Question for skeptics of the paranormal: Why do skeptics select only portions of a paranormal event to debunk?

Question

I am a firm believer in other-worldly spirits and their ability to interact with us, even possess human beings. I've had paranormal experiences of my own since age eleven that have no rational explanation. At any rate, I have watched lots of programs on psychics, intuitives, mediums, and the like, for many years, and feel that one who is open-minded can easily differentiate between credible witnesses and those who are not. Every now and then, skeptics are included in these TV segments, giving their explanations of what "could" have been happening, or outright saying the entire event is a lie, embellished, imagined, or explained by some natural and common occurence. I notice, however, that these 'popular' skeptics always seem to pick and choose only certain minor portions of an event to debunk, leaving the more incredible completely unaddressed. Why? It seems to me these skeptics I see on TV all the time are the ones who should be regarded with suspicion, and more about self promotion.

Answer 1

It's called Imperical Thinking.  That's when the mind refuses to accept what it's seeing and substitutes what it Should have seen.  Like something that disappears right in front of your eyes, or an apparation, or a great roiling cloud of blackness where there's no fire, no light, only cold, run-for-your-life fear.  I believe, but I also seek out the more scientific answer first.  Sure, that bump-thump overhead Could have been a squirrl, but since when did they start wearing combat boots...?  That kind of thing.

Answer 2

"Why do skeptics select only portions of a paranormal event to debunk?"

Why do "true believers tend to assume that a similar "portion" of an experience is, at face value, an actual "paranormal event, when even "portions" can be explained as naturally ocurring phenomena?

Let's define some terms:

"Paranormal" is defined as: "Beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation."  

Yet when someone explains a "paranormal event"  as a scientifically explainable and logical serioes of natural phenomena, often colored by intepretation, they are criticized for doing so? Why?

Obviously the "true beleiver" has made a psychological and emotional "investment" in the paranomal explanation; based on emotional needs, and which obviously means they are less than objective in their perceptions.

If a "paranomal event" CAN be explained scientifically, then, by definition, it is not "paranormal" at all, but a normal event perceived and intepreted s "paranomal"

.

The lack of proof against one belief or perception does not validate "another " perception: e.g. just becuse we cannot prove a ghost DOES NOT exist in every case, does not necessarily mean they DO exist.

Bu the moe we can explain a supposedly Gohsostly visitation in rational scienctific terms, the chances are better that ALL similar experiences stem from the same natural phenomena

If Science cannot explain a event, that does not mean it is "paranormal" or supernatural, merely that the logical and analytic tools are lacking, and the knewledge to explain it have either not been applied or do not exist. That is where superstition takes over.  

Because something "strange" happens, however, does not mean it is outside the realm of science and logic.  It just means we do not know what the science and where the logic IS yet.  

Parnaolmal or supernatural" phenomena is similar to the belief that UFOs are "Alien Space craft" it conflates two different realities. UFOs are, by defintion: "Unidentified Flying OBJECTS" --not spacecraft -- that is a assumption.

Yet many assume that becuse they are unidentified and flying, the OBJECTS are intelligently controlled by alien beings.

That is, of course an assumption that no real physical evidence has validated;  yet it has become a virutal religious certainty by some. Similarly, paranomal activity is equally religious in its intensity, but lacking in any true scientific validation.

When paranomal phenomena has been investigated rigourously and obejectivly by scientific methods, it has been explained as purely natural events  misinterpreted as "unnatural" phenomea: merely impressions, based on assumptions, but no actual proof.  

Skeptics merely attempt to explain phenomena in terms of known scientific principles.



To prove that an event is PARAnormal, not just a normal event perceived as a "supernatural" event, the burden of proof is on the believer, not the skeptic.

Answer 3

Well lady, when it comes to promotion, you don't have to look far to see who is benefiting from paranormal claims.  The skeptics I am aware of (i.e. Michael Shermer) are making little to nothing in that area.  The same can't be said for people like Sylvia Browne, et al.

Also, the mere presence of the skeptics on those TV programs are nothing more than the fulfillment of the illusion of a balanced report.  All such programs, be they on UFOs, ghosts, psychics, Nostradamus, etc.--follow the same formula:

1.) Introduce claim as fact, but with a weak disclaimer.  For example, "Nostradamus predicted everything from the Rise of Hitler to the 9/11 terrorist attack--or did he?"

2.) Build up the claims with dubious, incomplete or inaccurate information.

3.) in the interest of balanced reporting, give a token skeptic 5% of the program time.  This usually occurs after the entire case in favor of the claim has been laid out.  This 90 seconds is cut from a much longer interview, so what you see of the skeptics is exactly what the producers want you to see.

4.) Reach a tenuous conclusion.  "There is plenty of evidence Nostradamus saw into the future, but not all believe.  Could it be true?"

The reason these programs follow this formula is simple.  The truth isn't as dramatic as fiction.  Who wants to hear about a high altitude baloon and manequins when you can weave a story involving ET aliens and a crashed flying saucer?  Making a program in support of paranormal claims gains more viewers and it's also much easier.  Why spend time and money confirming facts when you can make wild suppositions?

Such programs are made for believers.  With very few exceptions they make no effort to actually explore the claim.  They are just there to preach to the choir.

Answer 4

Mostly, skeptics choose to dismiss rather than to disprove, so they tend to pick only the cases that they can blame on hoaxes/mistakes. They then apply Ockham's Razor to them and claim that this is the same as actually proving/disproving something.

To cut a long story short, most skeptics never really investigate the cases that they are talking about except to read through written accounts of events. They never collect any actual evidence, only say that other people don't have evidence. They never do any experiments, only point towards what they see as failings in other people's experiments, and so on.

For example, most UFO skeptics will quickly dismiss a sighting as being aircraft lights, yet 99% of them will do this without having first checked local flight plans and air traffic control records to see if there were any aircraft in the area at the time.

I've also yet to see a Ghost skeptic carry out a proper thermal survey on a cold-spot in a haunted house. They blame it on natural air currents, but most never actually map the currents to see if this is true.

At most they run a heat sensitive camera over a room and when they see a cold spot they say that they have proven themselves, but they don't actually isolate source of the clod spot to a natural source.

Answer 5

Great question! Good to see you have put some real thought into your question and some theories to support your arguments. Unlike many others who just say "because I believe in it!!"

For every person who has had an unexplainable experience happen to them, there is just as many that can explain such things in a real rational way.

You say that skeptics "pick and choose" the bits they want to discredit. However, the same can be said of the producers of the 'show'. You also say about skeptics wanting self promotion. However, it is the producers of the particular 'paranormal' show that are the ones that are self promoting. It is the idea of the producers to make money by making the show and up to the networks to promote such shows so they can target their audiences with particular advertising. What works for people watching such 'paranormal' shows and the like in adds, does not work for someone who likes to watch a fishing show for example. So it does all come down to promotion and advertising.

On to your own experiences. These are just that - your own experiences and whilst they are very real and may seem to be of very paranormal activity, someone else may have a very plausible and normal explanation for the same thing. And from a different perspective, the reason behind your 'floating pot' may indeed be very clear. I too have had some very strange and what would seem to be 'paranormal' experiences:

Here is just one example of what I would consider to be unexplainable (I have had a few others but this is main experience):

I have seen a cross fly across a room. This was in a house my friends mum was renting for the family. It was a while ago now. I helped them move in, and as happens when you move in to a place it is usually totally void of furniture or ornaments etc. So was this place save for a cross that was about 300-400mm (12-15 inches if you prefer!!) high. Next to it was an ominous note with a warning: "Do NOT Remove this Cross from this exact spot!!"

So, being teenagers, we were about to move it when my pal's mum screamed "Don't touch that!!"

Anyway, I used to hang out at this house quite a lot - especially on week ends. There were a few 'odd' things that occurred. One Saturday night my friend’s younger brother and I were sitting in the lounge room after everyone else had long since gone to bed. We were just watching a movie when we heard a funny whistling tune that seemed to be coming from the wall! So we set off to find the noise and we went to his other brother’s room where the tune seemed a little louder. Now, you have to know two things here. One, this brother was sound asleep but no noise was being emitted from him apart from breathing. Two, he is profoundly deaf! So even if awake, there is no way he would whistle a tune. We then went into the hall, remember that it would have been 2 or 3 am, and as we walked down the hall there was a loud "bang". We found that the door to lounge room had slammed shut. The whistling had now stopped! There were no other doors or windows open, and nobody else was awake and up and about at the time. However, it did now wake the rest of the house (save from his deaf brother who remained in bed asleep) and they came out to see what on earth we were doing. When we tried to explain, everyone thought we were making it all up and being idiots.

A couple of weeks later again in the early hours of a Saturday morning, we heard the whistling again except this time there were 4 of us that could hear it. So, two went one way and the other two went the other and again "bang" the lounge door slammed shut again and the whistling immediately stopped!

Upon returning to the lounge, we were all a little startled, we were obviously in full debate about what was causing it and the brother and I were telling how it had happened before. The others were arguing that it was co-incidence and in fact we had not witnessed it before when the real scary part happened. The cross, that was sitting in the exact position it had been left before we arrived, literally 'flew' off the mantle and landed in middle of the room some 4-5 yards from its original resting place. Simultaneously to that, the door that had previously slammed shut suddenly flew open. Now, none of the people that were present are religious in any way but that cross could have been $1M that night we revered it so much.

We all just gasped and stared at the cross in middle of the floor and then at each other - aghast!! Nobody dared speak for a long time. Somebody, could have been any of the 4 of us I cannot remember now, finally got up and replaced the cross onto the mantle again.

Reading this back does not seem that bad, but believe me it was terrifying at time.

There were many other weird things that happened in that house that were unexplainable to us. However, if we had access to some researchers all we would find that is these things could have been explained in light of day in a comprehensible and concise way. No demons, no spooks no ghosts, just plain science.

Oh and as for UFO's I will just ask, in relation to research, do you have any idea how far the nearest next star from our sun is? or to take it back one step. Can you even imagine how far just one light year is?

As for extra solar planets, the next nearest is over 20 light-years from us. However, this is a massive gas giant planet many times bigger than Jupiter and cannot support life of any kind. So you have to go even further to find a terrestrial planet that may have the right conditions to have a chance of even supporting microorganism's let alone intelligent life. These distances are vast! Oh and just in case you were wondering, anything that contains a mass cannot travel at light speed. Nothing. So even if it were possible to travel at or beyond the speed of light, a creature would have to travel for more than 20 years just to reach us. Same as communicating with us. If for example some distant civilisation is at 50light years from us, and signal of communication was sent to us it would take 100 years for a reply!

Answer 6

It's all in the editing.Try watching "National Geographic Is It Real".Search Joe Nickell,for more substantial rebuttals.

Answer 7

The problem with "paranormal phenomena" is that they tend to be subjective in nature, and are rarely very well documented. Even the direct witnesses of an event may (unwittingly) mistinterpret what they see, or get details and time lines wrong. To ANY investigator after the fact, its very hard to determine what objectively happened and what was only subjectively experienced. So when a skeptic "debunks" something, he or she can only debunk the parts of a story where there is enough information available to offer a viable alternative explanation.

   Please note that even in a case where there is no logical explanation to an event, that that means that "It must be a ghost/spirit/demon/supernatural cause" to the event. It simply means we don't have enough information. In my teens I quite eagerly studied the paranormal. But the more I read and studied, the more apparant that "paranormal" explanations seem to be default ones; a way of coming up to an answer in the face of no other explanation. Yet when paranormal claims are subjected to scientific and controlled experimentation, the paranormal claims inevitably fail. This is an indication to me that perhaps we need to learn more about the normal world and things we haven't figured out yet, and not fall back on paranormal claims that are often contradictory to one another.

Answer 8

The shows are "edited" deliberately to remove complete debunking so as to allow for more shows in the future. It is a big business. Do you thing that they would produce a lot of debunking shows if everyone had access to all the proofs that show that psychic phenomenons are totally non-existent?

As to your "paranormal experiences", do not conclude from the fact that YOU do not have a rational explanation, then other, better trained people would not. Your own limitations, and your own bias in the matter (since you feel involved) do not make you a perfectly impartial judge.

Edit: so you have ghosts in your cookware, is that it? Spooky! You cooked some bad chicken in it and it is coming back to haunt you?  Excuse me, but I have absolutely no belief whatsoever in this. How come this sort of things happen to YOU and not to other people? You basically are attracting the attention of ghosts and they hate you for it, perhaps?

If you have "proofs" like you imply, show them.

As for this "rain main" thing, I googled it, and find nothing but reference to the movie "rain man" with a misspelling in it. So as far as this being well documented so that I or anyone else could comment it, I fear you missed the boat there.

Answer 9

Well if you're talking about TV shows, if its a program on a network that makes money off its TV lineup (which is almost all of them), I'm going to be skeptical of whether I'm receiving both sides of the story and if one side is being presented with bias. TV shows are there to make money for the networks they are on, and that's always the bottom line. I tend to have more confidence on shows that are shown on Discovery or Nat Geo, but even those channels can be dubious at times and you always need to critically examine what you're being shown.

I can appreciate your personal experiences, and I can understand why you might feel they give you proof. But it is only proof for you, and from any viewpoint outside your own it is impossible to know with certainty how well you investigated the scene, how well you observed it or how well you are recounting it. Those are all big unknowns. In addition, someone with different knowledge or experience than your own may have identified natural causes for what you observed while you could not. This is another unknown. With all these unknowns, it cannot be called proof.

Concerning the Rain Man, I assume you are referring to Kim Peek. He certainly is amazing, but there is no reason to think anything paranormal is going on. For reasons not fully understood yet, his brain is wired differently and while he is dysfunctional in many areas he is amazingly gifted in others. In science, "unknown cause" does not mean "paranormal". It just means it's unknown.

Answer 10

Here is a good quote:  "opinions about psychic abilities take an even bigger cake.  Some people outright deny their existence.  Some people say they're evil and satanic.  Some people say they're poppycock and superstition.  Plus it doesn't help that most scientific methodologies are unable to determine, measure, quantify, etc what psychic abilities are.

Negativity aside, there is scientific proof that psychic abilities exist.  At the very least, the US Navy, Russian Parapsychology researchers, and Parapsychology Departments of various universities/institutions have proven that psychic abilities exist - unfortunately, they have done so with some difficulty and much of "mainstream" science still denies the findings.

But, when you add to that an OVERABUNDANCE of anecdotal evidence that stretches back to the dawn of human time plus we, ourselves, individually, experience psychic abilities on a daily or weekly basis, it's actually quite astounding that psychic abilities are not an accepted fact.

I'd also like to note, too, that it is Western society that denies psychic abilities vehemently.  Rarely, do Eastern societies {ie, the Indian sub-continent and the Orient} deny psychic abilities.  Eastern societies accept psychic abilities as NORMAL {rather than paranormal}."

As said previously, segemants are purposly left out.  This will be a forever long standing battle between the two sides.  I firmly believe there will not be any "neutural grounds" here.

Answer 11

You well never get them to believe, because afterlife means materialism goes out the door. You're dealing with a type of entity that is invisible to the naked eye, substance is unknown, physics unknown, can materialize and dematerialize. All Unknown to mainstream science because that lack of technology. Metaphysics and Quantum physicist have great theories that fit perfectly for these occurrences, But scientist in this field get laughed and made fun of and ridiculed as pseudo-scientist.

But I'm not like them, I take this matter seriously, their is no way in h**l you can get good evidence on something you can completely understand, that's like getting evidence of string theory. But those 'conscious scientist' won't stop their research because of others belief systems even if it comes in conflict with yours.

Answer 12

you'll never convince a sceptic ,don't even try ,they are in total denial ,and woudn't recognise truth if they saw it .

one day science will be able to prove paranormal occurences ,when they find out how to do it.

in the mean time charlatans are bunddled together with genuine people ,making it hard for those who don't know the difference.

ps. tv psychichs are for entertainment ,no doubt some are more genuine than others ,i can't be bothered watching them.

Answer 13

Want to give us an example?  Let's say you're thinking of 3 numbers between 1 and 10, and I guess 2, 7, and 9.  If 9 was one of those numbers, does that mean I'm psychic?  Or does the fact that I missed two of them mean I'm probably just guessing?  Yeah, that's probably it.  And that's probably what the skeptics were trying to tell you.

You can believe in whatever you want, but the fact of the matter is that none of these psychics have ever been able to prove that they can do what they claim they can do.  It's very easy to convince someone you're psychic - but apparently it's impossible for them to pass a test designed to find out for sure.  Because they've failed every test ever.  And that's why it's not considered a science - or even reality.

Answer 14

grrl....Why do you care what the skeptics think? We believe you! I looked a long time to find people who believed me. I wouldn't even have been sure if they believed me if they hadn't posted similar experiences before I did. Just be thankful that you've found people who believe you and try to step over the skeptics when you see them. They will NEVER believe until it happens to them...several times. They can't help their unbelief. The thing I'm afraid of for them is that if a real alien UFO landed..they'd go running up to it laughing all the way thinking it was a joke.