That's all true. In your zener cards example, the cards could be marked - 100 correct? No problem.
Except the experiment would happen under controlled circumstances, which I already stated. It's not "no problem" then. Are you saying you can't set up a controlled experiment where you're not sure the person is cheating? That every ESP test is slip-shod and cards are just tossed around with no controls? Please.
And yes, I admitted it's a bias. Will you admit the opposite bias is in play as well? That someone may default to a supernatural explanation when they can't readily come up with a normal one?
Of course the opposite bias is in play. Look at all the mediums that were conning people at the turn of the century (and are still conning people through cold reading). But why do you bring this up? Do you think one bias excuses another?
The really troubling bit is that a secular explanation really attempts to explain - in terms and ideas we are quite familiar with. What does a supernatural explanation do other than say, "I don't have a better idea?"
Scientific explanations say the same thing! Do you think we know what dark energy is, or dark matter, or why inflation happened, or whether there's a multiverse of universes? We only know approximately what 5% of the universe is made of. The rest is a total mystery. Nobody has a "better idea" than anyone else.
If we discovered someone with psi-talents (and apparently some people here would never be convinced a psi-talent could ever exist), we'd have a supernatural explanation for some kind of phenomenon. I'm sure we would investigate further, but it might always remain a mystery, like how life started on Earth. Some things are, in principle, non-discoverable. Tell me what it's like to fall into a black hole...
Is a supernatural explanation an explanation at all?
Of course, because all the competing explanations are discarded. Let's go back to someone who can pass every Zener test we throw at them, under every controlled condition possible. They get 10,000 out of 10,000 cards right. We put the person on the moon, and they still pass the tests. What other rational explanation is there? When you've eliminated every possible scientific theory, what else is there? Maybe there's not much explanatory power behind a supernatural explanation, but if it's the only one left standing, what else can you do?
To make it one, you'd have to then describe how the supernatural worked, and in some detail. If you managed that, wouldn't it simply become a natural explanation after all?
Sure, once you discovered how it worked it would fit into mainstream science, like all the other amazing discoveries that have changed science. Infections come from invisible organisms? Well, that's new. Better revise our theories on how people get sick. I swear, some of the people here would have been railing against germ theory. It's miasmic vapors, I tells ya!
Why is it that no one seems to be saying the effects of what we call 'dark matter' are supernatural forces? I mean, you have all the correct conditions: no obvious answer or explanation, mysterious and unexpected observations, no possibility (or none we can identify) of cheating...
Because there's no reason to invoke Dark Matter as anything supernatural. It doesn't explain reports of supernatural phenomenon, like NDE's or death bed visions. Neither does Dark energy. We essentially made it up to explain phenomenon that is inexplicable to us. Dark Energy and Matter are almost magical, when you really think about it.
I'm not so sure what it will turn out to be. I'm open-minded. My philosophy is, when 95% of the universe is a mystery, one should entertain a wide variety of explanations.
So why isn't dark matter the A-number-one example of supernatural forces?
Because it was invoked to explain phenomena that is inexplicable. There's no proof dark matter or energy exist. We suppose Dark Matter/Energy exists because it's a convenient way to explain certain observations. It's all highly speculative without a shred of evidence to support it. It's like the Multiverse- it explains cosmic fine-tuning, but there's no evidence other universes exist. Inflation theory got a boost the other day, but multiverse theory was popular before that.
). See how many out-of-state plates you find on a daily basis, which states, and roughly how far from your area they traveled.
