Why do scientists never experience the paranormal? If they did, they would have change their opinions, but this is not the case...

Well, I think the publication of the title: "The Sense of Being Stared At: And Other Aspects of the Extended Mind" by Rupert Sheldrake, might help dispel the notion that all scientists disavow the paranormal. Though his ideas are criticized vehemently by his peers, he still has the courage to speak his thoughts on such matters, and that may help bring others of like mind, in his discipline, out of the closet, sort of speak.

And it has been said there is really nothing paranormal , or super natural. It's just perceived to exist as such, for the very reason that science hasn't , or will not, qualify the data that is alleged to exist about such matters.

At one time lightning was thought to be a supernatural occurrence. It was even believed, by the ancient Greeks, that it was something controlled by the father god, Zeus. Along with all storm properties like rain and thunder. Now, electricity is a common household utility. But back in the day, people feared the sight of such brilliance breaking across their skies, because they imagined the gods were mad or wreaking vengeance for some mortal transgression.

I think things will change. Too many people have senses that aren't considered normal on average. Like precognition, lucid dreaming, etc... for it to simply not exist. Which, if people are experiencing it, precludes that thought in itself from being truly valid. Because clearly, it does exist. What is intuition? What is it when people see music in colors, rather than simply hearing the notes or the harmonics of a composition?! Empirical science will come around, I'm sure. Maybe not in our lifetime, however that there are some pioneers in the scientific community, that are open to such things, lends evidence that evolution in the field, is on it's way.


Edit to add article link: USA News ~ Paranormal is normal, controversial scientist says

Don't even get me started.

I'll share a quote from Thomas Etter:

"When a belief is widely held in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we call it a superstition. By that criterion, the most egregious superstition of modern times, perhaps of all time, is the "scientific" belief in the non-existence of psi."

The ideal in science is too allow their experiences, in the form of formal observations and measurements, to shape our beliefs. They do this through controlled experiments. In practice, we can't personally experience everything, so we are obliged to place our faith in what others report. When faith collides with experiments, disagreements will most certainly arise. We usually think of this conflict in terms of religion vs. science. But sometimes disagreements arise because "scientific faith" clashes with repeated human experiences. When this happens, emotions trump reason. From what I can gather from the scientific community in general, and from what's been written in the U.S. government's National Science Foundation...the NSF basically believe that the general public is...well lol, stupid because they believe in psi and other "pseudosciences".

For the sake of science, I'll try to dignify "stupid" into something more official sounding by calling it the ignorance hypothesis. This proposes that people believe in the paranormal because they're uneducated. The assumption is that if only people would pay more attention to what science teaches about the way the world works, then they'd stop believing in delusions like telepathy, for instance. Every one knows, so this hypothesis goes, that concepts like psi violate basic scientific laws, thus anyone who is unaware of such elementary laws must be ignorant and is therefore likely to believe in anything or anyone. That in turn threatens the fabric of a civilized, rational society, and must be squashed.

I believe there is light at the end of the tunnel. Even though the NFS's 2002 report asked the question, "Some people possess psychic powers or ESP". Do you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree? This NSF-sponsored survey found that 60% of adult Americans agreed or strongly agreed with the statement. These percentages appear to be increasing which is very encouraging, imo. Not to long ago, there was data collected by the National Opinion Research Center, which is affiliated with the University of Chicago. One of the questions asked in their survey to the general public was "How often have you felt as though you were in touch with someone when they were far away from you?" The possible answers range from "never in my life" to "often". This was compared to those answers to question on formal education. The ignorance hypothesis predits a negative relationship - the more education you have, the less you should believe in the paranormal. The "actual result, based on 3,880 survey responses, was not negative. In fact...it was significantly positive, with odds against chance of 80 to 1. This same trend has been observed in Australia, France, and virtually every other county that has reported these surveys. This finding is even widely acknowledge by skeptics, who gnash their teeth about it.

This is not to say that increased education has no effect on paranormal beliefs. Higher education is known to reduce belief in the paranormal, however...in Sweden, a nation with one of the highest literacy rates in the world, researchers have found that the majority of the population believes in the paranormal, and those beliefs have increased in recent decades.

I believe we need a balance, and it appears to be happening slowly but surely. We live in exciting times.

Scientists most likely do experience odd things...they probably just catagorize them as unknown or unexplained. You see, science looks for the empirical explanation verses invoking the supernatural as an explanation for the unknown. Science is driven by the evidence, not by any one personal opinion or faith.

and when they have the "evidence".. they just cover it up..and call it a matter of national security...

Because when something 'paranormal' occurs they have the knowledge to explain it using logic, while others simply don't care to find a rational explanation and put it down to aliens/ghosts etc.

I think this very much depends on your definition of paranormal.

As Inner Space has so eloquently stated, the paranormal insofar as abilities of the Mind which seem to defy scientific explanation is experienced on possibly a very regular basis. However, these experiences are not investigated due to their being at odds with scientific dogma and the experience itself is passed off as an unexplained, but mundane, phenomenon.

If we are talking about the supernatural, such as non-human intelligences, spectral entities etc., then we delve more into the realm of psychology/philosophy and the uncertainty of determining or separating physical and mental reality. The understanding of our own psyche is certainly not complete and, while this remains the case, many supernatural occurrences will be passed off as an imaginary manifestation of some part of this psyche.

No, they "try" to explain it using logic. Those however, who had the experiences, know what they experienced. No one "puts it down to ghosts/aliens". And by paranormal I didn't only mean other entities. And I also disagree when you say "they don't care". In fact, they are the only ones to really care.

Leslie

Quite possibly, if a scientist did experience something he(or she) could not explain, they would keep quiet about it, rather than face the probably ridicule and skepticism of the scientific community. So there may be scientists who experience the paranormal, but are afraid to say anything without cast-iron proof.

It could possibly be harder to get the grants and funding needed to study, if the committees and publishers of scientific journals believe a scientist is a believer in unproven theories and (what could be considered)superstitions.

I guess it depends how you define scientist.

Then it would depend on how you'd define paranormal.

There are scentists like Stanton Freedman, who are strong believers in UFO's. I know other scientists who believe in things like faith or touch healing. I've experienced a Reki type of healing through a friend of mine who has a BA in organic chemistry, a masters in chemistry and a doctorate in psychiatric nursing. I'll call her a scientist and I'd call Reki "paranormal" to a certain extent.

I believe within a decade...that mindset will change because of the ongoing research in Latent Inhibition.

The ideal in science actually has three parts: testability (whether in the form of controlled experiments or specific predictions), falsifiability, and duplicability. This is why, when testing by outsiders a la Ganzfeld didn't result in any changes in the outcome significant beyond random chance, the hypothesis was discounted. This allows multiple, independent people to verify and find the same conclusion from the evidence.

That's why somehow thinking that a list of human anecdotes about these things is valid is bad science, and has little credibility. People are simply bad observers of things, generally speaking, including things that we don't understand. Carl Sagan pointed out in his book The Demon-Haunted World that 15-20% of the population has at least one vivid auditory and/or visual hallucination in their lifetime, and extreme conditions can exacerbate this, causing more. Then add on the fact that when we see something unknown, and have no real mechanism or inclination to skeptically analyze it, we interpret it according to our own prejudices (hence why in the past, epilepsy and schizophrenia were seen as signs of being possessed).



The ignorance hypothesis is largely correct. If a peasant in the Third World believes that lightning and thunder is caused by the Gods bowling ninepins in the skies, then we would almost certainly call him or her ignorant, and point out what lightning actually consists of.

The "every one knows" argument smells of nonsense. The majority of people 'believe' in stuff like this, whether it's their religious beliefs, or superstition, or new age "magic", meaning that the scientific people who look skeptically at this are actually a minority.



Who cares what the majority of the population thinks about the validity of psi? It doesn't make it real, any more than probably 99.5% of 16th century Europeans believing that the universe was geocentric with Earth at the heart of the 'spheres' meant that it was true. Science is not a popularity contest, or an American Idol audition.

As for education, keep in mind that much of education, particularly the education in the United States, is nearly useless when learning critical thinking. Hell, in most American high schools, evolution (the fundamental underpinning of modern biology) is kept minimized in biology class. Even when you get to the college level, it still doesn't matter. A political science major, or a computer science graduate, probably doesn't know any more about evolution, for example, than the next layman - and that goes for psi and any research done on it, as well.



What kinds of paranormal? Someone who believes in trolls under the nearby bridge is different from someone who maybe thinks that they see something once in a while, or having a telepathic bond with their lifetime partner.

Guardsman Bass, I enjoy reading your posts, and respect your opinion.

I dont think this is the right secion to post this but anyhoo..

They dont wish to experience it or they dont want to admit it..who the heck knows..or shot in the dark...but have never experienced it...hmm??

The paranormal is ones own personal experience...you cant really prove it

Umm they do. Thats where all those wackos from all those UFO/Ghost from those History Channel specials come from.

But it depends on the persons perspective...one person sees a ghost and says "oh my god its an angel" another person sees a ghost and says "its just swamp gas".

plenty of scientists have experienced the paranormal or have seen a ufo or any other mystery you want to list. plenty of skeptics about ufos have changed their toon once they have seen something.

that is not to say there aren't people out there who are far-fetched or 'wacko' but plenty are level headed educated people who aren't prone to fantasy.