The faithful must learn to respect those who question their beliefs

[onager]

78. Well, you're the one who claimed "decades" of...

...study in quantum physics. And since Stenger has been working in that field since 1963, I assumed you would have heard of him.

I must also say that I would be positively surprised if the so called skeptics would show equal skepticism towards the standard claim that "there is no evidence of paranormal", and apply the same strict scientific criteria to their own debunking stunts that they - rightly so - ask from others.

They do show exactly that kind of skepticism. It just hasn't produced the results the believers want to see.

And if the mean old skeptical scientists won't help out - shouldn't the believers be doing their own research anyway?

Oh, that's right, they have. The UK's Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882. Here in the U.S., the J.B. Rhine Institute at Duke University opened in 1935. Since the 1970's, Puthoff and Targ have been falling for con men like Uri Geller and Ingo Swann.

That's a lot of years to study any subject.

I can certainly point to "materialistic" scientific progress since 1882 - one great example being this thing on which you and I are currently communicating. From wiping out killer diseases to walking on the Moon, that grumpy old materialistic science has one hell of a track record.

I can find no similar progress in paranormal research. If I could, by now many police functions would not exist, since psychics would be tracking criminals. The CIA would be using remote viewers to find Al Queda. No state would dare hold a lottery, since folks with Other Ways Of Knowing would be winning all the time.

Susan Blackmore was mentioned in this thread. She spent many years working in paranormal research. Here's Blackmore explaining why she left the field:

It was just over thirty years ago that I had the dramatic out-of-body experience that convinced me of the reality of psychic phenomena and launched me on a crusade to show those closed-minded scientists that consciousness could reach beyond the body and that death was not the end.

Just a few years of careful experiments changed all that. I found no psychic phenomena - only wishful thinking, self-deception, experimental error and, occasionally, fraud...

Yes, I have read Michael Faraday's 1853 report on table tipping, and the first 1930s studies in parapsychology, and the latest arguments over meta-analysis of computer-controlled ESP experiments, not to mention the infamous Scole report (Feedback, New Scientist, 22 January).

Should I feel obliged to keep using this knowledge if I can? No. Enough is enough. None of it ever gets anywhere. That's a good enough reason for leaving.

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/journalism/NS2000.html