Jeff Crowell
Paranormal Annoyance
One of the classes I'm taking this session at school is a film class. It's an artistic class focusing on special effects in film throughout the years. Each week we watch a film and critique it. The instructor is an artistic 55 year old ex-Marine who has a daughter in Hollywood with a few film credits to her name. He's intelligent and inspires discussion, usually. The class he instructs involves a lot of discussion and usually we talk more philosophy than film.
Tonight's class started that way, but for whatever reason the discussion turned toward ghost hunting and the shows on TV involving such. Quickly the talk devolved into the "mythology" of not just ghost hunting but UFO's, too. For nearly 30 minutes before we watched the film-for-the-night and over 20 minutes afterward the discussion led by the teacher and carried by the students involved the idiocy of ghost hunting and UFO's. The instructor, time and time again emphasized the unrealistic and ludicrous nature of people who believe in ghosts or UFO's, but then, ironically, in the same breath he would start to discuss string and holographic theories in quantum physics, ranting and professing the vast unknowns of the universe. Then he would start to ridicule and criticize UFO's and ghost hunters once more.
Normally I engage in the conversation, actively talking about whatever philosophical topic is being batted around the class but not tonight. Tonight I was a good little paranormal researcher, keeping my mouth shut and just looking around the class as one person, who's brother believes in ghosts and watches the ghost hunters show, stated that his brother was a serious idiot for doing such; or another person who asked why only back-woods hill-jacks get abducted by aliens. Two fellow students in the class know what I do and both looked at me at one point in the night asking me if I was going to speak up. I just shook my head and continued to listen. For over an hour, total, I sat through insult and mocking of ghost hunting, and UFO's, too.
As class dismissed, finally, one of the students, and a friend, who knows what I do walked up to me in the hallway and asked why I'd not said anything. I told him I knew when I was outgunned and, for as open-minded as the instructor claims to be it was painfully clear he was not open minded when it came to the "mythology" of ghosts and UFO's. How do you debate this with someone who seeks simply to mock it?
You don't. You keep your mouth shut, don't profess your own beliefs or interest, sit through the class and get the grade. This is the general public I talk about. It's not always the scientists we have to defend our field against...sometimes it's our friends, family, coworkers, or fellow students or instructors, and most times it's not worth wasting our breath to even defend it then. I don't blame dB when he say's he doesn't talk to his friends or family about this. You never know were an attack is going to come from.
Tonight's class started that way, but for whatever reason the discussion turned toward ghost hunting and the shows on TV involving such. Quickly the talk devolved into the "mythology" of not just ghost hunting but UFO's, too. For nearly 30 minutes before we watched the film-for-the-night and over 20 minutes afterward the discussion led by the teacher and carried by the students involved the idiocy of ghost hunting and UFO's. The instructor, time and time again emphasized the unrealistic and ludicrous nature of people who believe in ghosts or UFO's, but then, ironically, in the same breath he would start to discuss string and holographic theories in quantum physics, ranting and professing the vast unknowns of the universe. Then he would start to ridicule and criticize UFO's and ghost hunters once more.
Normally I engage in the conversation, actively talking about whatever philosophical topic is being batted around the class but not tonight. Tonight I was a good little paranormal researcher, keeping my mouth shut and just looking around the class as one person, who's brother believes in ghosts and watches the ghost hunters show, stated that his brother was a serious idiot for doing such; or another person who asked why only back-woods hill-jacks get abducted by aliens. Two fellow students in the class know what I do and both looked at me at one point in the night asking me if I was going to speak up. I just shook my head and continued to listen. For over an hour, total, I sat through insult and mocking of ghost hunting, and UFO's, too.
As class dismissed, finally, one of the students, and a friend, who knows what I do walked up to me in the hallway and asked why I'd not said anything. I told him I knew when I was outgunned and, for as open-minded as the instructor claims to be it was painfully clear he was not open minded when it came to the "mythology" of ghosts and UFO's. How do you debate this with someone who seeks simply to mock it?
You don't. You keep your mouth shut, don't profess your own beliefs or interest, sit through the class and get the grade. This is the general public I talk about. It's not always the scientists we have to defend our field against...sometimes it's our friends, family, coworkers, or fellow students or instructors, and most times it's not worth wasting our breath to even defend it then. I don't blame dB when he say's he doesn't talk to his friends or family about this. You never know were an attack is going to come from.
