I'm not sure I understand. Paranormal claims also seem to be exceptions to natural laws. And both seem to require a similar approach with respect to evidence - documenting that natural, known explanations have been ruled-out.
"appears to be" yes - but are they? From our current scientific position some inherently odd and weird ideas may seem 'paranormal - yet actually be entirely normal and mundane, just rare phenomena outside the scope of our current understanding.
Yes, there are many things we do not fully understand. Some people have selected an arbitrary subset of these things, applied some magical thinking and declared them paranormal. But from my perspective, they fit right in with all the other inherently odd and weird things I observe.
Yes. Paranormal = normal phenomena we just don't understand yet. Some will prove to be nonsense. Some will prove to be artefacts, just illusions created by some other effect or our gullibility. And so, I do not doubt, will turn out to be quite prosaic and normal once we understand them scientifically. So some phenomena will be sorted to the "rubbish" pile, some the "true" pile, and some the "this is why it seemed like that but what was really going on was..." pile.
So why not just call them normal? That is what science investigates, after all - stuff that seems weird. Lots of "paranormal" stuff is much less weird than the other stuff science investigates. I am reminded of one of my favourite Asimov quotes "the most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, "hmm.... that's funny...."
Ghosts? Well a ghost is just a report of something- the causality underlying that report, the thing behind the human experience - could be many, many things. "Ghost" is just a category for a type of experience, and I gravely doubt there is one cause which explains even 5% of all "ghost" cases. However, yes, a ghost could be supernatural, and many claim they are, but could just as easily be natural - we look on the ghosts of dead stars, whether on TV, or in another sense in the sky at night. Generally I assume any phenomena I encounter in the natural world is naturalistic, so at best paranormal. Hume I'm afraid made me doubt the usefulness of "supernatural" - I even played with trying to envisage an entirely naturalistic interventionist theology a couple of weeks back, on another forum.
SO if i see a goblin - well i am going to assume I'm hallucinating, but if we capture a goblin, and other people see and we get to study goblins - its natural. Goblins move from paranormal to normal.
Why were they paranormal to begin with?
And I still disagree that those who promote the idea of the paranormal are operating under the assumption that these phenomena will fall under normal science, once understood (especially if I consider the vehement rejection of any normal science explanations for these phenomena by paranormal researchers and practitioners). It seems that "violates laws of nature" is the key characteristic of their ideas. I probably have not been exposed to a representative sample, though. You probably have a better idea of the general attitude.
I agree totally. So, incidentally, did Robert Jahn for many years as I recall. Parapsychology is just anomalies research isn't it?
But not all anomalies are called paranormal. In fact, most anomalies are not taken up under the paranormal umbrella. And much of what gets called paranormal is not anomalous.
There is no particular characteristic that makes a phenomenon paranormal. Events I consider quite normal get brought into that category by others. It seems to consist of a hodge podge of normal events and a few anomalies to which magical thinking is applied when considering an explanation. The label paranormal doesn't seem to have much of anything to do with the actual events, and everything to do with the person considering the situation.
I'm suggesting that paranormal, as a category, serves only to describe the person talking about the phenomenon. It does not serve to describe any particular characteristic(s) of the phenomenon itself.
Yes, but the problem is that association might be obscuring real areas of potential interest, hidden by the mountains of grievous woo.
YES!
I will but I'm actually very tired and run down - but ten years ago I wrote a response to a piece by Richard Dawkins which addresses this i think - and I posted it on here during a discussion, at
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66829
fourth of fifth post down.
I believe I actually mention CSI(COP) and Randi in it. That was ten years ago, but still reflects my position...
cj x
Well done! Thank you for referencing that.
To elaborate on what you wrote and my perspective.....
The problem with continuing to refer to the paranormal and to consider parapsychology a separate field of study, is it gives the false impression that there exists a set of phenonomena that are fundamentally different from what is studied by normal science. That lumping these phenomena together implies that they share important characteristics. And that the characteristic "science cannot explain these phenomena" actually refers to a coherent, consistent, and real quality. Instead, what falls under paranormal is a small selection of the things that current science
does not yet fully explain and a bunch of stuff that is readily explained (but the explanations are unpalatable to those who believe in magic). I think that when we talk about the paranormal, it should be made clearer that what we are really talking about is how beliefs can frame your perspective - that "paranormal" is a characteristic of a person, not a characteristic of any particular phenomenon.
Additional comments:
You refer to both supernatural and paranormal fairly interchangeably throughout the article, bolstering my position that there isn't any real difference between the two, in the way that they are generally used.
I completely agree with your criticism about Dawkin's comment about needing a psychiatrist. That is a very wrong way of thinking about it. It is far more revealing and enlightening to science to realize that people as normal as you and I
)) can have these experiences.
Your criticism about Occam's Razor was based on a misapplication. Occam's Razor would not choose the "economical" explanation of "the medium is genuine" over "elaborate fraud". "The medium is genuine" requires a new (not proven independent of the example) entity - psi or some other force - in order to explain the results. "Elaborate fraud" is a known entity. Therefore, Occam's Razor would choose the parsimonious "elaborate fraud" and any claims by supporters of the paranormal that Occam's Razor supports paranormal explanations, on that basis, would be fallacious.
Linda
