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Open Letter to Paranormalists


rashore

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Abstract

This is a letter to members of the paranormalist community discussing lessons learned, as Co-Director of the ATransC, about science, scientists and research. The letter includes a brief discussion identifying paranormalists, dominant theories about the nature of paranormal phenomena and important considerations for their study. The intent is to advise paranormalists about the need for discernment concerning the intention of those who would study these phenomena.

http://ethericstudies.org/open-letter-to-paranormalists-science/

 

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I read through the letter and it is chock full of errors. Here are some examples:

1. It discusses 5 senses when in fact there are more such as our proprioceptive sense.

2. That PhDs write all of the journal articles. That only people with a doctorate can publish. I guess they don't know of my niece that published as an undergraduate.

3. The scientific method description is completely wrong.

4. The purpose of journals is also quite wrong - there is no "implicit contract" to distribute information to the public.

The letter goes on to suggest that Wilhelm Reich was persecuted for his studies in the paranormal when in fact Reich was creating goods that had no proven medical benefits.

The letter eventually drones on about how poor the efforts are of believers in the paranormal doing science.

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I think that some of the experiments I have volunteered for in the human-computer interaction studies have been interesting to me. These studies require human subject and ethics questions. They investigate how humans interpret the world.

Studies of the paranormal need to show that something is happening and that other factors are ruled out. The open letter is asking people to do a good job and should also tell people that if there study is criticized don't pout, improve. There are plenty of mistakes in the open letter about how science works. A trip to a poster show at a local university would help people understand how these things work. If they are lucky they will see firsthand how intense science is on science.

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On 3/21/2017 at 9:38 AM, rashore said:

Horrible letter that pretends laymen, amateur folklorist (as the paranormal is folklore) in this case, should somehow adopt a rigid empirical based method to their work (with the unstated motive of hoping that would lead to the abandonment of their passions and beliefs.

Sorry but this is as ridiculous as serious theorists on the paranormal demanding science validate their research and beliefs. Well almost as that is a plea of acceptance while this open letter is another rejection as if there is any scientific value in demanding others think as they do. That is outside the bounds of where their focus should be but it is still all in all a good sign that the bridge between the two narrows.

For now science has a responsibility to allow the softer side of academia to catalogue the beliefs of paranormalist as is done with traditional folklore.

My simple response to the letter is if science rejects you for no reason whatsoever and it causes negative emotions as being ostracized usually does then ignore the fringe wing of science defenders while respecting more serious facility researchers.

In addition my open letter to paranormalists who.desire acceptance then channel it where it belongs for now, faith. Plenty of New Age believers are more open to the paranormal and for others to join in helping bring some illumination within their own domains as much as science does so within theirs. It will also help move past theorizing about the paranormal and actually engage it, to have discussions with entities, for even if science will one day understand the natural context of phenomena they will remain limited until accepting it still has intelligence. Even the rocks sing but now they are laughing over the way we fight over these things while they cannot be bothered,

 

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1 hour ago, I hide behind words said:

For now science has a responsibility to allow the softer side of academia to catalogue the beliefs of paranormalist as is done with traditional folklore.

Huh???  WHY?  Science has (quite simple, and very logical and reasonable) rules to weed out nonsense (non-science) from reality.  It has no responsibility whatsoever to help out with stuff that, frankly, IS equivalent to traditional folklore.

 

We already have plenty of charlatans running pseudoscientific organisations, and you want more?

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