As a member of a paranormal investigation team, allow me to stress that everything these scientists are doing - we would do too, if we could. Personally, when I'm on an investigation, I rely on EMF Detectors, K-9 and K-2 band detectors, voice recorders, hi-tech infrared scanners/cameras and night-vision camcorders, among other devices.

With so little being understood of the physical world around us, we sure are eager to dismiss the paranormal, don't you think?

Though I will readily admit the majority of paranormal activity can be attributed to high EMF (electro-magnetic field) readings or a high concentration of microwaves.

In order to prove something exists, however, we must first prove it cannot exist. If I take, say, a water-bottle and go "this exists!" simply because I believe it exists, it doesn't prove anything. That, unfortunately, is what most people do with the paranormal (and a lot of other things for that matter). If, however, I take a water bottle and say, "through scientific process I have found that this water bottle cannot exist, yet here it is!" then I have truly proven something.

It is a front that I and those like myself are trying to promote. We aren't so different from the rest of the scientific community...we just happen to believe.

A very adequate article for the occasion Alan.

And yeah! I'm open to the possibility that there's something to ghost stories beyond an error in the brain perception of a banal incident.

And I kind of resent the term "para-normal" as if there can be things beyond the realm of Nature. But just because our current technology our scientific methods are unable to detect something, is it then automatically discarded to the realm of paranormal, so we can still cling to our comfortable model of how we think our Universe works?

By that logic, could we conclude then that Dark Matter & Dark Energy are also paranormal?

You should read "Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife" by Mary Roach!

Skeptics don't WANT to know.  Explain EVPs, particularly the interactive ones.  The collection of EVPs grows and grows and grows and grows, and nothing but silence in response to them.  They'll just ignore the stuff they can't explain, and concentrate instead on how to explain bending spoon tricks.  It's easier.  www.keyhoereport.com/

Hi, Alan  --  Some years ago I recall watching a demonstration on TV in which scientists devised a test for 'ghost' observation.  Electrodes were connected to cranial nerves of a committed habitual observer in a place reputed to be haunted.  Other electrodes were inserted into the optical nerves of the same person.  Both sets were activated and the wait began.  When the observer said he could 'see' the ghost, the readings from the electrodes were analysed.  The cranial nerves were triggered by the apparition, indicating the observer spoke the truth.  However, the optical nerves showed no alteration in the pattern of light and dark  which they recorded, indicating the phantom was appearing only in the brain, not in the field of vision.   What does all this mean?   Who knows?

Sooooo,,which was the picture of the haunted room?  the left or the right??????

You're wrong, Duncan.  EVP has already been _proven_ to come from improperly shielded recorders.  See www.randi.org and check with the JREF.  The point of being a skeptic isn't to ignore evidence, it's to ignore blather that ISN'T evidence.

Rachel, I didn't want to spoil the quiz, but since folks have read down this far, here's the answer: The left picture shows the purportedly haunted room. If you take the quiz, you'll find out why Wiseman thinks that makes perfect sense.

David D. is right.  It's not that skeptics "don't want to believe."  That's an urban legend that the true believers pass around among each other.  These alleged phenomena tend to evaporate  in the presence of actual skeptics, or particularly knowledgeable observers.

Typically, when something is reported, one reads the report and thinks, "WOW! That was TRULY AMAZING!"  But after a more sober investigator informs about the things the first reporter neglected (or just didn't think) to mention, the event gradually becomes mundane.

Anyone can claim to be "an investigator" or "psychic expert" or even a "scientist."  He needs no degree, no significant study of scientific methods, no period of of tutelage or mentorship with an experienced scientist.  Anyone can don a lab coat, an ohm-meter, and a test tube, and be hailed as an authority.  (Look at Kent Hovind.)

Scientist always seem to have all the answers, So closed minded I say, Some things in this old world cannot be explained Scientifically  

It isn't an urban legend.  Skepticism is as much a belief system as any other.  The myth is that skeptics are champions and guardians of reason.  Says who?  Skeptics have no monopoly on the proper use of reason, and I've got LOTS of evidence to prove it, and the fact that people cannot avoid but have beliefs about many things does not subtract from their rationality.  THAT is the myth.  I am very skeptical but I would never call myself a "skeptic" because I don't think there is any more inherent value in disbelieving than in believing.  Skeptics do.  Skeptics time and again open their mouths when they should keep them shut.  It happened with the Peru meteorite just recently.  It's best to just say "I don't know" than to propose a false explanation that is mundane.  By doing so, the skeptics reveal what their preference is for, even before the facts are known.  Skeptics prefer the mundane or else they wouldn't be making themselves look foolish saying things that turn out to be wrong when the facts become known.  And "mundanity" is NOT always the end result of a thorough investigation.  That's another myth.  Skeptics propound lots of myths, and I think it's time someone start talking about THOSE.  Reason and rationality are not owned by the skeptics.  www.keyhoereport.com/

I haven't taken the quiz but I can guess why that would would be selected most often as the haunted room.  It's dark down there, and it goes "down," and our imaginations like to exercise in the dark and the depths.  

RE the picture of the 'ghost woman' ascending the stairs.   I have seen this picture before, along with the testimony of the woman, who said how difficult and time-consuming it was to keep going up and down the staircase until the photographer was satisfied with the results of double exposure of the bare staircase in high relief and her position and movement on the stairs in over-exposure to blur out details.  She didn't explain why the photographer was taking a picture of an 'empty' set of stairs.

One problem is that believers pretend they are skeptical, but then are convinced by overwhelming evidence.  The fact is most are convinced before they even look at the evidence.

Skeptics are not guardians of reason and don't pretend to be.  What happens is the believer tends to offer up new evidence, and when the skeptic shows the believer didn't do an honest day's homework on the subject, the believer then begins puling about how the skeptic should just keep his mouth shut, because he's just not "looking at it with an open mind."
Facts don't go away just because we cease believing in them.  Alleged supernatural phenomena do.

There are the clear frauds like Uri Geller, Peter Popoff, and Doris Collins.  And then there are the incompetent "researchers" who help in building the reputations the frauds by coming in at the proper moment with their (generally unused) lab coat to say, "Oh, yes, I've looked at this independently and there's just NO WAY science can explain it!"

"You're just closed minded!" is code for "Damn you AND your so-called scientific method!"

Regarding the "propensity for pattern recognition":  Some people look at television snow and see messages from Martians.  One use of the scientific method (by which I mean the actual article, and not the comic-book version employed by gas station attendants and office jockeys who don lab coats on the weekend) is in helping us discern that which is truly marvelous and in need of explanation, from that which is prosaic or unworthy of further extensive effort.

The problem with pseudoscience in this day is that research dollars are limited and the people who get to decide where that meager money is spent (aka our elected officials) often don't distinguish reports generated by actual scientists from the dreck produced by the bank teller with delusions of being the next Newton.  The comment I've heard that there are people who think The Flintstones is documentary is more alarming than amusing because it's true.

Nice try fallible, but no sale.  When creationists are presented with evidence of intermediary species, such as   the archaeopteryx, what is their reply?  Oh, that is just a uniquely made species that possesses qualities of both birds and reptiles, and not an intermediary at all.    well, by God, if THAT is the argument, how is it EVER possible to prove that intermediary species exist to a creationist?  Answer:  There is no way, because one can ALWAYS say that any apparent intermediary is a unique species having qualities of both.  Skeptics do precisely the same thing. And you fellows do so very much pretend to be the guardians of reason.  I could fill a book with examples to prove that point, so many provided by Michael Shermer, publisher of "Skeptic" magazine who never seems to tire of saying foolish things.  As for me, I do have beliefs, same as you do, we just differ on what they are.  But I take very good care not to conflate what I believe with what I know.  Now, remember that hideous blue skinned "Chupacabra" creature that a woman in Texas found a couple months ago?  I've been following it closely, the DNA results are in as of yesterday night, and I've published them on my site ahead of anyone else it seems.  Facts are facts.  Whether one believes or not, facts settle the issue.  www.keyhoereport.com/  

Skeptics do not do "the very same thing."  If they do, you could explain exactly how instead of stating your impression 'that'.

Skeptics and scientists are persuaded by actual evidence and clear reasoning, not by phantasmal evidence and poor reasoning.  Example of bad reasoning:  Those scientists (over there) made a bad measurement over here! What ELSE have they (all scientists) miscalculated!

Oh dear.  What on EARTH does that second paragraph even MEAN?  Are you trying to reference the ad at the top of my site?  If you are, maybe you should read it a little closer.  Pay attention to the important word "involved" which you conveniently edited out, if that is what you are indeed referencing.  With the word "involved" included, you cannot interpret the meaning as "all" scientists, and your statement makes no sense.  Otherwise, I don't know what you are going on about there.  You're reaching with that one.

"Skeptics and scientists are persuaded by actual evidence and clear reasoning..." Does that mean always or sometimes? Under all conditions or under some conditions.  I may be wrong, but you SEEM to be projecting the ideal of skepticism or scientistism; and ideals inhere only in people, who are, as you know, FALLIBLE and who fail frequently to match them.  as for your challenge to my "impression," would you like a link to a transcript where Skeptical Hero Michael Shermer says that the default assumption of science is that a statement is false unless it is proven true?
 http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0709/02/lkl.01.html

I can't highlight it for you; you'll have to read the whole transcript to find it, but it's there if you want to know, and I am NOT taking it out of context.  So you read it and then you tell me in what universe that constitutes CLEAR reasoning?

Shermer is a gold mine.

www.keyhoereport.com/

One more thing.  You wrote:  "Skeptics and scientists are persuaded by actual evidence and clear reasoning, not by phantasmal evidence and poor reasoning."  

First, poor reasoning does not necessarily follow from phantasmal evidence; let's keep those separated.  

Second, if the reality IS phantasmal, it seems you just admitted that as a skeptic you would not accept that evidence, such evidence itself being a reflection of the reality.

One has to wonder...do your skeptical beliefs, in some cases, aid you to discard evidence contrary to what you apriori believe reality to be?

www.keyhoereport.com/

"First, poor reasoning does not necessarily follow from phantasmal evidence; let's keep those separated. "
I know they're separate - that's why I listed them as separate items.

The meaning of phantasmal is a figment of the imagination.  Phantasmal evidence is evidence that is imaginary.

The pointer to the Shermer "interview" is telling.  Fat-mouth, know-nothing Friedman barely lets him get a word in.  What he actually says, what he is capable of interjecting is completely reasonable.  Shermer is not a "skeptical hero."  I don't see anything in the interview like what you impute to him.  Is it a phantasm?

For many of these so-called phenomena, there is a lot of evidence against their being genuine, and very little (usually none) that it is.  The facts that would provide balance are usually ignored (especially by fat-mouths like Friedman) and the phoney evidence is exaggerated.

In any event your link doesn't show how skeptics are like creationists.  It does, however, demonstrate how much ufologists have in common with creationists.  You get a few delusional people like Friedman blathering about 'evidence' and a lot of people pointing to the evil scientists trying to squash the truth.

That's one definition of phantasmal; it also means ghost-like or specter-like, and that's how I took it.  And in fact, that fits precisely what we have when we discuss ghostlike phenomena.  The evidence IS phantasmal, in the second sense, not the first.  It is elusive, confusing, it does not seem to fit any explanation we devise for it, and that is also why it is in such poor regard by science and skeptics.

As for the Shermer interview, either you didn't read it all the way through, or you didn't read it closely enough.  What I "imputed" to him was this:

"...Michael Shermer says that the default assumption of science is that a statement is false unless it is proven true..."

And what he actually said, which I will now paste directly, was:

SHERMER: May I say something about the way science works, Larry, is that the default assumption is that whatever the claim is, it's not true until it's proved. So the burden of proof is on the person making the claim.

So, according to Shermer, science "assumes" the "claim" is "not true" (and that means that it's false), "until it's proved."

Well, you can damned well assume anything you want to, but you are not also entitled to be called acting or thinking reasonably when you do so.  Shermer spewed a fallacy on air and didn't even seem to be conscious of it.  I couldn't believe that I had heard it correctly.  But the transcript proved that I did.

And when you say things like there's no evidence, well, my friend, there's the problem.

Let's review:

I wrote:

"When creationists are presented with evidence of intermediary species, such as the archaeopteryx, what is their reply?  Oh, that is just a uniquely made species that possesses qualities of both birds and reptiles, and not an intermediary at all.    well, by God, if THAT is the argument, how is it EVER possible to prove that intermediary species exist to a creationist?  Answer:  There is no way, because one can ALWAYS say that any apparent intermediary is a unique species having qualities of both.  Skeptics do precisely the same thing."

You responded:

"Skeptics do not do "the very same thing."  If they do, you could explain exactly how instead of stating your impression 'that'."  And:  "Skeptics and scientists are persuaded by actual evidence and clear reasoning, not by phantasmal evidence and poor reasoning. "

Well now, If some realities only produce phantasmal evidence, and one does not accept phantasmal evidence, then how, by God, can one ever be persuaded that phantasmal realities exist?

And so that you are not confused, my use of the word phantasmal means ghostlike, not "figment of imagination."

It seems there's a hidden assumption at play here that all realities MUST produce a certain KIND of evidence or else they do not exist.

Like the creationist, you have an unchallengeable belief.  A belief that cannot be challenged by the kinds of facts which phantasmal realities produce.  You have apriori decided what kinds of facts there are, so if some do not match your criteria, then they are not facts at all!  Like the creationist, it does no good to show you the evidence because the evidence itself does not meet your requirements, and so a reality goes unacknowledged because the evidence it does produce does not conform to your a priori notions of acceptability.

If that's the only kind produced, then you can ALWAYS say the evidence is phantasmal, it's inconsistent, unreliable, not reproducible, it doesn't exist at all, and you can be safe by saying this, you are protected, able to go back to sleep.   You don't have to look any further into matters that can potentially challenge deeply entrenched beliefs about reality and the world and your place within it.

You challenged me for an example, claiming I had only an "impression" and no evidence:

"Skeptics do not do "the very same thing."  If they do, you could explain exactly how instead of stating your impression 'that'."

How ironic it is, then, that while you were saying skeptics do not do the same thing, you did the same thing, and provided the evidence of such you implied there was none of.  The evidence which you say does not exist, does exist.  It just doesn't match your a priori criteria and on those grounds can NEVER count as such with you.  And that's how skeptics resemble creationists in their thinking.  I have nothing left to say about it.  If you want to discuss this more, feel free to contact me via my site.

www.keyhoereport.com/

Clearly the 1st definition of phantasmal is the correct one.  There are usually many common explanations that true believers choose to disregard in favor of much more grandiose and unlikely ones.

Your own quotes has Shermer declaring that a thing is not taken as true, until proven so - and from this you conclude (incorrectly) that he asserts it must be false.  Clearly one of us did not read him carefully enough.

I never said that all realities have to produce a certain kind of evidence.  What I say is that science only addresses the natural - not the supernatural.  But before we can even attempt to understand an event, we must know that the event exists to be analyzed.  

You're talking in circles.  If the evidence existed, you would provide it.  What we have is a bunch of claims by guys like Friedman and the ghost-hunting bozos on TV that evaporate upon scrutiny.

You haven't demonstrated that skeptics are like creationists, but you have demonstrated that creationists have something in common with other stripes of true believer.

George Santayana once called skepticism "the chastity of the intellect." Without it, the mind tends to believe what it wants to believe, regardless of evidence for or against a claim. The corol-lary to Santayana's epigram, however, is not that believ-ing is wrong--after all, everyone believes and must believe something--but that one shouldn't be utterly gull-ible.

DM, by excoriating healthy skepticism and the hard-won and long-prized scientific method, you lose the right to claim that you're rational and scientific. Shermer is right: every claim must be considered false till a justi-fication for it has estab-lished its validity. Without that fundamental precept of logic, one would be thrown back on simply believing what-ever one wants to believe, which is to say, one would be an intellectual whore.

Furthermore, the more extra-ordinary a claim is, the more extraordinary the evidence justifying it must be. An argument for the existence of a physical object does not require the same level of justification as an argument for the existence of a spiritual "phenomenon," which is not an "object" at all. By the way, etymologically the word "phenomenon" simply means "appearance" and was orignally used interchange-ably with "phantasm." Plato, the man who coined both terms, used them to refer to an imperfect and largely false "reflection" in the mind of a transcendent "nou-menon."  Kant (despite his best efforts) failed to find a satisfactory justification for claiming the existence of any transcendent "noumena," though as a good Pietist, he reinstated the Transcendent as an article of faith and then jsut acted as if he'd proven the assumption. Para-normal investigators are employing a similar fast deal off the bottom of the deck (or rather, pulling an Ace out of their sleeve). You cannot "prove" the existence of a "spiritual realm" by investigating what people claim "appears" to them. And you cannot pretend that what you're doing is scientific if you can't even prove the existence what you're sup-posedly investigating. The purpose of the empirical method, of inductive reason-ing per se, is to prevent pure deduction from arriving validly at false conclusions. Validity and truth are not synonymous terms; the former refers to the justification for a claim, while the latter refers to the claim that the object of the justification is real and can be verified as such.

"Spiritually," I suppose I'm from Missouri: When it comes to claims about ghosts, ESP, God, life-after-death, or any of the other paranormal and spiritual "things," show me, then maybe I'll believe you.

Regarding the "propensity for pattern recognition":  Some people look at television snow and see messages from Martians.  One use of the scientific method (by which I mean the actual article, and not the comic-book version employed by gas station attendants and office jockeys who don lab coats on the weekend) is in helping us discern that which is truly marvelous and in need of explanation, from that which is prosaic or unworthy of further extensive effort.

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