Skepticism and the paranormal.

If you're a student of the paranormal then seeing the word "skeptic" probably causes you to recoil a bit.  Skeptics are seen as those debunkers and deniers for which no evidence is good enough.  I am pleased to inform you that these people are not skeptics.  These people give skepticism a bad name.

For your consideration here is a definition:

skepticism (uncountable)

   1. (US) The practice or philosophy of being a skeptic.
   2. (US) A studied attitude of questioning and doubt
   3. (US) The doctrine that absolute knowledge is not possible
   4. (US) A methodology that starts from a neutral standpoint and aims to acquire certainty though scientific or logical observation.
   5. (US) Doubt or disbelief of religious doctrines
(From Wiktionary.)

To me, the overall meaning of skepticism, based on this definition, is that of one that considers evidence and then makes a decision accordingly.  This means not jumping to conclusions and, most importantly, not dismissing something out of hand.  It is unfortunate that modern skepticism has been co-opted by dogmatic thinkers who are no better than the dogmas they are so proud of opposing.  I tend to think of modern skepticism as making a negative assumption, whereas belief is a positive assumption.  They're still both assumptions though.  Belief is "Mental acceptance of a claim as truth regardless of supporting empirical evidence." (Again from Wiktionary.)

If a negative assumption is a belief just the same as a positive assumption then what is the difference?  Well, as any skeptic will be sure to point out, the burden of scientific proof is on the person making the claim and they are exempt from this because a negative cannot be proven.  This leads me to my point:  If a negative cannot be proven, why hold a negative assumption about something?  To make a claim and then fail to back it up without any evidence sounds ridiculous to those that are expected to believe it no matter what the claim is (unless those people have faith).  If there is no evidence to support a positive claim then there is obviously no evidence to support the negative claim either.  So why assume the negative position?  Why not simply say "I don't know," or "We don't know"?

In the case of paranormal claims that have some evidence, whether it be eyewitnesses, photographs, videos, etc. the "neutral" claim is that it must be trickery or illusion.  Why?  This is not to say that all such things should be believed because many of these things do turn out to be frauds or hoaxes, or less sinisterly, misunderstood natural phenomena or optical illusions.  Perhaps this is why some people immediately jump to the conclusion that all such activity is fake.  This is perhaps not so bad.  The bad part is that when a natural explanation is not forthcoming and no evidence of trickery or illusion is discovered, the pseudoskeptics still cry hoax.  What is the difference between this kind of clinging to faith and the clinging to faith of one who continues to believe in a proven fraud?

Then we have events that are seemingly supernatural but can be replicated by trickery.  We can present a scene from the Civil War on the big screen, complete with big-budget CGI.  It looks like the Civil War but it is not the genuine article.  Some propose that the telekinetic feats of Nina Kulagina can be replicated with string.  Big deal.  Knowledge of the principles of multiplication can be replicated by simply memorizing multiplication tables.  My point is that just because something can be emulated through trickery does not mean that it was trickery to begin with.

We must also take into account how many things are known to exist that were previously unknown to us because of the limits to our knowledge and technical capability.  X-rays were once denounced as a hoax by Lord Kelvin but with more demonstrations X-rays became accepted and understood and now the majority of people have some understanding of something that perplexed the greatest minds of that time.  Did X-rays not exist before they were demonstrated?  While a possibility, this seems unlikely and I think most self-styled skeptics would agree.

A key tenet of the scientific method is that a hypothesis must be falsifiable.  You must be able to show that the hypothesis is true or false in definitive terms.  I can say that the entire universe is contained within an invisible snow globe, but there is no way to prove this.  This is not a testable hypothesis and therefore not a valid one as it doesn't allow us to gain any further knowledge or understanding.  The lack of existence of something is not testable, so how can we say with any certainty that something does not exist?  At best we can say that it has not been conclusively proven to exist.  The belief that something does not exist because we can't detect it is just that:  a belief.  It is an assumption upheld by faith.  It is impossible to prove a nonexistence, so how can any skeptic possibly claim with certainty that something is nonexistent?

I am not advocating credulity.  I am also not advocating denial.  I'm fully aware that nothing I've written here will stop the ongoing battle between believers and nonbelievers.  My intention is to get you to think about why you believe the things you believe.  There is nothing wrong with belief, but we must be prepared to examine our beliefs as objectively as we possibly can from our subjective human perspective.  This includes accepting that sometimes that awesome ghost photo or that UFO sighting is a fake or a hoax.

If you would like to read more eloquent observations on skepticism and the paranormal then please see this article written by the true skeptic Marcello Truzzi.  I believe you will like it.  If you would like to report your thoughts on what I've written above then leave me a comment below.  See you next time.