, this particular discussion is more interesting at the moment!)

No way in hell I'd join into a thread with a name like that.


But I too need to go prep for the holidays...

 

[Will_B]

Originally Posted by RobertR


That's a pretty flawed analogy, Will. Why would the caveman assume that the disc was the source of the sound? ...By the way, the people best equipped to figure out the purpose and workings of the object would be those following scientific principles--in other words, skeptics.

Maybe the strange man told him so. And skeptics are not the same as scientists. I'd rather give the disc to scientists than hope a pundit group of skeptics would deign to give the disc serious consideration. (I understand that many members of skeptics groups are scientists, but given a choice between a scientist who is a member of a skeptics group and a scientist who is not, I'd choose one who is not, in hopes of avoiding bias.)

 

[RobertR]

Originally Posted by Will_B


You are the first person I've heard who has said the burden of proof rests with someone else, other than the person who made the claim! Thank you for that. I hope it catches on.

That’s another mischaracterization. I said the skeptics would design the conditions under which the paranormal claimant proves his claim, NOT that the burden of proof is on the skeptics. The claimant demonstrates the proof (or lack thereof). The skeptic provides the conditions.

what I've seen for years in interviews is that a person will share what they've seen (or perceived, since maybe it was all in their head), and in the chair opposite will be a skeptic who will state that the person has not provided any proof and therefore must be ignored. They don't say "what the person says may be true, and research may bear it out."

It’s perfectly reasonable to state that there’s no reason to believe an extraordinary claim without proof. Would you buy a car that was claimed to run on water without proof that it did so? Also, you’re not making a distinction between commenting on a paranormal claim and actually testing it. I could point you to links showing that skeptics have tested paranormal claimants many, MANY times, disproving that your implication that skeptics dismiss all claims without bothering to test them.

if it is a scientist making the claim, he needs to provide peer reviewed proof. But in situations where ordinary people are simply reporting what they've seen, those people should not be held to that standard, not at all. Their only responsibility is to share what they perceived, so that others with more knowledge from different disciplines can explore the possibilities. It would be cruel and unfair to, say, lambast someone for describing what they've seen. I am glad we seem to be coming to some kind of agreement on that.

If you’re suggesting that people make these claims with no desire to have others believe them, that’s simply untrue. I posted in the other thread about one such person, and there are countless other examples. James Randi has had a LOT of people try to claim his million dollar prize for showing paranormal ability. If the person is doing nothing more than relating an anecdote, no one’s under any obligation to do anything more than file it away. But ANY person actually making an extraordinary claim (scientist and nonscientist alike) must provide proof (again, showing the proof is NOT the same as providing the conditions under which it's shown) of such a claim if he expects to be believed. It’s as simple as that.

I recall that Whitley Strieber was nearly driven to suicide by the attacks he endured from CSICOP after he dared to write about his "alien"-like experiences, even though he spent hundreds of pages saying he didn't know what it really was, only what it seemed to him to be, and what it might mean if it is what it seems to be. At the time, the skeptics were calling people like him liars. Lately it seems the skeptics simply call them mistaken, which I guess is an improvement, though I don't think skeptics have really shaken the image of arrogance.

Here’s a discussion of Strieber from skepdics.com. It doesn’t sound particularly arrogant to me:

Whitley Strieber, who has written several books about his alleged abductions, came to the realization he had been abducted by aliens after psychotherapy and hypnosis. Strieber claims that he saw aliens set his roof on fire. He says he has traveled to distant planets and back during the night. He wants us to believe that he and his family alone can see the aliens and their spacecraft while others see nothing. Strieber comes off as a very disturbed person, but one who really believes he sees and is being harassed by aliens. He describes his feelings precisely enough to warrant believing he was in a very agitated psychological state prior to his visitation by aliens. A person in this heightened state of anxiety will be prone to hysteria and be especially vulnerable to radically changing behavior or belief patterns. When Strieber was having an anxiety attack he consulted his analyst, Robert Klein, and Budd Hopkins, an alien abduction researcher. Then, under hypnosis, Strieber started recalling the horrible aliens and their visitations.

Hopkins demonstrated his sincerity and investigative incompetence on the public television program Nova ("Alien Abductions," first shown on February 27, 1996). The camera followed Hopkins through session after session with a very agitated, highly emotional "patient". Then Nova followed Hopkins to Florida where he cheerfully helped a visibly unstable mother inculcate in her children the belief that they had been abducted by aliens. In between more sessions with more of Hopkins' "patients", the viewer heard him repeatedly give plugs for his books and his reasons for showing no skepticism at all regarding the very bizarre claims he was eliciting from his "patients". Dr. Elizabeth Loftus was asked by Nova to evaluate Hopkins' method of "counseling" the children whose mother was encouraging them to believe they had been abducted by aliens. From the little that Nova showed us of Hopkins at work, it was apparent that Mr. Hopkins encouraged the creation of memories, though Hopkins claims he is uncovering repressed memories.

And skeptics are not the same as scientists. I'd rather give the disc to scientists than hope a pundit group of skeptics would deign to give the disc serious consideration. (I understand that many members of skeptics groups are scientists, but given a choice between a scientist who is a member of a skeptics group and a scientist who is not, I'd choose one who is not, in hopes of avoiding bias.)

Your distinction between scientists and skeptics is artificial and based on faulty assumptions. You assume that skeptics (unlike scientists) would never bother to test claims, which is demonstrably untrue. You also seem to think that scientists never react skeptically to claims, which is also demonstrably untrue. As I alluded to earlier, a scientific claim was made in the late 80s concerning “cold fusion”, which of course elicited much interest. Other scientists tried to replicate the results, and couldn’t, so the whole thing went away. Those scientists were using scientific methods to test an extraordinary claim, which is exactly what skeptics do. So there is no distinction.