Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sarah Walton on March 15, 2012 at 8:41pm

Found it! http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.... (Retrieved 3/15/12)

Permalink Reply by Jim DePaulo on April 16, 2012 at 1:51pm

We would have to assume that any paranormal abilities are genetically based (unless of course that god didn't give it)  If it is, in fact, genetic it would be the number one,  premium, evolutionary survival trait and would spread  throughout the population faster than the ability of language acquisition and we would all have the ability. 

We don't so I consider it grade A bullshit.

Permalink Reply by Sarah Walton on April 16, 2012 at 2:03pm

I never looked at it that way before. Thanks!

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on April 16, 2012 at 10:38pm

Interesting point. I was fooled by scientific-sounding parapsychology studies for years, until I stumbled upon the literature about systemic fraud and design flaws in the field. Too bad you weren't around to make this point when I was a naive undergraduate.

Permalink Reply by David Layton on April 17, 2012 at 12:57am

There is too much pseudoscience in the field, not just pseudoscientific theory but also pseudoscientific procedure. This is the pure flim-flammery that is easily mistaken for science. Look at "Ghost Hunters" and similar TV programs. There they are, with a trailer-full of technological gimmickery. They know how to use the equipment; therefore, they must know what they are doing. Right? That is the hook. For the average person who knows no more about scientific method than that people who look like they know what they are doing are operating machines that go ping!, this looks like the real thing. There they are collecting data! Boy, that's science. What does it amount to? The hard data is mostly temperature variation and indistinguishable noises. In old houses and cemeteries? Really, that never happens. However, the real pseudoscience is that the "investigators" apply a conclusion they had come to before they took the data. It is classic circular reasoning: Temperature variations and weird noises indicate ghosts, and I got some temperature variations and weird noises so I got a ghost. Never once is the application of the data questioned. The remaining "evidence," such as it is, consists of anecdotal evidence, unsubstantiated claims of hauntings. The average viewer does not have the education to see how unscientific all this is. I pick on Ghost Hunters, but the same procedures go for all sorts of other claims of supernormal and paranormal phenomena. In fact, it also goes for nearly every variety of "alternative" medicine, for which there are even "professional" organizations producing "research" all of which amounts to the same kind nonsense based on the same problems that ghost hunting involves: circular propositions, incorrectly used data, and large amounts of anecdotal evidence. I go on about this, but this nonsense has permeated so much of society from the barely educated to postmodernists with Ph.D.s that I get a little frothy at the mouth.