The Paranormal Blog

A few years back, when Art Bell was still the primary host of the popular radio program "Coast to Coast", Sue and I were listening to an interview with (I believe) Michael Shermer (either him or my personal favourite, Joe Nickell, in all honesty, who it was is lost in the haze of memory...) who was chatting away about how even-handed they are in testing people who claim psychical abilities... they pointed out that out of the "hundreds maybe thousands" of tests, they had one subject, a woman, who scored above "statistical norms"... which, when you look at what is considered "statistical norms" in psychic testing, really isn't all that big a deal, but they were ALMOST puffing out their chests (briefly) in pride at how THIS showed they were "open minded" and almost secretly wanted "psychical abilities" to be "true"... a common (and silly) claim usually made by the pseudo-sceptics. However, the woman only showed "potential" once and failed to do so on other tests, so it proved nothing... and then they went on for ten minutes or so mocking her on how she was dressed.

Yes. This was apparently a "thing" with her test results and scores... the clothes on her back.

To be honest, both Sue and I noticed that the idea of their testing and the POSSIBLE success of this woman was quickly over-run by the giggling at her attire... to the point where it really came off like...

"You know, psychical abilities are nonsense. They've never been proven! We test all the time and nothing, Nothing, NOTHING! Oh, but we're fair... wehadapossiblehitwiththiswomanonce... but do you remember how she was dressed! Bawahahaha! She was dressed like a bad neo-gypsy! Let's now go on about her clothing for a long time and mock her appearance...! Oh, okay... now that we're done, where were we? Ah yes, psychic abilities seem to be nonsense!"

...but this is no surprise as this is the way it's played out time and again. Sceptics, or so-called, self-proclaimed, pseudo-sceptics who are really nothing more than from the church of non-belief (and are emphatically so to the point of being, indeed, evangelical about it,) find a flaw... or a giggle point... or ANYTHING other than addressing the issue and WHAMMO! It OBVIOUSLY proves the whole thing, whatever it is, is WRONG... and you're a ninny for even entertaining a thought about it.

Another (more specific) case was a few years ago when Sue did a speaking turn at the now semi-defunct Skeptics(sic) Canada about her excellent work in explaining the Port Perry "Ghost Road" case. Sue and her team did a fabulous job of explaining and even reproducing the lights and indeed, like it or not, they proved the light is "natural" in origin, not supernatural. This seemed like a "slam dunk" to be loved by sceptics... after all, she proved the claims to be not-so-ghostly!

Wrong!

First: A fairly well placed astrophysicist who was a part of Skeptics(em) Canada called her out on the word she used to explain the travelling of light along the hydro (or "electrical") wires... She said it was "refraction" and this fellow really made her sound like a class "A" dolt for using that word... Granted, upon investigation once we got home, the word Sue SHOULD have used was... refraction. She was made to feel like an idiot... but in fact, this man of letters was the idiot... but why let facts get in the way of a good snappish, snarky, publicly uttered verbal shot... from someone who honestly has scientific accreditation which, although it doesn't deal with telescopes as such, one would assume he tripped over them at sometime in his astrophysics career.

Second: A bright young man came up to Sue and myself after and asked how we knew of the "Ghost Road" lights... we explained that the legend was word of mouth and listed in various books that in all honesty, I was preparing to list... when he too snapped at us, "Oh yeah, the kind of books idiots read!" and quickly hustled away before we could respond.

Third: Okay, I'm not re-typing the third issue... but let me quote from this previous blog post of mine...

Eric McMillan, chair of Skeptics(sic) Canada sent Sue's notes and information about the investigation and debunking to "The Skeptical Inquirer" for possible publication... the scientific examination and explanation of one "ghost case" brought into the light using good science and excellent critical thinking...

...and they refused to publish it.

Eric didn't hide the reasons why... it's because Sue and her group (and myself) are credulous believers. Since we don't crap on witnesses and the phenomena in general and we do believe that "weird things" have happened and continue to happen... they wouldn't publish it... despite being a proper and appropriate case to display in their rag... and something that the chairman of the leading sceptical group in Canada thought was worthy... but the "The Skeptical Inquirer" did not.

Now, I have to admit... Mr. Radford sent me a couple of missives about my mistakes about the article quoted above... and I did publicly apologise for all the statements for which I had zero evidence and/or made a boo-boo... (Enjoy!)

What dredged this blog post out of me today is, oddly enough, not related to some "sceptical doin's" in terms of critiquing things before read or completely understood, (thanks to Tom Ruffles for those bits,) but this small passing bit of brilliant fun which I found in my web browsing today.

In a more "cryptozoological mode", I was reading this article which is about a strange sighting (with photographs) of "flying squids"... which is interesting as it backs up a sighting from 2001 that these things "exist".

The comments section of this new item is filled with jokes, mocks, and this...

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Wow.

Well, upon reading this, I could *tell* that these sightings were utter nonsense, frauds, hoaxes, and not worth the pixels that the photos of the "flying squids" ate up.

Yes, that's sarcasm above...

Now, perhaps this was just the type of semi-pedantry one does tend to find online... usually going off about spelling or grammar... but indeed, a quick search and more reading... and no. This is fault found by that super-intelligent creature that is way more with it than us... the pseudo-sceptic. Those bastions of science (that oddly enough shun hypothesis and observation before finding a conclusion,) and education that keep the rest of us all out of the dark ages. I mean, after all, everything in the universe has been explained perfectly and needs no more attention from anyone... especially YOU!

Yes, misspelled words, bad clothing choices, and using the incorrect water-reference to describe a scene are all reasons to discard hypothesis and even more!

...but then again, this if from folks that feel that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence... whereas some of us foolishly feel that any claim, regardless, requires evidence and as a rule, "truth", "fact", and even "evidence" is not mooted or somehow lighter because someone on a small boat called a "sea" an "ocean".

...but hey, that's just me.