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Debunking PseudoSkeptical Arguments of Paranormal Debunkers
Argument # 20: Miracles
are
impossible and defy everything we know about science.
We could
begin this the
geeky anal retentive way by attempting to define what a
“miracle” is, but since
any average English speaking person knows what it is, I think
it’s
unnecessary.
The difference is that
though miracles are generally assumed by most to be supernatural or
paranormal
in nature, skeptics consider such events to be merely
“unexplained” or
explainable by natural phenomena or spontaneous healing flukes.
These
skeptics consider
supernatural or paranormal miracles to be impossible.
While
not all skeptics adhere to it, there
are some that do nevertheless.
This
claim is based on an a
priori
assumption that our known physical laws are all there is.
How
would skeptics know all that is possible
and impossible though?
Our natural laws
are our interpretation of how the universe works. These
laws are subject to change as new
discoveries are made, which is how science has always been. (See
rebuttal to Argument
# 10)
Current scientific principles
only reflect
the current knowledge that has been tested and replicated, not all that
is or
can be.
In fact, what is considered
to
be miraculous or supernatural at first has often turned out to be
natural once it’s
understood.
Dean Radin elaborates on
this in his book The
Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena: (page 19)
“But a few
hundred years ago virtually all natural
phenomena were thought to be manifestations of supernatural agencies
and
spirits.
Through years of systematic
investigation, many of these phenomena are now understood in quite
ordinary
terms.
Thus, it is entirely
reasonable
to expect that so-called miracles are simply indicators of our present
ignorance.
Any such events may be more
properly labeled first as paranormal, then as normal once we have
developed an
acceptable scientific explanation. As
astronaut Edgar Mitchell put it: “There are no unnatural or
supernatural
phenomena, only very large gaps in our knowledge of what is natural,
particularly regarding relatively rare
occurrences.””
History
has shown that those
who use the word "impossible" are usually proven wrong one way or
another.
Many things that were said to
be impossible at one point were later proved to be possible such as
flight, breaking
the sound barrier, space travel, relativity, quantum theory, etc.
As Arthur
C. Clarke,
inventor
of the communications satellite and author of 2001:
A Space Odyssey, states:
“When a
distinguished but elderly scientist states
that something is possible, he is almost certainly right.
When
he states that something is impossible,
he is very probably wrong.”
- Arthur C. Clarke's
First Law
In either
case, miracles do
happen.
Many doctors and nurses can
attest to this.
The question is, and
skeptics like to point this out too, in how you define a miracle. Skeptics
will usually accept miracles such as
the miracle of life and science, or miracles due to flukes and rare
chance
occurrences such as spontaneous remission, but not if they involve
supernatural
forces or divine intervention.
Possible
explanations of miracles include supernatural forces, divine
intervention,
psychic abilities, unknown powers and healing abilities of the mind,
spontaneous remission of illness, chance, or natural causes not yet
understood.
Whatever the case, the
“miracles are impossible” argument is illogical
because miracles have
happened already.
There is ample evidence of
this both from
anecdotals and hard evidence from X-Rays of the affected region of the
patient’s body that were taken before and after the miracle.
In fact,
according to a
Newsweek poll, described in the May 1, 2000 issue, 84 percent of adult
Americans say they believe that
God performs miracles and 48 percent report that they have personally
experienced or witnessed one. Three fourths of American Catholics say
they pray
for miracles, and among non-Christians, and nonreligious people, 43
percent say
they have asked for God's intervention.
Now, 48 percent of Americans
is a huge number, about 150 million
people.
And that can’t all
be due
misperception, mistake, or flukes on the probability curve. Common
sense tells us that statistically,
such widespread reports probably points to a real phenomenon, whatever
it may
be.
In fact,
Robert S. Bobrow,
of the Department of Family Medicine at the Health Sciences Center in
“Summary
Paranormal phenomena – events that cannot be explained by
existing science –
are regularly reported in medicine. Surveys have shown that a majority
of the
population of the United States and Great Britain hold at least one
paranormal
belief. Information was retrieved by MEDLINE searches using keywords
‘paranormal’ and ‘psychic’, and
from the author’s own collection. Reports are
predominantly by physicians, and from peer-reviewed, MEDLINE-indexed
literature. This is a representative sample, as there is no database
for paranormal
medical phenomena. Presented and discussed are: a case of systemic
lupus
erythematosis ameliorated by witchcraft; an analysis of studies on
distant
healing; acupuncture, as a bridge between what is now accepted but
recently
would have been deemed paranormal; a carefully-done study of a psychic;
auditory hallucinations informing a patient, correctly, that she had a
brain
tumor; two nearly-identical lay press reports of self-predicted death;
lycanthropy (the delusion of being an animal); the development of Carl
Jung’s
collective unconscious; hypnosis – still questioned despite
documented
therapeutic benefit, and a well-researched report of a person speaking
a foreign
language, apparently unlearned (xenoglossy) while hypnotized; and
multiple examples
of children who spout the details of the life of an unknown, deceased
person.
The inability of existing paradigms to explain these observations does
not
negate them; rather, it elucidates a need for more research.”
To read
the full report, you
can download it from my site at: https://www.debunkingskeptics.com/Paranormalphenomena_LitMedical.pdf
. My
Bobrow has also written a book
entitled The
Witch in the Waiting Room: A Physician Investigates Paranormal
Phenomena in
Medicine.
One famous
documented case
of a miracle is the case of Vittorio Michelli.
Michael Talbot in his book The
Holographic Universe describes the case:
“Perhaps the
most powerful types of beliefs of all
are those we express through spiritual faith.
In 1962 a man named Vittorio
Michelli was admitted to the Military
Hospital of Verona, Italy, with a large cancerous tumor on his left hip
(see
fig. 11).
So dire was his prognosis
that
he was sent home without treatment, and within ten months his hip had
completely disintegrated, leaving a the bone of his upper leg floating
in
nothing more than a mass of soft tissue.
He was, quite literally,
falling apart.
As a last resort he traveled
to
Over the course of the
next month he felt such an
increasing sense of well-being he insisted his doctors X-ray him again. They
discovered his tumor was smaller. They
were so intrigued they documented every
step in his improvement.
It was a good
thing because after Michelli's tumor disappeared, his bone began to
regenerate,
and the medical community generally view this as an impossibility. Within
two months he was up and walking
again, and over the course of the next several years his bone
completely
reconstructed itself (see fig. 12).
A dossier on Michelli's
case was sent to the
Vatican's Medical Commission, an international panel of doctors set up
to
investigate such matters, and after examining the evidence the
commission
decided Michelli had indeed experienced a miracle.
As
the commission stated in its official
report, "A remarkable reconstruction of the iliac bone and cavity has
taken place.
The X rays made in 1964,
1965, 1968 and 1969 confirm categorically and without doubt that an
unforeseen
and even overwhelming bone reconstruction has taken place of a type
unknown in
the annals of world medicine." (O'Reagan, Special Report, p.
9.)”
Some
skeptics claim that
miraculous healings are due to flukes in the probability curve. Their
reasoning goes like this:
“Most people
who are seriously ill are prayed for or seek divine intervention. The
ones that don’t make it are considered
tragedies and forgotten cases.
The few
cases that result in a sudden complete recovery or go into spontaneous
remission are then noticed and attributed to prayer or divine
intervention.
These cases of course, are
the ones that get media attention.”
However,
this explanation is
a lot like saying that anything we don’t understand must be
due to chance.
Sure spontaneous remission
happens as well,
even to those who are Atheists and those that haven’t been
prayed for.
But even so, who’s
to say that spontaneous
remission is solely the result of chance and luck?
The
bottom line is that miracles do happen,
that is a fact.
How we interpret them is
the issue.
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