Sometimes I'm a sceptic

Thanks, but what is the value of the quote button? I was trying to select the part of the text I wanted to quote.

In that case you'll have quote then delete the unneeded part.

I make some use of acupuncture (I am not sure if that counts as psychical), but the point is, my therapist charges £40 for a 1-hour session. If he charged $10000 or even £400 per session, I would have far less confidence in him!

This is why I think skepticism without Skeptics should become a major proponent talking point.

The entire Skeptical Movement is a lesson in failure, but the idea of skepticism has great value. Makes me think back to the Psychical Societies at times rigorous testing for frauds without a religious commitment to materialism.

The entire Skeptical Movement is a lesson in failure, but the idea of skepticism has great value. Makes me think back to the Psychical Societies at times rigorous testing for frauds without a religious commitment to materialism.

The skeptical community is very successful. They have made the concept of pseudoscience part of government view of anything not specifically certified by mainstream science. That was a necessary step before unacceptable concepts could be outlawed because they are a danger to society. I doubt they will achieve that ultimate objective, but the ducks are lining up.

And don't forget that they control Wikipedia, which is one of the most powerful tools for propaganda ever invented.

The idea of "healthy skepticism" was able to be co-opted by people who oppose ideas that contradict their sense of true science. That is often a religious view (scientism), but many are motivated by religious fervor. Skepticism is an attitude. Skeptics are a religion.

A better term for healthy skepticism is discernment. A discerning person is one who is open for new ideas, possibly suspends the accept-reject decision until more information is available and does not act on information or ideas until confident that they are reasonably well understood.

Most of the people I have encountered who claim to be skeptical (healthy skepticism) are skeptics (not only no, but hell no!) and not discerning. In fact, few of us know enough about some of these phenomena to make an informed accept or reject decision. Unfortunately, that includes many who decide under cloak of academic authority. The only rational point of view is a discerning suspended judgment.

The skeptical community is very successful.

I think the data is at least suggestive of being against this conclusion? ->

SDSU Study: Religion Down, Afterlife Belief Up Among Millennials

Belief in ghosts is on the rise

Religious 'nones' projected to decline as share of world population

This doesn't even get into the slow but sure decline of materialism as the expected/accepted position in scientific academia.

I think the data is at least suggestive of being against this conclusion? ->

This doesn't even get into the slow but sure decline of materialism as the expected/accepted position in scientific academia.

There is a considerable difference between popular wisdom and considered acceptance of the evidence. Skeptics seldom deal in obvious debunking. Their most success has been with innuendo. The Wikipedia articles they attack are slanted to suggest doubt, rather than coming right out and saying it is a silly idea or the person is a fraud. Read the Talk History of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake. For that matter look at how much space is given to debunking in the article, as opposed to supportive reviews.

Skeptics tend to support paranormalist community adoption of clearly nonsensical beliefs and techniques over ones that actually pose a threat to their perceived sense of scientific law. It is to their advantage to have more people believe in ghosts because that reduces the legitimacy of the field of study. Hardly any of the ghost believers are able to explain why they do so in terms other than they once heard a funny noise.

Again, skeptics are not about open-minded questioning. It is about preserving the status quo. By trivializing things paranormal by showing they are "for entertainment only," so to speak, they effectively sideline serious study. It works! Research money tends to go with public opinion. An opinion in the sense of "Sure, I believe in ghosts" on a par with "Sure, I have a guiding angle" is at odds with funding research to determine what ghosts might be. That is one of the major reasons there has been so little progress.

There is a considerable difference between popular wisdom and considered acceptance of the evidence. Skeptics seldom deal in obvious debunking. Their most success has been with innuendo. The Wikipedia articles they attack are slanted to suggest doubt, rather than coming right out and saying it is a silly idea or the person is a fraud. Read the Talk History of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake. For that matter look at how much space is given to debunking in the article, as opposed to supportive reviews.

Skeptics tend to support paranormalist community adoption of clearly nonsensical beliefs and techniques over ones that actually pose a threat to their perceived sense of scientific law. It is to their advantage to have more people believe in ghosts because that reduces the legitimacy of the field of study. Hardly any of the ghost believers are able to explain why they do so in terms other than they once heard a funny noise.

Again, skeptics are not about open-minded questioning. It is about preserving the status quo. By trivializing things paranormal by showing they are "for entertainment only," so to speak, they effectively sideline serious study. It works! Research money tends to go with public opinion. An opinion in the sense of "Sure, I believe in ghosts" on a par with "Sure, I have a guiding angle" is at odds with funding research to determine what ghosts might be. That is one of the major reasons there has been so little progress.

I agree with your assessment [of] their tactics, I just think on a broad social scale the whole thing is a failure.

The last bastion is academia, but I think over time - not necessary my lifetime - this will falter and we will see more mainstream afterlife studies. I do think mainstream academic tolerance of Psi will happen in my lifetime, by which I mean it will be acceptable for a prominent scientist to affirm Psi...we might even see a BBC special about it.

I agree with your assessment [of] their tactics, I just think on a broad social scale the whole thing is a failure.

The last bastion is academia, but I think over time - not necessary my lifetime - this will falter and we will see more mainstream afterlife studies. I do think mainstream academic tolerance of Psi will happen in my lifetime, by which I mean it will be acceptable for a prominent scientist to affirm Psi...we might even see a BBC special about it.

I occasionally look at the big picture and ask myself, what do I want? Do I want science classes to include anecdotal accounts of survival after death? Do I want Eben Alexander's account of his NDE to be treated without skepticism either in the media or by Wikipedia editors? To be honest, I would dread the kind of society that I see in microcosm at New Age gatherings.

No, what I want is simply fair treatment and I do not believe that the skeptical movement is fair but I do believe that their influence on the mainstream of media, politics and academia is disproportionate. I believe this starts with academia which seems to me to be predominantly atheistic (especially in the sciences, of course). I do believe that those major institutions of state and media should be secular but secular does not mean atheistic (although, again, atheists would like you to think that it does). 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacques-b...99588.html

Secularism needs to be disarticulated from atheism for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, these two isms are simply not synonyms. One concerns itself with primarily with politics, the other with (anti-) metaphysics. They have different concerns, intellectual moorings and histories (though, interestingly, it may be that both emanated from Christian theological inquiry).

Fair treatment can be the application of science but not of scientism. Of open enquiry but not dogma.

I occasionally look at the big picture and ask myself, what do I want? Do I want science classes to include anecdotal accounts of survival after death? Do I want Eben Alexander's account of his NDE to be treated without skepticism either in the media or by Wikipedia editors? To be honest, I would dread the kind of society that I see in microcosm at New Age gatherings.

No, what I want is simply fair treatment and I do not believe that the skeptical movement is fair but I do believe that their influence on the mainstream of media, politics and academia is disproportionate. I believe this starts with academia which seems to me to be predominantly atheistic (especially in the sciences, of course). I do believe that those major institutions of state and media should be secular but secular does not mean atheistic (although, again, atheists would like you to think that it does). 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacques-b...99588.html


Fair treatment can the application of science but not of scientism. Of open enquiry but not dogma.

This is a really good point and IMO among the most fundamental questions we can ask - I think it informs so many societal disputes across the globe.

For Science classes, I'd recommend an honest admission that science is (for now) metaphysically neutral, that profound mysteries exist regarding the relationship of mathematics to reality, the behavior of matter and the supposed Laws of Nature, and the prime questions of Causation and Consciousness.

A brief mention of parapsychology would be nice as well, though with proper precaution about the propensity for fraud. One of the functions of the Psychical Societies, IIRC, was to warn the public of fraud while also communicating their honest attempts at finding the truth of paranormal phenomenon.

All to say secularism should encourage skepticism and proper appraisal of claims, but this should apply as much to loan sharks, diet fads, materialist propaganda on the BBC, etc as it does to the paranormal.

Well put Kamarling! Science and education about our etheric nature and the world we live in needs to be ... well, it needs to be educational rather than dogma. Obviously, it is not and there are many reasons for this. Fixing them would be a little like trying to stamp out our shadow.

I have spent a lot of time trying to develop a theory which is least controversial yet which addresses all of the known characteristics of these phenomena. I argue that it is more complete than anything I have read, but I will not argue that it is right. That requires extensive vetting.

As I have previously written on this board, even parapsychology is divided by contending points of view. To achieve the imagined appearance of credibility in the eyes of mainstream science, parapsychologists tend to ignore related subjects that are even further from the center. At the same time, they shun input from subject matter specialists who are not Ph.Ds. and their culture does not appear to support vetting amongst themselves. One leg of the elephant, as it were.

Until our community can mature enough to agree on a few models that address all known experiences, and not just those that agree with the researcher's point of view, it is unlikely mainstream academia is going to bother. That New Age nonsense you mentioned is how all of us looks to mainstream professors.

That New Age nonsense you mentioned is how all of us looks to mainstream professors.

Cue rant. This could take a while.

When I mentioned fairness back there, I was talking about how skeptics are unfair to parapsychology (and to be fair to actual sceptics I'm using the US spelling to denote the militant debunkers we are all familiar with). Unfairness, however, runs deep and wide and those mainstream professors are the pinnacle of a very substantial iceberg. There seems to be a pressure in society towards partisanship, not only politically but also philosophically and metaphysically. Thus skeptics have deliberately created the impression that they are the voice of reason, the defenders of science and even common sense. Again, the term "skeptic" has become synonymous with atheist, free-thinker, rationalist, humanist, empiricist and materialist. The other side of the partisan divide, according to these guardians of reason, are the religious, the superstitious, the credulous and the gullible. The science-haters, alt-right Trump supporters and climate-change deniers.

In 2017 (and again in 2018) there was a march organised in support of science called, appropriately, the March for Science. Wikipedia describes it thus:

According to organizers, the march is a non-partisan movement to celebrate science and the role it plays in everyday lives.
...
The March for Science organizers and supporters say that support for science should be nonpartisan.The march is being organized by scientist skeptical of the agenda of the Trump administration, and critical of Trump administration policies widely viewed as hostile to science.

However, it seems that while the emphasis was on being non-partisan in a political sense, this did not preclude being partisan in any other sense. Indeed, the movement very quickly found itself aligned with various skeptical and atheist groups.

American Atheists Joins March for Science as Partner Organization

This alliance harked back to an earlier rally which had a far more direct and pronounced atheist agenda: the 2012 Reason Rally. But here again the alignment between science and atheism was touted as synonymous.

“We have the numbers to be taken seriously,” said Paul Fidalgo, spokesman for the Center for Inquiry, which promotes the scientific method and reasoning and was one of the organizations sponsoring the rally.

Note that the comment was attributed to a spokesman for the Centre for Inquiry. We all know about the CFI - the umbrella organisation which includes the CSI or CSICOP as we will probably always think of it. Here's the CFI Mission Statement:

The Center for Inquiry leads the charge on promoting reason, science, critical thinking, and humanist values. We work to defend the rights of atheists and non-believers around the world and advocate for public policy that's rooted in evidence and objective truth.

Yet again, atheism is directly associated with science. Reason is also a quality to be associated with atheists. "Objective truth" is, we are assured, something with which atheists are intimately familiar. CISCOP made its reputation, not as an overtly atheist propaganda organ but through investigation of the paranormal. Here's their Mission Statement:

The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry promotes science and scientific inquiry, critical thinking, science education, and the use of reason in examining important issues. It encourages the critical investigation of controversial or extraordinary claims from a responsible, scientific point of view and disseminates factual information about the results of such inquiries to the scientific community, the media, and the public.

No mention of the atheist underpinnings of their parent organisation but again we see the claims to critical thinking, reason and scientific investigation as though they were intrinsic to the worldview they promote.

So, I mentioned the other side of the partisan divide. That, as Tom pointed out, is us. All of us here (apart, of course, from the resident skeptics). Clearly we are the science-haters, the gullible, the credulous. We clearly know nor care nothing about science but believe in fairy stories based in religious indoctrination. You'd think that, after years of debating with us, we might have succeeded in dispelling such stereotypes but clearly not. Let's take a look at some very recent comments from Steve001. These are taken from a single thread.

• From Sci's perspective. My suspicion is this is a thinly disguised let's throw science away because science doesn't know everything.
  
• Knowing psi sympathetic persons typically have gripes about materialistic science, it's your intention I question.
  
• So you admit your reason is to throw out science.
  
• I'll be more specific.  Most of the threads you've started are someone's opinion.  Furthermore, with your posts and such, there's a material science stinks undercurrent in most of the threads you start. I don't get that undercurrent impression nearly as strong from any other member than you. Take a step back an look at what you've posted as if it was not posted by you. Maybe you'll see what I mean.
  

1. There's a difference between opinion and factual opinion. You post [Sciborg's] threads generally consisting of opinion.

2. I'm referring to what some members don't like about science,  It's reductive.

3. Yes, my point of view presents a grounded perspective. 

And ...

1. It [factual opinion, see above] may sound so [like an oxymoron] but no. It's the same as an informed opinion.

2. Psi sympathetic persons certainly complain about it [reductive science] - a lot. The science that's not is the science done by such psi luminaries as Beischel, Radin, Sheldrake, PEAR, Noetic institute....

Reason and critical thinking are not qualities limited to atheists nor are spiritually minded or idealistic thinkers (most of us here) intellectually deficient - some such thinkers were great philosophers such as Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer or scientific luminaries such as Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Newton and even Einstein. We here are not anti-science but yes, we are anti-scientism.