8 Famous Scientists Who Believed in the Paranormal

It's amusing that some people cling to the belief that paranormal skepticism proves how intelligent and scientific they are when all it proves is that they are ignorant and close-minded. Science and belief in the paranormal are not mutually exclusive as these eight famous scientists demonstrate.

There is a long history of scientific inquiry into the paranormal. Most scientists won't openly profess to a belief in the paranormal or supernatural for fear of professional ridicule. But that's not always the case.

Philosopher and psychologist William James was one of the first psychical researchers who worked on a variety of paranormal and mesmerist cases. Respected in his field, and still studied today, James remained deeply skeptical with regards to psychic powers and paranormal realities. Like Thomas Edison and Freeman Dyson, James can't really be said to have been a paranormal believer, but all three of these men did devote considerable energy and resources into researching it....others followed up on their work and came to widely varied and controversial conclusions. Read more

How Is Memories Being Passed Down Through DNA Not Paranormal?

Scientists claim no proof has ever been found for the paranormal. That may be true - if you change the definition of paranormal .whenever you confirm a paranormal phenomenon.

Scientists recently announced the discovery that memories seem to be passed down through the generations through DNA. “The experiences of a parent, before even conceiving offspring, markedly influence both structure and function in the nervous system of subsequent generations.”

At first mention, one may think to oneself: okay, this makes sense, big deal. But actually this conclusion would have been laughed off as spiritual mumbo jumbo as recently as a decade ago. A biological transmission of memory has been known to exist in many species, including elephants who can literally smell out the bones of their ancestors. But before now, we didn’t expect that this occurred in humans, especially with the most subjective of emotions, like fear.

Scientists say the discovery may help explain irrational phobias, as people may experience fear based upon genetic material passed down from generations of ancestors. Read more

The Myth of Million Dollar Challenge

Paranormal "skeptics" like to claim that the fact the nobody has passed the James Randi Million Dollar Challenge proves that paranormal abilities do not exist. However, Greg at The Daily Grail reveals how the Million Dollar Challenge is rigged against the challengers.

For ten years, the modern skeptical movement has wielded a cudgel against claims of the paranormal: the James Randi Million Dollar Challenge. In many debates over the possibility of psi abilities, the Challenge provides a final word for one side... [Randi's Million] "has so-and-so applied for the Challenge?" The financial reward offered by the James Randi Educational Foundation is seen by many skeptics as providing an irresistible motivation for anybody with paranormal ability - after all, if someone could genuinely exhibit such powers, surely they would step forward to take the million?

However, after ten years, the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) says nobody has even got past their preliminary testing. Furthermore, none of the 'big fish' - medium John Edward, spoon-bender Uri Geller, psychic Sylvia Browne - have applied (although Sylvia Browne did accept James Randi's direct challenge on Larry King Live, without going any further). And now, perhaps as a result of that fact, James Randi has announced that the Challenge will come to an end in two years, on March 6th, 2010.

But does the challenge really make a statement about the existence of the paranormal and/or psi abilities? According to paranormal investigator Loyd Auerbach (who, like Randi, is a member of the magic fraternity): Read more

Dowsing Competition Pits Believers against Skeptics

Dowsers who claim to be able to locate archaeological features from maps are invited to enter a specially devised competition. Most challenges issued by paranormal "skeptics" are rigged in favor of the skeptic, but this one seems as if it might be fair.

Mention the word dowsing and most people will think of a chap in muddy wellies trudging around a farm with a stick, looking for a good place to sink a borehole, or a fey type in a tie-dye T-shirt wafting about looking for mystical ley lines.

For centuries there have been believers in dowsing, a form of divination traditionally used to locate groundwater sources, and argument rages in the archaeological community about whether dowsers, armed with no more than a bit of bent copper wire and the power of faith, can also locate long-vanished Roman roads, Bronze Age barrows or prehistoric rock carvings.

However, even believers in the muddy wellies type of dowsing often have grave doubts about map dowsers, who claim to be able to locate such features just by holding a pendulum over a Google Earth satellite view taken from miles above a site. The debate has rumbled on through many archaeology forums, with believers and sceptics equally passionately engaged.

A website dedicated to prehistoric archaeology called the Megalithic Portal is now launching a competition to try and resolve the question, with would-be psychics and scoffers invited to join a hunt for archaeological remains from the comfort of their own armchairs. Read more

Ghost Hunter Flashlight Phenomenon Explained? No

A YouTube video has surfaced claiming to debunk the flashlight phenomenon.

... The host on the "Viper Paranormal" YouTube video offered another explanation. In the video, he said the flashlight turning on and off is basically a short circuit that occurs at random. He said that many ghosthunters unscrew the backs of their flashlights to the point where the flashlight is teetering between staying on or off, then set it down to ask questions. He compares the effect to lights flickering on and off in a home.

"You're not getting enough voltage to that light and for a split second that light has no power. Well, it's the exact same thing with this flashlight. When this thing is unscrewed, it's teeter-tottering between having a connection. And basically you've got a short circuit, so sometimes this light's going to come on, and sometimes it's going to be off," said Mike St. Clair, the host of the Viper Paranormal YouTube series.

Theoretically, then, any vibration could cause the connection to be completed and the light to turn on.

This explanation would only satisfy the extremely gullible, or maybe someone who has never watched Ghost Hunters. On the show, the flashlight sits unlit and then slowly comes on in response to a question. Then it is turned off slowly at the request of an investigator. The flashlight does not flicker on and off.

This is quite typical of the paranormal "debunking" I've read: It either doesn't debunk what actually happens on the show or outright lies about what happens. None of us outsiders can know whether the show's producers and participants are honest, of course, Assuming no chicanery, however, this explanation doesn't debunk the flashlight phenomenon. Furthermore, Sabrina Wu did an experiment to test whether the explanation was even plausible. Read about the outcome

Debunking the Debunkers: Beyond Belief and Randi's Million Dollar Challenge

The Daily Grail debunks the debunkers and exposes James Randi's million-dollar challenge for the hoax that it is.

Last week the James Randi Educational Foundation hit the publicity jackpot (Time, AOL, CBC, Gizmodo, Discovery) when it played a central part in a feature on ABC's Nightline dedicated to the topic of psychic powers, with Randi's famous million-dollar challenge being conducted on national TV (officiated by his trickster protege Steve Shaw, aka Banachek): Read more

How Skeptics Turn a Blind Eye to Psi

Heretical Notions asks why reports of positive results for psi experiments, even by respected researchers in high-profile journals, are ignored by mainstream science.

I’ve been away from this issue for a long while, but after the recent media flurry over Cornell psychologist Daryl Bem’s results, I thought I’d spend some time re-organizing my thoughts on it all.

First, as a sort of starting guidepost: Any branch of science, even mainstream modern “Science” broadly defined, has its own culture with its own relatively inelastic ways of seeing – and not seeing. Psi happens to be one of the many things that Science does not see; and in a sense, that’s not even remarkable, because for us humans, with our young civilization and small brains, probably most of the universe lies in our blind spots. We should be grateful for what we do see!

On the other hand, psi isn’t an advanced, yet-to-be-discovered phenomenon. It belongs to a rejected past, not to an inaccessible future. Parapsychology was once a very active branch of Science, with a literature that was full of positive and seemingly repeatable results. So the important question here is not, Why doesn’t Science see psi? but rather, How did Science come to unsee psi? Read more

Should We Be More Skeptical of Paranormal Skeptics?

Should we be more skeptical of paranormal skeptics? Greg Taylor says we should because some of them are not truly "skeptics." They are biased debunkers masquerading as objective investigators.

The modern skeptical ‘movement’ has grown and thrived in recent years to the point where the public generally views self-appointed ‘skeptics’ as arbiters of the truth and defenders of rational thought. But how much of what they say can we really trust as being objective truth? Are self-described skeptics championing critical thinking, or are they simply defending one particular worldview? The late Marcello Truzzi came to think so: despite being the co-founding chairman of the influential skeptical group CSICOP (the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal), Truzzi soon became disillusioned with the organization, saying they “tend to block honest inquiry, in my opinion… Most of them are not agnostic toward claims of the paranormal; they are out to knock them.” Truzzi claimed that by using the title of ‘skeptic’, biased debunkers had claimed an authority that they were not entitled to, opining that “critics who take the negative rather than an agnostic position but still call themselves ‘skeptics’ are actually pseudo-skeptics and have, I believed, gained a false advantage by usurping that label.” Should we be more skeptical of the skeptics?

Taylor says that one skeptic of whom we should be particularly skeptical is the late Martin Gardner. He cites Gardner's false and misleading article on trance medium Leonora Piper as an example.

... Gardner states ‘facts’ which are not just debatable, but completely the opposite to what can be found in the primary sources. He says of Mrs. Piper’s trances that they “never occurred spontaneously”, despite Fred Myers stating in his report that “[T]he trance has occasionally appeared when it was not desired.” Also, says Gardner, “they never began when she was alone or asleep”. Again, from the same page of the same primary source: “the access has several times come upon her during sleep.” Further, according to Gardner, “whenever a sitter paid for a séance, she had no difficulty going into a trance.” At this point we might assume that Gardner wasn’t too familiar with Fred Myers’ report on Mrs. Piper, as it continues (yet again on the same page): “These trances cannot always be induced at pleasure. A state of quiet expectancy or ‘self-suggestion’ will usually bring one on; but sometimes the attempt altogether fails.” And in case Gardner missed Myers’ statements, a rebuttal can be also be found on page 1(!) of probably the most important primary source concerning Mrs. Piper’s mediumship, Richard Hodgson’s report in Volume VIII of the Proceedings of the SPR: “Several times Mrs. Piper was unable to go into trance at all.”  Read more

Skeptic Agrees That Remote Viewing Is Proven

Could there be proof to the theory that we're ALL psychic? A skeptic agrees that remote viewing is proven.

Dr Chris Roe places a pair of enormous fluffy earphones over the head of a blonde 20-year-old woman.

He carefully slices a ping-pong ball in half and tapes each piece over her eyes.

Then he switches on a red light that bathes the woman in an eerie glow, and leaves the room.

After a few moments, a low hum begins to fill the laboratory and the woman begins smiling sweetly to herself as images of distant locations start to pass through her mind.

She says she can sense a group of trees and a babbling brook full of boulders.

Standing on a boulder is her friend Jack. He's waving at her and smiling. She begins to describe the location to Dr Roe.

Half a mile away, her friend Jack is, indeed, standing on a boulder in a stream.

Somehow, the woman has been able to "see" Jack in her mind's eye, even though all of conventional science - and common sense - says it is impossible.

Is this simply a bizarre coincidence?

Or could it be proof that we all possess psychic powers of the type popularised in such films as Minority Report? Read more

The Problem with Paranormal Skepticism

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. - Mark Twain

Joshua Foreman exposes the problem with "skeptics" perfectly. Their skepticism only extends to the topics they already don't believe in. They would never think of applying "skeptical inquiry" to topics they do.

How do you know the South Pole is cold? Have you been there? Or do you, like me, just believe the multiple sources that make the claim?

Most of us don’t have a problem stating such things as fact. But if you really push your imagination, you could come up with some fanciful scenario where the South Pole is actually nice and temperate, and the sources you trust as authoritative were themselves misinformed, or maybe even lying to conceal some secret. However unlikely the scenario, I don’t think the possibility - no matter how remote - can be disproven until you’ve been there. BUT WAIT! Who’s to say on the trip down there you weren’t drugged, or put in a virtual reality machine? Or perhaps the boat landed on a different landmass that is cold and the captain claimed it was the South Pole but it’s really not. Or maybe… or maybe..

What I’m describing here is the maddening position of the radical skeptic. Read more