In our forums we have been having discussions of the self styled "skeptics" that enjoy poo-pooing any investigation of paranormal activity (except their own).
As I read one of the latest posts regarding a commentary by Benjamin Radford, I began to think of how times have changed in the past 100 years.
Mr. Radford, in his commentary, asserts that it is foolish to try to investigate the paranormal (unless you are he), and even if it weren't a fools errand that it should be left to the "real scientists" and not the amateur scientists who, "are very credulous and seem to have no real understanding of scientific methods or real investigation."
While, I agree with many of his points and share many of his opinions on how steps are missed among paranormal investigators when moving from hypothesis to experimentation to theory, I wholeheartedly discount his assertion it is a fool's errand or that "serious" research is either impossible or should be left to the "real" scientists.
Let's consider how "real" scientists have fared over the years and how times have changed.
Mr. Radford, feels that "professional scientists" are the arbiters of truth. This is a role long held by the church. Today, science is viewed as religion was even 300 years ago. What they say goes. If they do not recognize a field of study it is relegated to the comic and those pursuing that line of questioning are heretics. They no longer burn people at the stake, but they attempt to sideline their work through articles, pontifical announcements, and even the new "truth" guide being proposed for the Internet by Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
Once upon the time the only scientists were amateurs. All of the great work upon which today's professional scientists build was done by amateurs and often at personal risk or ridicule.
Galileo saw the work of Copernicus who was a canon theologian (not a scientist) on the revolutionary theory that the Earth traveled around the Sun and not vice versa as was the popular and church view. Galileo espoused the idea, tested it with his new invention, the telescope, and was brought to trial by the church on charges of heresy. Galileo, the professional scientist, quickly recanted his support of the theory, thus saving his own skin. Yet, Galileo gets the credit for this theory in popular culture many times and his trial is held up as an example of how the church sought to keep down science. His recanting is conveniently forgotten or explained as a "rational move" since he was not a theologian or prepared to die for his beliefs.
Yet, it was an amateur who put forth an idea that was the seed of change for the entire world view. One that we now know to be absolutely correct.
Today, the scientists have become the church, issuing edicts, official positions, and declaring certain ideas or avenues of inquiry to be heretical. My, how times have changed.
Of course, many of the world shattering discoveries and theories have come from amateurs who were willing to think outside the box.
Einstein's "Big Idea" expressed as E=MC2 changed the way the entire universe worked. At the time Einstein developed this idea as well as the others during his Golden Period he was working as a low paid clerk in a patent office. He did not have a University position and most professionals thought he was a bit off. Luckily, one physicist took him seriously and the world leapt forward in understanding the universe.
The fact that we can all live through surgery or even a severe wound has to do with the efforts of those willing to think outside the box and build upon radical ideas. Ignaz Semmelweis was a doctor at a maternity clinic and supervised students. He noted that when he had students wash their hands in a chlorinated lime solution following anatomical autopsies, the incidence of "child bed fever" decreased in their other patients. Semmelweis was laughed at by many who considered the disease to be caused by many different things and that each case was unique. Semmelweis insisted all that was necessary was proper hygiene. Finally, as people relented, long after his death and tried his procedure they realized he was correct.
Years later Louis Pasteur would put forth the germ theory of disease and Robert Koch would expand on his ideas and prove that germs did, indeed, cause disease. Yet, the first person to recognize that something carried on dirty hands was the cause of disease was a common professor of obstetrics and not a "Microbiologist".
Even many of our greatest inventions (if not most) are not the product of "scientists" but inventors working either in their own workshops or for corporations. Televisions, telephones, refrigerators, lights, electrical devices, all came from people who were primarily "amateurs" in the sense they did not work for universities or government sponsored programs and received pay only when they could develop something that would sell.
So, where does that leave people like me and Mr. Radford?
I hope that ideas like my EVP experiment will allow me to collect data that might help isolate what is happening. That is why I remain vigilant and note observations, statistics, and ideas. That is why I don't do it for "fun and socializing" and forget about it the moment I walk away. It is why I do try using different equipment to try to see if there is any piece that may help isolate or explain the nature of reported phenomena be it psychological, psychic, natural or otherwise.
Mr. Radford states that if ghosts existed they would have been found long ago and if "ghost hunters" were really scientists they would have abandoned the hunt for lack of evidence. According to him, if you haven't caught it in a few minutes, it doesn't exist.
Let's hope the next time he needs an antibiotic he is thankful that Semmelweis and others didn't share his instant gratification view of science or inquiry. After all, van Leeuwenhoek discovered his "animalcules" (bacteria) in 1676. Semmelweis took until 1847 to move from there to noting hand washing helped his patients. Pasteur took another 18 years to develop the germ theory of disease and Robert Koch got around to helping prove it about 20 years after that.
So, we could say that medicine seems to have more sticking power than Mr. Radford. After all, it took from the beginning of human development to 1676 to realize bacteria, not seen with the naked eye even existed, although its effects could be observed and another 200 years to prove it caused disease. Then another 30 until drugs were developed that could even rid the body of those germs. Luckily, for Mr. Radford come time for flu vaccines, they were not shaken by armchair critics.
In all of this, I suppose that my hope is that I can be vigilant and observant enough to amass information that one day when the Church of Science decides to glance over they can build on what has been done before.
After all, maybe we can be like good Dr. Semmelweis, noting a cause and effect and giving the "professional" scientists the tools to make the final push to the finish line. I won't even care if they take all the credit.
And should that happen, Mr. Radford and his ilk will become cautionary tales of overarching ego and power like Pope Urban VIII.
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Buck's Ghost's and Hauntings
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Supposedly, the prison administration has told guards that leaking any information to the public about the haunting will be grounds for firing. No word on what they plan to do to prisoners who talk.
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