trainedobserver
Paranormally Disenchanted
I was puzzling about that myself until I realized it was a typo - XBadger I'm sure meant ufologists!
What? Well there goes my twelve page rebuttal! Sheesh.
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Why does science have such an issue with the paranormal?
- Thread starter Donnie Vienus
- Start date
What? Well there goes my twelve page rebuttal! Sheesh.
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smcder
Guest
I know - after all it was urologists who discovered conception!
stonehart
Paranormal Adept
I will also say that the way these eyewitness testimonies are generally taken there isn't really room to do a detailed analysis or have any level of analytic rigor. Anonymous photographs and sightings where people withhold names should carry no weight at all. I understand people are "afraid of ridicule" but it is like trying to prove someone guilty in a court of law based on anonymous testimony without even allowing someone to examine the person or their motivations. At the very very least basic derails need to be gathered (ethnicity, income, education, religion, age, etc) so that some type of patterns or models can be developed to determine who is having these experiences. If I set up a hot line and took anonymous calls in order to scientifically prove a hitherto unknown natural phenomenon (say rods or something like that) I get a few thousand calls I am not getting an invitation to Stockholm to get my prize. Have you seen the mufon questioneer? It is a complete joke. Heck you can report something you didn't even witness....and that is before you are asking random people to comment on an objects distance, magnitude, flight pattern, whether soil was tested where it landed. These are things I (and most people) probably wouldn't be able to give an estimate. I see planes fly over my house every night but have not a clue of their altitude.
If eyewitness testimony is going to be taken you can't lead their answers with questions and there has to be some demographic data so you can run a variety of quantitative computer models and at least drive at some form of predictability.
I am also not so sure about money. There are entire departments in every university with no one expects financial gain.
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If eyewitness testimony is going to be taken you can't lead their answers with questions and there has to be some demographic data so you can run a variety of quantitative computer models and at least drive at some form of predictability.
I am also not so sure about money. There are entire departments in every university with no one expects financial gain.
Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk
SaucerKing
Paranormal Novice
Washing and many other religious practices are almost certainly the result of observation and resulting conclusions. Dietary restrictions like no pork would be another. As cooking was far from the carefully measured and controlled operation it is today, eating improperly cooked ham was quite dangerous. And because there wasn't any way to discover the mechanism at work, and prove it for all to see, how do you keep the masses from eating it? You make it a religious command.
Sue
Paranormal Maven
I'd have to agree with XBadger that the social sciences would seem to offer the best approach given the nature of the most readily available data concerning these phenomena. (Of course I would; I was trained as a social scientist!) However, from reading around on the interwebs I get the impression that when people call for more science in ufology what they mean is hard science, (or maybe just the wonderfully sciencey-looking charts I just saw somewhere else around here).
If it's a hard-science answer you want, a social science approach is going to be unsatisfying, even if the methodology is sound. Nevertheless, I'm surprised that someone has not picked up and started running with a gender analysis of the alien abduction narrative. It seems ripe for the plucking and would slot nicely into existing academic categories.
The lack of existing or consistent categories is a problem. I was just reading Broad's Science of Yoga (2012) where he talks about how a claim made by yoga practitioners (that yoga improves aerobic conditioning) was discredited. Yoga was a mystical Eastern thing with lots of cultural baggage before it caught on with the Daughters of the Soccer Moms, yet science still happened! The critical paper documenting the new consensus knowledge was a 2010 literature review summarizing and evaluating all the research done on the topic.
It made me wonder what a literature review in, say, ufology would look like. How would it summarize the state of knowledge to date and outline the critical research questions facing the field in a way that seems generally relevant?
Mind you, Broad goes on to say that the yoga world happily and completely ignored the paper and continued to make claims about aerobic conditioning.
If it's a hard-science answer you want, a social science approach is going to be unsatisfying, even if the methodology is sound. Nevertheless, I'm surprised that someone has not picked up and started running with a gender analysis of the alien abduction narrative. It seems ripe for the plucking and would slot nicely into existing academic categories.
The lack of existing or consistent categories is a problem. I was just reading Broad's Science of Yoga (2012) where he talks about how a claim made by yoga practitioners (that yoga improves aerobic conditioning) was discredited. Yoga was a mystical Eastern thing with lots of cultural baggage before it caught on with the Daughters of the Soccer Moms, yet science still happened! The critical paper documenting the new consensus knowledge was a 2010 literature review summarizing and evaluating all the research done on the topic.
It made me wonder what a literature review in, say, ufology would look like. How would it summarize the state of knowledge to date and outline the critical research questions facing the field in a way that seems generally relevant?
Mind you, Broad goes on to say that the yoga world happily and completely ignored the paper and continued to make claims about aerobic conditioning.
SaucerKing
Paranormal Novice
Did Einstein develop his theories because somebody dangled the big bucks under his nose? Real scientists work out of obsessive love for their subject matter and because they want to get to the bottom of what's true and not and to forge new exciting directions and discoveries. Certainly pressure from academic institutions to get money and grants affects some decisions on what specific areas to pursue at any given time, can't argue with that. And you're right about the unprofitable departments.
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smcder
Guest
What is the source on this?
I did a search on: origins of religious dietary laws
one result was:
The Kosher Pig – The Origins of Religious Dietary Laws | graygoosegosling
No doubt, when slaughtering animals for food, the ancients found a variety of parasitic worms in the butchered meat. Adequate roasting of infected meat removes all pathogens and makes pork a nutritious and tasty food. The fact that pigs had parasites that sickened humans was not likely the reason for the restrictions on pork as a food. More likely, it was the inability of pigs to survive the dessert conditions with a wandering tribe.
another result: The Straight Dope: Do Jewish and Islamic dietary laws have anything in common?
this compares jewish and islamic dietary restrictions, since these aren't exactly the same I'm not sure they can originate solely out of health concerns?
boomerang
Paranormal Adept
I can't speak from the standpoint of individuals of various religious persuasions. But one thing almost all religions seem to have in common is voluntary self-denial of closely held biological needs or pleasures. Variations on celibacy, abstention from certain foods at certain times, restrictions on dancing, are some of the most common.
Statistically meaningful results in studies of extra sensory perception seem stuck in that same hazy margin of un-collapsed macro superposition that plagues the study of UFOs. Phenomena repeatedly indicate something meaningful, but manage to fall just short of criteria necessary to gain admission to the realm of hard and repeatable science. My personal impression, anyway.
Some jaded and frustrated UFO researchers are suggesting we shift our focus away from the UFO itself to concentrate on personal correlations (even seemingly obscure ones) of witnesses in well documented and solid cases. This is not a suggestion that UFOs are imaginary, but rather that they may be inextricably intertwined with the psyches of individual witnesses in ways we don't begin to understand. Given the 60 year lack of progress in untangling the nature and origin of the UFO, this is an avenue that should be further explored.
Statistically meaningful results in studies of extra sensory perception seem stuck in that same hazy margin of un-collapsed macro superposition that plagues the study of UFOs. Phenomena repeatedly indicate something meaningful, but manage to fall just short of criteria necessary to gain admission to the realm of hard and repeatable science. My personal impression, anyway.
Some jaded and frustrated UFO researchers are suggesting we shift our focus away from the UFO itself to concentrate on personal correlations (even seemingly obscure ones) of witnesses in well documented and solid cases. This is not a suggestion that UFOs are imaginary, but rather that they may be inextricably intertwined with the psyches of individual witnesses in ways we don't begin to understand. Given the 60 year lack of progress in untangling the nature and origin of the UFO, this is an avenue that should be further explored.
Tyger
Paranormal Adept
Totally agree. One area - 'tool' - that any researcher investigating ufo's needs is a thorough grounding in human psychology - both formal and just street savvy smarts.
Agree about money, too. I am posting on a chat site not because of money but because of interest. Same goes for science and 'tists - passion for the subject is the most powerful driver.
Tyger
Paranormal Adept
This is a big one - in various esoteric, occult, alternate spiritual streams it is posited that we are made up of a physical body and other 'bodies' or 'sheaths' - the terminology varies. The 'body' or 'sheath' that the physical body is enveloped in is called - variously - the Etheric Body, the Life Body, the Elemental Life Body. [There are other 'sheaths' but I am talking about this one in particular.] This 'body' is one of 'life forces' - it is the body that carries the 'image' [archetype] of the form that will be revealed over time - it is the 'time body' - life/growth/time - what coheres the physical elements into the given form (cat, dog, human, daisy flower, etc) and imbues those elements with life, vitality. Withdraw the 'life forces' and the physical body dissipates back into it's constituent parts, no longer maintaining form - no longer 'alive'.
The etheric body has many attributes - one obvious attribute is vitality - it determines our state of health. There are occultists/spiritual-researchers/whatever-name - who posit that the discovery (or identification/naming) of the Immune System in the early 80's (as a result of the AIDS research) was the first description in medical science of an aspect of the etheric body.
We also know about Kirilian Photography - and the work being done with plant 'auras'. In fact, the very word 'aura' - which comes out of occult/esoteric/spiritual streams - is now generally used and understood to reference something real albeit still being discovered and worked with. Hence, something viewed as 'magic' 100 years ago, is now seen as scientific fact: the Immune System and heat auras around living bodies, etc.
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trainedobserver
Paranormally Disenchanted
The question is, "Why does science have such an issue with the paranormal."
The answer really is simple. It's money. The only money in the paranormal is in the entertainment industry. Period.
What is the major requirement for a real study of the paranormal by a scientific institution, university, or private concern?
Funding. You have to pay people so the y can eat, pay the rent, and buy useless crap when they aren't doing research. While they are doing the research you have to pay for their supplies, digs, and any services they need.
What would be required to actually study UFOs for example? A really big budget. The only institutions capable of the study of the UFO phenomenon in any real practical sense are those with the sensor systems that can detect them. The only ones that can afford that are government agencies and military branches. Again, it comes down to money.
Einstein is often lauded for his E=MC2 formula. His greatest achievement actually occurred one afternoon when he realized T=$.
While many "real scientists" may have an interest in UFOs, how many can afford to pursue an independent rigorous scientific study of them? They have to eat. They have to do something that is going to pay for the rent as well as the research. Are they going to loose their "day job" by associating themselves with the subject, just because of their "passion" or whatever for the subject? Probably not.
The answer really is simple. It's money. The only money in the paranormal is in the entertainment industry. Period.
What is the major requirement for a real study of the paranormal by a scientific institution, university, or private concern?
Funding. You have to pay people so the y can eat, pay the rent, and buy useless crap when they aren't doing research. While they are doing the research you have to pay for their supplies, digs, and any services they need.
What would be required to actually study UFOs for example? A really big budget. The only institutions capable of the study of the UFO phenomenon in any real practical sense are those with the sensor systems that can detect them. The only ones that can afford that are government agencies and military branches. Again, it comes down to money.
Einstein is often lauded for his E=MC2 formula. His greatest achievement actually occurred one afternoon when he realized T=$.
While many "real scientists" may have an interest in UFOs, how many can afford to pursue an independent rigorous scientific study of them? They have to eat. They have to do something that is going to pay for the rent as well as the research. Are they going to loose their "day job" by associating themselves with the subject, just because of their "passion" or whatever for the subject? Probably not.
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S
smcder
Guest
The answer really is simple. It's money. The only money in the paranormal is in the entertainment industry. Period.
Tangling With the Trickster: Myth, Magic and the UFO. David Perkins | MAGONIA
In his chapter on “Govemment Disinformation”, Hansen makes the interesting observation that the only substantial funding for paranormal and psi-related research from the ruling hierarchy has come from government intelligence agencies. Since their job is institutionalised deception, it is logical that they would gravitate to these tricksterish realms. Hansen suggests that these agencies have promoted ‘mythological beliefs’ which are not always healthy for the larger society. Aside from the government’s well-documented remote viewing research, Hansen claims there was more going on.
He quotes from a 1997 article by Gerald Haines, a historian at the National Reconnaissance Office, which suggests that intelligence agencies had a strong interest in the link between UFOs and parapsychology: “During the late 1970s and 1980s … some in the Agency and in the Intelligence Community shifted their interest to studying parapsychology and psychic phenomena associated with UFO sightings.” Hansen questions why so many prominent UFO/ paranormal researchers have links to intelligence services and goes on to paint some less than flattering portraits of these individuals.
trainedobserver
Paranormally Disenchanted
I think those are the two most important sentences from that quote.
Aside from that, if you don't think it is money governing the situation then where are the commercial and/or military fruits of paranormal research? Entertainment and psychological warfare (which one might argue are one and the same) seem to be the only two viable or visible by-products.
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smcder
Guest
I don't say it isn't money governing the situation. But what governs the money?
Entertainment and psychological warfare seem to be the only two viable or visible by-products.
Key word here might be visible.
I also note that it might not always be possible to delineate entertainment from psychological warfare. ;-)
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smcder
Guest
John Michael Greer notes magic (the alteration of consciousness according to will) in the form of thaumaturgy is extremely fruitful in the form of advertising.
The Archdruid Report: Pluto's Republic
trainedobserver
Paranormally Disenchanted
Yes, illusion, the manipulation of perception, the leading of conclusions, etc., etc.
What governs the money? The promise of a return on it.