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On the pains of investigating the paranormal scientificallyThis blog entry is based on a comment I posted at the end of an article by US researcher Kevin Randle to do with the perception of members of the scientific community to the study of UFOs (Ufology). However, what I had to say applies equally well to other areas of 'the study of the strange and the weird' (i.e. the 'paranormal') that falls outside mainstream and accepted scientific study. You can see that original article here: kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2008/11/science-and-chalatans.html.
I am a man of science. My background is in astrophysics and theoretical physics and I am now a satellite ground systems specialist. Like all scientists, I have been trained to apply knowledge and logic to solve problems. However, the important point (often only realised after some time and experience) is the extent of this 'knowledge'. Science has answered many questions over the past few hundred years but one suspects that we have only ever scratched the surface. The problem is, of course, that we know what we've been able to achieve but we don't yet know what lies ahead to be discovered. In the late 1800s, after James Clerk Maxwell unified electricity and magnetism, physicists considered that this, coupled with Newtonian mechanics and the supplementation of Kepler's laws, was all there was to know about the Universe and that future physics would be essentially a tidying up exercise; mere mathematical and experimentation cosmetics. Then came Einstein's special, then general, theories of relativity and, of course, the quantum theory. Back to the drawing board. Then Big Bang theory, string theory (nay, theories!), the Many Worlds hypothesis, etc. etc. That drawing board has been used many times in physics and experience suggests that it should be kept handy at all times!
And here's the problem. People, educated in the sciences or not, do have a natural tendency to use their existing knowledge and opinions to view the world. It's like the analogy of the person who drops their keys in the street at night and looks for them under a street light even though they dropped them in an unlit area (they look where the light is).
A clear example is the way people argue against the possibility of ET visitations. I'm still open-minded as to whether or not we're being visited by ETs. However, I do grow tired of people who say "ah yes, but even if life exists elsewhere in the Galaxy they won't be able to visit us because it'll take them too long to reach us, as Einstein has taught us". But these people view the possibilities according to the street light; in other words, according to current knowledge and theories. As physicist Michio Kaku has pointed out, if an ET civilisation was even a few hundred years more advanced than us we would not be able to apply our current knowledge to understand their capabilities, let alone to predict and anticipate them. As the late Arthur C. Clarke once famously said, to us the capabilities of a suitably advanced civilisation would be indistinguishable from magic.
Another aspect of seemingly natural human thinking is an inability to look beyond what they believe or want to see. I have assisted in paranormal investigations in the past and was often confronted with evidence (especially photographic) which is clearly something easily explainable. No matter how convinced I am, how much I can prove it or how well I can explain it, people who want to believe (UFOs, ghosts, telepathy, ...) just will not accept it. I always used to preach "look for the earthly before considering the unearthly", but have learnt that, while true, it is a largely wasted message on most people. Conversely, I've seen evidence which I think is genuinely intriguing and which cannot be easily explained which "scientific" people dismiss without good reason. So there really is little prospect for winning such arguments, either way. All very frustrating but, I've learnt, inevitable.
I've come to the opinion that the vast majority of people are difficult (if not impossible) to convince, both for and against. In the middle, there are a small number of genuinely open-minded, logical, realistic and inquisitive individuals who are prepared to (i) accept that they might have dropped their keys in the dark, and (ii) venture into the dark to look for them! Therefore, those seeking to explore in the dark (i.e. the truth) should do so without worrying unduly about convincing the unconvinced!
Neil Jenkins
6:03 AM
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