What is it with skeptics demanding personal proof?
Posted: 01 Apr 2010, 11:35
I've noticed this trend (and this is only some skeptics, not the majority by any means), pretty much over the course of the history of psi research and psi skepticism. It just seems like so many skeptics act like...entitled to have psi proven TO THEM personally, or else it doesn't exist. Now, I fully understand credulity, I don't expect them to believe what the psychic or energy worker says, because they haven't looked into the matter themselves. But can't they just sort of...roll their eyes and roll with it, instead of essentially insisting on having the evidence handed to them? Furthermore, it is essentially their own ignorance that they don't know the true matter of things, that psi isn't this open-shut, never been replicated thing...it's got a rich and fascinating history, and a huge body of modern, scientific evidence to support it.
To me, it seems awfully similar to when a creationist goes up, and says that evolution is impossible, because they think the mechanisms needed to make an organism function are far too complicated than what could have occurred by chance and selection pressures, because they've never read up on it.
It's just frustrating, and this is mostly a rant. I already know the answer to my question - it's basically human nature. But it still makes me wanna strangle people at times.
It's obvious that psi does not lend itself to publicity stunts. So what? That's not how science works. You can't have it both ways, you can't have showbiz and solid evidence, because you know even if someone did succeed at some $1Million task, there would be immediate accusations that it was a coincidence or fraud. Look at the case with the Girl With Xray Eyes. She got 4 out of 7 targets (p = .0163), instead of the target 5 out of 7, and they (CSI(COP)) called it a total failure.
Uuugggghhhhhh.
To me, it seems awfully similar to when a creationist goes up, and says that evolution is impossible, because they think the mechanisms needed to make an organism function are far too complicated than what could have occurred by chance and selection pressures, because they've never read up on it.
It's just frustrating, and this is mostly a rant. I already know the answer to my question - it's basically human nature. But it still makes me wanna strangle people at times.
It's obvious that psi does not lend itself to publicity stunts. So what? That's not how science works. You can't have it both ways, you can't have showbiz and solid evidence, because you know even if someone did succeed at some $1Million task, there would be immediate accusations that it was a coincidence or fraud. Look at the case with the Girl With Xray Eyes. She got 4 out of 7 targets (p = .0163), instead of the target 5 out of 7, and they (CSI(COP)) called it a total failure.
Uuugggghhhhhh.