Why does science have such an issue with the paranormal?

[smcder]

Say you magically raise a ton of money to study the paranormal. Who is going to abandon other profitable pursuits in medicine (urology I would think), physics, or psychology to study ghosts, UFOs, and ESP? How much did that degree cost?

I don't think we have to use magic (although we could try that) but, for all I understand of it, crowd-funding is "magic" in the Arthur C Clarke sense . . . I don't know who would, that's really the question. I'll have a look around and see if someone out there is working on this.

 

[smcder]

You've lost me.

sorry . . . it wasn't my intention

 

[trainedobserver]

I don't think we have to use magic (although we could try that) but, for all I understand of it, crowd-funding is "magic" in the Arthur C Clarke sense . . . I don't know who would, that's really the question. I'll have a look around and see if someone out there is working on this.

OK, now you're messing with me. Which is good, I like that.

I've obviously been employing some moderate hyperbole here myself. (ah-hem)

OK, the ASSUMPTION is that science does not take the paranormal and UFOs seriously. However, I believe that real, very expensive research into these subjects has and does occur. One example of this is Bigelow. The obvious problem with this is that his findings are PROPITIATORY. Will he share his expensive and hard earned findings with nameless faces on the Internet? (insert belly laugh).

Here is a great revelation. (drum roll please) The real research is not occurring in the public eye nor will it ever. Why? (insert maniacal laughter)

I know "professionals" who have an active and "noble" interest in parapsychology, UFOs, and the supernatural. They are pursuing serious scientific research in these areas. Alas, money, reputation, and well, finding them eats still remains THE priority.

 

[Burnt State]

I know - after all it was urologists who discovered conception!

Meanwhile, most ufologists don't have a pot to piss in.

[edit]sorry, shoud've read the rest of the posts before I chimed in...

 

[Randall]

Why doesn't science take ghosts, UFOs, ESP and Bigfoot seriously? Really? ... It's the money Jim, not the noble pursuit of art, science, or whatever ...

When you are making the point about money being a motivating factor, it sounds like are you saying that it is the scientists who are pursuing the money, and I would have to agree. But it's not only the money, it's the lack of scientific evidence. If there were a research group with the money to hire real scientists to do the work, I'm sure it could attract a stack of résumés from scientists, but at the same time, unless they were getting grossly overpaid to hang out and do nothing, I doubt many of them would remain on the project for long unless they actually had something to study.

 

[smcder]

When you are making the point about money being a motivating factor, it sounds like are you saying that it is the scientists who are pursuing the money, and I would have to agree. But it's not only the money, it's the lack of scientific evidence. If there were a research group with the money to hire real scientists to do the work, I'm sure it could attract a stack of résumés from scientists, but at the same time, unless they were getting grossly overpaid to hang out and do nothing, I doubt many of them would remain on the project for long unless they actually had something to study.

Makes me admire all the more those who have actually gotten their hands dirty in the work:

http://deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm

I think of how Roosevelt put it:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

 

[XBadger]

Bigelow is a rich man who is being taken advantage of. Until I see some evidence that can be examined by outside researchers I will believe that. If I tell you I have a Bigfoot reserve and say no one can come here because I have armed guard but trust me I have scientists who have examined it.....I don't want to let anyone see because I might get genetic patents by looking at Bigfoot DNA you would rightly laugh at me. But everyone says there must be something going on because he is buddies with George Knapp and art bell and hey he is rich. This is where cliqueishness in the UFO community leads to gullibility and stifles any possible respect by academia.

The fact Bigelow is a hero in the paranormal community says everything you need to know about the state of paranormal research

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[XBadger]

Look I am a professor of history that teaches at a college. I have thought about entering the field but it is so abominal that I wouldn't know where to start. When Dolan is the history expert and writes what can only be described as a sophomoric analysis of sources that have been prooven forgeries and uses the lack of a primary source as historical evidence of a vast coverup, then where can you even go? Where is the honest debate? I don't necessarily mind facing ridicule from colleagues (because I have tenure) and trust me there would be ridicule at all social gatherings with my department. Would you like it if literally everyone at your job thought you were an idiot? Even that really wouldn't bother me much if there were something that could be achieved. But what would be the purpose? Who in the UFO community would I collaborate with? What discussions would exist? Academic research is not fruitful without a community of scholars working on similar questions. I suppose I could question the completely unfounded claims by "researchers" like Greer and these guys but why would I? I could spend several years researching a specific case study and make modest claims and I suppose present them at a conference alongside a panel stating that we are being visited by zeta riticulans. Well you know I have taken federal funding in the past so many "researchers" would say that I must be a government stooge. I was very interested in listening to Christopher hint about ritualistic connections between cattle mutilations and animal sacrifice but of course it is just a hint. Until I read the book I can't really say but it honestly seemed fascinating (I am after all a cultural historian). ultimately, there is just not a critical mass of real researchers to justify serious research in the field. That's probably a bit harsh since there are some good people but when you have so many crackpots it ruins the entire field.

Who are the most recognizable people in the field? Friedman who believes in majestic 12 despite obviously forged documents mysteriously delivered with no way to track them down and maybe hoagland. Its just a guess but id say the vast majority of people who are interested in the paranormal and just read the books (stuff they get from Barnes and noble) treat the subject more like campfire stories than caring about whether the author uses anything even remotely approaching rigorous academic study

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[Randall]

Makes me admire all the more those who have actually gotten their hands dirty in the work:

http://deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm

I think of how Roosevelt put it:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

I'm as much a fan of those who do the field work as the next guy, but a politician saying the critic doesn't count doesn't do much to impress me. Politicians hate critics more than anything precisely because it's the critics who hold their feet to the fire, and his little speech is simply a plea to the sympathies of the working masses and the lower ranks, not to mention that Roosevelt grew up in an atmosphere of privilege and had more than one extramarital affair. Like I'm supposed to believe his face was "marred by dust and sweat and blood". Without critics neither the politician nor the man in the arena are held accountable. That's why we need critics, to separate those who are deserving from those who aren't. The referee, the umpire, the coach, the teacher, and the fans are all critics, and where would we be without them?

Good link there though .

 

[smcder]

I'm as much a fan of those who do the field work as the next guy, but a politician saying the critic doesn't count doesn't do much to impress me. Politicians hate critics more than anything precisely because it's the critics who hold their feet to the fire, and his little speech is simply a plea to the sympathies of the working masses and the lower ranks, not to mention that Roosevelt grew up in an atmosphere of privilege and had more than one extramarital affair. Like I'm supposed to believe his face was "marred by dust and sweat and blood". Without critics neither the politician nor the man in the arena are held accountable. That's why we need critics, to separate those who are deserving from those who aren't. The referee, the umpire, the coach, the teacher, and the fans are all critics, and where would we be without them?

Good link there though .

I wasn't directing this at you! Critics are important and doers are important. And it's a good thing that the power of what is written isn't dependent on the character of the one who writes it - I'm afraid we wouldn't have very much to read.

Yes! It is a good link - I'm working my way through the papers and have skimmed enough of the rest to be impressed with what Radin has brought together. I haven't drawn any conclusions at this time.

Here is how Radin introduces it:

The following is a list of downloadable journal articles reporting studies of psychic phenomena, mostly published in the 21st century. There are also some important papers of historical interest and other resources. Click on the title of an article to download it.

This is a small subset of the literature. A full listing would run into thousands of articles. Note that the correct shorthand term for psychic phenomena is psi, and not PSI.

The bottom line: Can science be used to study psi? Yes. What is the outcome? The preponderance of laboratory evidence accumulated from the late 1800s to today indicate that a few classes of reported psi phenomena exist beyond a reasonable doubt. Is psi research a science or a pseudoscience? It is legitimate science. The international professional organization for psi researchers is the Parapsychological Association, an elected affiliate (since 1969) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the largest general scientific organization in the world.

Critiques about psi that are commonly repeated, such as “these phenomena are impossible,” or “there’s no valid scientific evidence,” or “the results are all due to fraud,” have been soundly rejected for many decades. Such critiques persist due to ignorance of the relevant literature and to a naïve acceptance of what appears on this subject in silly sources like Wikipedia, most of which appears to have been written by anonymous teenagers. Valid critiques and vigorous debates today no longer focus on existential questions, but on development of adequate theoretical explanations, advancements in methodology, the “source” of psi, and issues about effect size heterogeneity and robustness of replication.

Stories about psi that appear in the popular press are often wildly exaggerated. They tend to be written by people who either believe in nothing or believe in everything. What science actually tells us is that psi phenomena are real, but far more remains unknown about this subject than known.

This page is maintained by Dean Radin. Updated January 5, 2014.

 

[smcder]

I'm as much a fan of those who do the field work as the next guy, but a politician saying the critic doesn't count doesn't do much to impress me. Politicians hate critics more than anything precisely because it's the critics who hold their feet to the fire, and his little speech is simply a plea to the sympathies of the working masses and the lower ranks, not to mention that Roosevelt grew up in an atmosphere of privilege and had more than one extramarital affair. Like I'm supposed to believe his face was "marred by dust and sweat and blood". Without critics neither the politician nor the man in the arena are held accountable. That's why we need critics, to separate those who are deserving from those who aren't. The referee, the umpire, the coach, the teacher, and the fans are all critics, and where would we be without them?

Good link there though .

I don't think he is referencing the professional critic - referee or umpire, these are both in the arena when you think about it and a coach and teacher- there job is more than to criticize, not sure where the fan comes in . . . so what I think Roosevelt is up to here (and this is only from reading the passage in the context of the larger speech, without reference to Roosevelt's on life) is to criticize those "cold and timid souls" who sit back and critique, the Monday morning quarterback for example, the back seat driver.

I just realized this may also be a reference to Dante's Inferno. In the third Canto Dante encounters souls just at the gates of Hell - these are folks who committed to neither good nor evil and so have no place in either Heaven or Hell. They are joined there by the angels who sided neither with God nor Satan.

It just hit me - would this be an example of argumentum ad hominem?

An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person"[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument.[2]Ad hominem reasoning is normally categorized as an informal fallacy,[3][4][5]more precisely as a genetic fallacy,[6] a subcategory of fallacies of irrelevance.[7]

 

[Randall]

I don't think he is referencing the professional critic ...

Whatever the case, I'm not sure there is much more to add that hasn't already been said with respect to the thread's title. When those interested in the paranormal can bring some substantial evidence together for scientists to study, then I'm sure there will be scientists who would want to check it out. In the meantime, I'm not going to stop believing strange things happen just because science doesn't have an answer. But neither am I going to stop being critically minded and blindly believe every claim people make, and hopefully your Roosevelt quote wasn't intended to express an aversion to that.

 

[smcder]

Whatever the case, I'm not sure there is much more to add that hasn't already been said with respect to the thread's title. When those interested in the paranormal can bring some substantial evidence together for scientists to study, then I'm sure there will be scientists who would want to check it out. In the meantime, I'm not going to stop believing strange things happen just because science doesn't have an answer. But neither am I going to stop being critically minded and blindly believe every claim people make, and hopefully your Roosevelt quote wasn't intended to express an aversion to that.

No, no - of course it wasn't meant to express that people should blindly believe every claim. I hope nothing in my posts indicates I would take such a position . . . for me it conveys just the opposite, an admiration for those who are getting in there and doing the work. So I actually had thought you would find the quote congenial.

For me, it's about an admiration of those who are doing the work despite the obstacles (not all of which have to do with the science itself and that is directly relevant to the very title of the thread but is the subject for another post) and the more I read of the papers collected here:

http://deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm

the more substantial the evidence seems to me to be. Obviously that point is arguable and I've not come to any conclusions - in fact my goal is to keep an open mind as I read through the papers collected on this site. And that is the only way I can see to find out what the evidence is - to read it for myself and think about it and do the best I can to evaluate it and then share what I have found out with others. That is my small way of being in the arena. It's not costing me much, true, but it does take time and mental effort.

The relevance to this thread is of course directly in response to the thread's title:

why does science have such an issue with the paranormal

Part of the answer to that question is to point out that there actually is peer-reviewed research out there and quite a bit of it -not everyone knows that and that's why I keep posting the link above. I hope folks will have a closer look at this and evaluate it for themselves and not just listen to the skeptics or those who dismiss what evidence is there. in that spirit, I applaud your position:

I'm not going to stop believing strange things happen just because science doesn't have an answer.

And along all of those same lines, people may find this link also of interest:

Entangled Minds: My comments on Alcock's comments on Bem's precognition article

in which Radin deals point by point with skeptical critique of psi research.

By the way, have you heard of Zeteticism?

key words: skeptics, evidence of psi, research

 

[trainedobserver]

Look I am a professor of history that teaches at a college. I have thought about entering the field but it is so abominal that I wouldn't know where to start. ...

You made some excellent points, the greatest of which is probably, "Academic research is not fruitful without a community of scholars working on similar questions."

Have you read Jacob's original book based on his dissertation, The UFO Controversy in America? What did you think of it?

 

[Randall]

No, no - of course it wasn't meant to express that people should blindly believe every claim. I hope nothing in my posts indicates I would take such a position . . . for me it conveys just the opposite, an admiration for those who are getting in there and doing the work. So I actually had thought you would find the quote congenial.

For me, it's about an admiration of those who are doing the work despite the obstacles (not all of which have to do with the science itself and that is directly relevant to the very title of the thread but is the subject for another post) and the more I read of the papers collected here:

In that case: In the spirit in which you intended the Roosevelt to be taken, I'm with you all the way. My commentary is based more on what's actually written than the wrapping paper. I see the actual words that are written and ask the question, "Is the essential premise really true?" Don't critics count? Why would a politician say that I wonder ?

 

[Burnt State]

For a look at scholarly UFO material consider this link: http://www.hyper.net/ufo/literature.html

i also really enjoyed reading this document from 2006 by Michael Swords where he examines what we've learned so far from ufology? He does so in a highly entertaining, ans occasionally sardonic manner. It is the complete history of science as applied to UFO's: http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_20_4_swords.pdf

From the abstract, "That the field is almost impossible to study in any "conservative" (physical sciences/lab-top) type of way, barring rare cases of certain "close encounters." So not only is there no real community of scholars to respond to the work, but studying the field itself, if deemed impossible, marginalizes the discussion severely, hence where we're at with science and UFO's.

By the way, have you heard of Zeteticism?

This forum is the biggest collection of skeptical seekers i have ever seen corralled by choice - makes for good reading. Hope we're not mentally slumming, but still encouraged by the bathroom graffiti wisdom scrawled daily.

 

[smcder]

OK, now you're messing with me. Which is good, I like that.

I've obviously been employing some moderate hyperbole here myself. (ah-hem)

OK, the ASSUMPTION is that science does not take the paranormal and UFOs seriously. However, I believe that real, very expensive research into these subjects has and does occur. One example of this is Bigelow. The obvious problem with this is that his findings are PROPITIATORY. Will he share his expensive and hard earned findings with nameless faces on the Internet? (insert belly laugh).

Here is a great revelation. (drum roll please) The real research is not occurring in the public eye nor will it ever. Why? (insert maniacal laughter)

I know "professionals" who have an active and "noble" interest in parapsychology, UFOs, and the supernatural. They are pursuing serious scientific research in these areas. Alas, money, reputation, and well, finding them eats still remains THE priority.

Um, I wasn't really messing with you, but it's good to know you like that sort of thing. I was serious about crowd-funding the paranormal. I did some searches and didn't find anything yet.

All of the above is very interesting . . . can you say any more?

 

[XBadger]

Thank you both very much just bought the book and will read it aso soon as it gets here. Also great links. Unfortunately I saw this at 1000 tonight and so I will definitely be tired tomorrow

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[trainedobserver]

I was serious about crowd-funding the paranormal. I did some searches and didn't find anything yet.

I think it would be like crowd funding anything else. Write up a "business plan" or however you want to put it, that would outline exactly what you intend to do. If you are thinking about conducting a survey, interviews, experiments or what have you, you'd would have to give a clear presentation of what your methodology, goals, and deliverables would be. I have no doubt in my mind that you could get donations. It seems that there would be some legal risks involved that would have to be researched as well.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

What I think is that if urologists want to find more acceptance they should approach their inquiries through the lens of social scientists who have already by nature of their disciplines grappled with human perception, the effect of emotions in experience, the construction of time in the human mind, and have over the course of 100 years developed better methodology for utilizing evidence from interviews than blithely saying "so...what did you see?" Without a doubt in my mind these sightings and experiences are to an extent a social consrruction and should be treated as such by researchers who use the tools of sociology, psychology, history, semiotics, cultural and religious studies, etc.

If the past seventy years have shown anything it is that studying these phenomenon through the guise of the hard sciences has been an utter failure that has proved nothing. The only question is whether this insistence on hard data and it's failure to show anything has lost all momentum in the study of these phenomenon. When the public was engaged in the 50s nothing was "prooven" and now unfortunately no one cares.

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It's funny your typo says 'urologist'.