Oy, what a thread. Limbo's avatar isn't the
only thing beginning to eat its own tail here.
Have you ever been to a professional magic show? You do realize that your senses can be fooled?
Hey Limbo, which one of these is the REAL Santa Claus?
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_2324b8887c14372e.jpg[/qimg]
Can you prove they aren't? Each and every one?
RayG
This gives me a new idea for a thread:
What about this card trick?
True story: I was at a party back in the mid 90s where the host performed a clever, but essentially pretty basic card trick for one of the guests (this is the sort of fun you're stuck with at a party with no women
). The guest's (let's call him "Tom") bemusement however quickly turned to a rather intense, unpleasant and probably drug fueled freak-out that wasn't very much fun to watch. I tried to assure Tom that it was just some sleight of hand but he wasn't buying it and was instead convinced that he just witnessed something genuinely paranormal. The host remained coy about it, apparently enjoying his guest's sincere distress and while Tom eventually calmed down the rest of the evening was as you can imagine a little "off".
I never saw Tom again but I can imagine him believing later on that card tricks are examples of genuine PSI phenomena. Someone could patiently try to explain to him that tricks are just that; tricks or illusions, even going so far as to explain how the original trick from the party was done. If Tom was already heavily emotionally invested in the idea of the "trick" being paranormal though, I could see him hand waving away the this evidence by saying "maybe
some card tricks are explainable in conventional terms, but that doesn't mean that
all card tricks are explainable". The problem in this example is that Tom came to the conclusion that some subset of "card tricks" are paranormal because he witnessed one that he could not explain. That's not necessarily anything to be ashamed of. The problem however is that he appears to be basing his "some card tricks are evidence of the paranormal" belief on a badly flawed premise; if the original trick he witnessed (i.e., the one that kicked off his "card tricks are evidence of the paranormal" belief) can be explained, why conclude by default that
any card trick (even the relatively fancier ones) need have a
paranormal explanation?
Getting back to crop circles, one might say that people link circles to UFOs or PSI because that appears to be the
only explanation for the circles. If mundane explanations are provided for circles that were earlier considered to be paranormal in origin, why continue to hold onto the paranormal as a reasonable "default" position on the causes of other crop circles?
I guess my question to Limbo and other like minded individuals here is:
Why does paranormal phenomena always seem to manifest itself in forms which are indistinguishable from hallucinations, magic tricks or practical jokes? Is it to test the faithful or is it perhaps because these phenomena actually are the result of hallucinations, magic tricks or practical jokes?
