Proof of the supernatural

[Dywyddyr]

It's the same thing.

No it's not.

That's like saying the definition for unexplained is "unknown", not "currently unable to be understood".

Nope.
The definition of "unknown" is "not currently known".

Beyond understanding = unknown = unexplained = supernatural = beyond understanding.

No.

Strawman. I never said that.

Did you not?
"It's NOT my fault that people have been widely using and labeling the word WRONGLY."
Who else uses the word the way you do? Anyone?

It is commonplace for people to think UFOs mean extraterrestrial intelligence also. The correct definition is JUST unidentified flying object. NOT that it is ET. People get this confused ALL THE TIME.

And, like I said earlier, the term is actually UAP (because of the reasons mentioned in the relevant post).

People think supernatural means ghosts, etc., when it just means something is unexplained.

No it doesn't. As previously explained.

If it is unknown or beyond understanding, it is supernatural, it is unexplained.

Nice try but "unknown" and "beyond understanding" have completely different meanings.
Neither of which explicitly means "supernatural".

Explain.

Take a look at all of my (and everyone else's) previous posts on this subject.

 

[Magical Realist]

That is not accurate. There has been scientific study in these areas. The problem is that every study has not yielded anything supporting the super natural. So it is the rare researcher who is willing to waste his time going back over this unfruitful area.

You're making a claim. Now back it with evidence. Where are these so-called studies that have been done on haunted locations and not yielded anything? Where are all these supposed scientists risking their careers spending nights in haunted locations and never finding anything? Cite the papers. You're making a claim. Now back it up.

 

[Kittamaru]

You're making a claim. Now back it with evidence. Where are these so-called studies that have been done on haunted locations and not yielded anything? Where are all these supposed scientists risking their careers spending nights in haunted locations and never finding anything? Cite the papers. You're making a claim. Now back it up.

http://news.discovery.com/human/psychology/do-scientists-fear-the-paranormal-130115.htm

Psychic Powers
A study published in 2011 in a scientific journal claimed to have found strong evidence for the existence of psychic powers such as ESP. The paper, written by Cornell professor Daryl J. Bem, was published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and quickly made headlines around the world for its implication: that psychic powers had been scientifically proven.

Bem’s claim of evidence for ESP wasn’t ridiculed or ignored; instead it was taken seriously and tested by scientific researchers.

Replication is of course the hallmark of valid scientific research — if the findings are true and accurate, they should be able to be replicated by others. Otherwise the results may simply be due to normal and expected statistical variations and errors. If other experimenters cannot get the same result using the same techniques, it’s usually a sign that the original study was flawed in one or more ways.

A team of researchers collaborated to accurately replicate Bem’s final experiment, and found no evidence for any psychic powers. Their results were published in the journal PLoS ONE. Bem — explicitly contradicting Carter’s suggestion that skeptics set out to discredit his work or refused to look at it — acknowledged that the findings did not support his claims and wrote that the researchers had “made a competent, good-faith effort to replicate the results of one of my experiments on precognition.”

ANALYSIS: Real-life ‘Paranormal Activity’: Are Ghosts Real?
The reason scientists were skeptical is because the new study contradicted all previous experiments. That’s what good science does: When you do a study or experiment — especially one whose results conflict with earlier conclusions, you study it closely and question it before accepting the results.

In science, those who disprove dominant theories are rewarded, not punished. Disproving one of Einstein’s best-known predictions (or proving the existence of psychic powers) would earn the dissenting scientists a place in the history books, if not a Nobel Prize.

The same pattern exists in other areas of the unexplained. For example many scientists have worked on analyzing alleged hair from mysterious animals such as Bigfoot and the Chupacabra. Researchers from Oxford University spent part of last year collecting samples of alleged Bigfoot hair for possible genetic identification; geneticist Bryan Sykes conducted DNA analysis and plans to publish his results in a peer-reviewed scientific journal soon.

Hell, even groups dedicated to paranormal education and research agree that a bunch of random circumstantial evidence and assumptions does not make good research:
http://www.assap.ac.uk/newsite/articles/Scientific ghost research.html

A lot of current ghost research is 'assumption-led'. In other words, investigators start with certain assumptions, like 'ghosts are spirits', and then seek evidence to confirm that assumption. This is circular logic and not the way science works. In science, you start by collectingevidence in a neutral way, ensuring it is accurate, and then using it to form theories that explain the evidence. These theories are then tested to see if they are correct.

While assumption-led ghost research is currently popular, it has not produced any obvious breakthroughs in ghost research. Instead, ideas about the nature of ghosts have not moved forward from the initial assumptions used. It would seem that either the assumptions are indeed correct, or the research isn't leading anywhere. Given the lack of evidence, from neutral investigations, supporting the assumptions it would appear that the latter is right.

Here are some of the techniques commonly used in assumption-led ghost research:

Technique
Assumption
Use of mediumsassumes that mediums can contact ghosts
calling outassumes ghosts can hear and react
baselines at start of vigilassumes instrumental readings at the start of a vigil are 'normal'
taking orb photosassumes orbs are paranormal and associated with ghosts
using Ouija, seancesassumes ghosts can be contacted by these methods
EMF meters to detect ghostsassumes ghosts can be detected by EMF meters
dowsing for ghostsassumes ghosts can be dowsed
researching former inhabitantsassumes ghosts are former inhabitants of haunted site
vigils in graveyardsassumes ghosts are more common in graveyards than elsewhere
trying to record EVPassumes ghosts can be contacted with EVP
using instruments to ask questionsassumes ghosts can manipulate devices like torches, EMF meters, etc
holding vigils in the darkassumes ghosts are easier to detect in the dark

Some, or all, of these assumptions might be true, however there is little or no evidence from neutral, non-assumption-led ghost investigations to support them. Though mediumship, Ouija, seances, orbs, etc., are all subjects well worthy of research in their own right (and ASSAP does so), they can be studied anywhere, anytime. Indeed, they are far better studied individually, in properly controlled circumstances, when all the variables can be monitored. Introducing them into a haunting investigation merely adds a whole stack of unknown variables making any meaningful analysis impossible.

Then:
http://listverse.com/2013/09/30/10-scientific-explanations-for-ghostly-phenomena/

A few minutes on Google turns up dozens of other results... but I think the point has been quite plainly made.

You, however, still have not provided a shred of evidence to discount the plethora of normal, mundane explanations for such an occurrence...

 

[Magical Realist]

http://news.discovery.com/human/psychology/do-scientists-fear-the-paranormal-130115.htm





Hell, even groups dedicated to paranormal education and research agree that a bunch of random circumstantial evidence and assumptions does not make good research:
http://www.assap.ac.uk/newsite/articles/Scientific ghost research.html


Then:
http://listverse.com/2013/09/30/10-scientific-explanations-for-ghostly-phenomena/

A few minutes on Google turns up dozens of other results... but I think the point has been quite plainly made.

You, however, still have not provided a shred of evidence to discount the plethora of normal, mundane explanations for such an occurrence...

Wow..so you find a critique of Daryl Bem's study proving esp and then a few articles talking about why there's no such things as ghosts. But you haven't provided these supposed studies conducted by scientists at haunted locations have you? Where are they? The claim was made that scientists have studied all this and come up with no evidence. But I see nothing of the sort here. Besides, we all know scientists wouldn't risk their careers being known as researchers of ghosts. It doesn't earn you grant money, and certainly will be laughed out of any peer-reviewed journal.

OTOH, there are 3219 paranormal investigation groups in the U.S. alone who ARE spending time at haunted locations studying paranormal phenomena and coming up with evidence. You have only to visit any one of these numerous websites to see their results. So you see, this IS being scientifically researched. And it is being confirmed in spades:

http://www.paranormalsocieties.com/

 

[origin]

Wow..so you find a critique of Daryl Bem's study proving esp and then a few articles talking about why there's no such things as ghosts. But you haven't provided these supposed studies conducted by scientists at haunted locations have you? Where are they? The claim was made that scientists have studied all this and come up with no evidence. But I see nothing of the sort here. Besides, we all know scientists wouldn't risk their careers being known as researchers of ghosts. It doesn't earn you grant money, and certainly will be laughed out of any peer-reviewed journal.

OTOH, there are at least 3000 paranormal investigation groups in the U.S. alone who ARE spending time on haunted locations studying paranormal phenomena and coming up with evidence. You have only to visit any one of these numerous websites to see their results. So you see, this IS being scientifically researched. And it is being confirmed in spades.

It is not being confirmed. Any supporting evidince continues to be as elusive as ever.

Here is a list of real colleges that wasted real time looking this kind of crap.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/54450/13-university-sanctioned-paranormal-research-projects

 

[Magical Realist]

And that would be question begging.
The question is what happened, not what you believe happened. And it remains true that a natural explanation trumps one that requires the supernatural, at least for those that hold themselves as rational.

No..what remains true is that 4 rescue workers heard a woman's voice coming from a car that had only a dead mother and her unconscious baby in it. That's what happened. Any claim that that is not what happened is speculation at best.

And the key word here is "claimed". I could claim many things that aren't true. I can claim many things I genuinely think are true but perhaps aren't.
A claim of something does not mean that it happened that way. It just means it is claimed it did.

And your claim that they did NOT hear a voice is a claim also. Why should your claim, based on sheer speculation, trump THEIR claim, based on what they actually experienced? If you are claiming they were lying, you should at least provide some evidence for that. Do they have a history of making fradulant claims? Were they overheard in the lockroom laughing about their antics? If you are claiming they heard something other than a voice, provide evidence of that. Was there another noise coming from the overturned car that could be mistaken for a voice?

 

[Magical Realist]

It is not being confirmed. Any supporting evidince continues to be as elusive as ever.

Here is a list of real colleges that wasted real time looking this kind of crap.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/54450/13-university-sanctioned-paranormal-research-projects

Actually almost all those university studies turned up evidence for esp and precognition. The Princeton PEAR project was a famous one and reached some really amazing conclusions on the reality of such phenomenon: http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/

Here's the eyewitness accounts of a haunting involving a research team from UCLA:

And here's a scientific investigation into paranormal rappings. Note the conclusion of the study:

http://www.spr.ac.uk/news/colvin-acoustic-properties-poltergeist-rapping

So where's all these field studies of scientists going to haunted houses and proving them to not be haunted? I don't think they exist, for the simple reason that they don't want to discredit themselves as believers in spooks. Scientists are basically more concerned with protecting their sterling reputations than with finding the truth in this area.

 

[Kittamaru]

Wow..so you find a critique of Daryl Bem's study proving esp and then a few articles talking about why there's no such things as ghosts. But you haven't provided these supposed studies conducted by scientists at haunted locations have you? Where are they? The claim was made that scientists have studied all this and come up with no evidence. But I see nothing of the sort here. Besides, we all know scientists wouldn't risk their careers being known as researchers of ghosts. It doesn't earn you grant money, and certainly will be laughed out of any peer-reviewed journal.

OTOH, there are 3219 paranormal investigation groups in the U.S. alone who ARE spending time at haunted locations studying paranormal phenomena and coming up with evidence. You have only to visit any one of these numerous websites to see their results. So you see, this IS being scientifically researched. And it is being confirmed in spades:

http://www.paranormalsocieties.com/

Interesting how the only people finding any supposed evidence for paranormal activities are non-science groups... and it is also interesting to note - I clicked through about two dozen various links to societies on that page... most had less than 5 members... none of which had any sort of degree in science fields.

Not exactly compelling evidence for your cause MR...

 

[Sarkus]

No..what remains true is that 4 rescue workers heard a woman's voice coming from a car that had only a dead mother and her unconscious baby in it. That's what happened. Any claim that that is not what happened is speculation at best.

What remains true is that they CLAIM to have heard a woman's voice.
I do not dispute that truth... They do indeed claim that. As to the explanation for their claim, they have their opinion (it was a woman's voice coming from the car etc. Others have their own opinion.
Their claim is also speculation in the absence of any proof of what they heard, albeit speculation based on direct experience, although they have no proof for the interpretation they have given for their interpretation.

And your claim that they did NOT hear a voice is a claim also.

I don't claim that they didn't hear a voice, nor do I claim any interpretation as true in the absence of proof. What I do claim is that there are explanations more rational than those the rescuers came up with.

Why should your claim, based on sheer speculation, trump THEIR claim, based on what they actually experienced?

Because a natural explanation trumps a supernatural with regard what should be considered rational.

If you are claiming they were lying, you should at least provide some evidence for that. Do they have a history of making fradulant claims? Were they overheard in the lockroom laughing about their antics?

I don't claim they were lying.

If you are claiming they heard something other than a voice, provide evidence of that. Was there another noise coming from the overturned car that could be mistaken for a voice?

I don't know if there was another noise. And in the absence of such evidence I will go with what I consider more rational: the non-supernatural explanations.

Personal testimony is not the same as truth. Personal testimony, even shared testimony, is merely an interpretation of events. Our brains can be easily fooled.

 

[Kittamaru]

Actually almost all those university studies turned up evidence for esp and precognition. The Princeton PEAR project was a famous one and reached some really amazing conclusions on the reality of such phenomenon: http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/

Here's the eyewitness accounts of a haunting involving a research team from UCLA:

And here's a scientific investigation into paranormal rappings. Note the conclusion of the study:

http://www.spr.ac.uk/news/colvin-acoustic-properties-poltergeist-rapping

So where's all these field studies of scientists going to haunted houses and proving them to not be haunted? I don't think they exist, for the simple reason that they don't want to discredit themselves as believers in spooks. Scientists are basically more concerned with protecting their sterling reputations than with finding the truth in this area.

I am curious... this Dr. Barrie Colvin, PhD... PhD in what? I cannot find any credentials for this man, nor where his degree was conferred from...

 

[Magical Realist]

Personal testimony is not the same as truth.

Personal eyewitness testimony is sufficient to make the morning news and indict criminals. Allegations that that testimony is false don't hold water unless they have some evidence to back them up. Or at least a plausible explanation discounting that testimony. I'll stick with the personal eyewitness testimony thank you.

 

[Sarkus]

Actually almost all those university studies turned up evidence for esp and precognition. The Princeton PEAR project was a famous one and reached some really amazing conclusions on the reality of such phenomenon: http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/

The PEAR studies have been unreplicated, even by the PEAR group themselves. Furthermore their "scientific" studies have been shown to lack certain standards of rigour (no double-blind experimentation, for example) and the results of the studies themselves have shown nothing that warrants concluding in anything supernatural. Yes, individual studies may appear to, but the meta-data shows nothing.

 

[Kittamaru]

Personal eyewitness testimony is sufficient to make the morning news and indict criminals. Allegations that that testimony is false don't hold water unless they have some evidence to back them up. Or at least a plausible explanation discounting that testimony. I'll stick with the personal eyewitness testimony thank you.

No - personal eyewitness testimony is NOT enough to indict criminals on its own. Evidence of this is everywhere, including the case of the Michael Brown shooting:
http://www.vox.com/2014/11/24/7175967/darren-wilson-charges-michael-brown-ferguson

fter all, witnesses who've spoken to the media have given the same basic description of Brown's final moments: he had both hands in the air when Wilson fired the shots that killed him — a narrative that made "hands up, don't shoot" the rallying cry for protestors that flooded the streets of Ferguson after the shooting, demanding an indictment for Wilson.

In his statement, McCulloch said that some of the witnesses changed their stories and were unreliable. Some of them, he said, were "making it up."

That determination explains in part why Wilson wasn't indicted.

And Eye-Witness testimony is notoriously inaccurate:
http://www.quora.com/How-reliable-is-eyewitness-testimony

Not very good at all, according to most scientific studies. People have all sorts of subliminal cognitive biases that come into play when recalling what they saw (or, more accurately, what they perceived). These range from weapon focus to racial biases to stereotypes, even to size biases (a recent study found that people overestimated the height and weight of someone with a weapon by 20-30%).

However, eyewitness testimony is highly persuasive to juries, as people really don't like to think about how flawed our memories actually are, particularly over time. That in and of itself is its own bias.

http://lst.law.asu.edu/FS09/pdfs/Koehler4_3.pdf

Innocence Project was established in the wake of a landmark study by the United States Department of Justice and the United States Senate, in conjunction with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, which found that incorrect identification by eyewitnesses was a factor in over 70% of wrongful convictions.

As of December 2011, 307 people previously convicted of serious crimes in the United States had been exonerated by DNA testing since 1989, 17 of whom had been sentenced to death.

So, no... Eye Witness Testimony is DANGEROUSLY inaccurate, at best.

 

[Sarkus]

Personal eyewitness testimony is sufficient to make the morning news and indict criminals. Allegations that that testimony is false don't hold water unless they have some evidence to back them up. Or at least a plausible explanation discounting that testimony. I'll stick with the personal eyewitness testimony thank you.

The morning news are out to grab headlines, and I'm guessing you've never heard of innocent people being found guilty in trials, although being indicted on eye-witness testimony alone? Not sure about that one.
I am not saying that their testimony IS false, only that there is insufficient evidence to take them at face value.
As for plausible explanation, anything that is entirely mundane is more plausible (to rational people) than that which employs the supernatural. This has been explained to you before, but you choose to ignore it because you want to believe in the supernatural, and so dismiss any natural explanation out of hand.

 

[Kittamaru]

Personal eyewitness testimony is sufficient to make the morning news and indict criminals. Allegations that that testimony is false don't hold water unless they have some evidence to back them up. Or at least a plausible explanation discounting that testimony. I'll stick with the personal eyewitness testimony thank you.

Continued from above

In fact:

http://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue One/fisher&tversky.htm

Several studies have been conducted on human memory and on subjects’ propensity to remember erroneously events and details that did not occur. Elizabeth Loftus performed experiments in the mid-seventies demonstrating the effect of a third party’s introducing false facts into memory.4 Subjects were shown a slide of a car at an intersection with either a yield sign or a stop sign. Experimenters asked participants questions, falsely introducing the term "stop sign" into the question instead of referring to the yield sign participants had actually seen. Similarly, experimenters falsely substituted the term "yield sign" in questions directed to participants who had actually seen the stop sign slide. The results indicated that subjects remembered seeing the false image. In the initial part of the experiment, subjects also viewed a slide showing a car accident. Some subjects were later asked how fast the cars were traveling when they "hit" each other, others were asked how fast the cars were traveling when they "smashed" into each other. Those subjects questioned using the word "smashed" were more likely to report having seen broken glass in the original slide. The introduction of false cues altered participants’ memories.

It is remarkably EASY to manipulate an "eye witness" into recalling facts that simply are not true.

http://www.wired.com/2011/05/ads-implant-false-memories/

A new study, published in The Journal of Consumer Research, helps explain both the success of this marketing strategy and my flawed nostalgia for Coke. It turns out that vivid commercials are incredibly good at tricking the hippocampus (a center of long-term memory in the brain) into believing that the scene we just watched on television actually happened. And it happened to us.

The experiment went like this: 100 undergraduates were introduced to a new popcorn product called “Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Fresh Microwave Popcorn.” (No such product exists, but that’s the point.) Then, the students were randomly assigned to various advertisement conditions. Some subjects viewed low-imagery text ads, which described the delicious taste of this new snack food. Others watched a high-imagery commercial, in which they watched all sorts of happy people enjoying this popcorn in their living room. After viewing the ads, the students were then assigned to one of two rooms. In one room, they were given an unrelated survey. In the other room, however, they were given a sample of this fictional new popcorn to taste. (A different Orville Redenbacher popcorn was actually used.)

 

[Kittamaru]

I am, of course, intrigued to see how Magical Realist will hand-wave away the evidence showing how flawed an Eye Witness' testimony really is...

 

[Magical Realist]

The morning news are out to grab headlines, and I'm guessing you've never heard of innocent people being found guilty in trials, although being indicted on eye-witness testimony alone? Not sure about that one.
I am not saying that their testimony IS false, only that there is insufficient evidence to take them at face value.
As for plausible explanation, anything that is entirely mundane is more plausible (to rational people) than that which employs the supernatural. This has been explained to you before, but you choose to ignore it because you want to believe in the supernatural, and so dismiss any natural explanation out of hand.

The mundane is more plausible only if the paranormal doesn't exist. You make that assumption. I do not. Every case must be viewed totally agnostically--as probable that it is mundane as it is paranormal. From there we objectively weigh the evidence itself. If the evidence says "mundane" we say mundane. If the evidence says "paranormal" we say paranormal. We do not make biased assumptions about the possibility of the paranormal when objectively trying to find out if it occurs. That's bad science. That'd be like a creationist examining evidence for evolution while assuming evolution is not possible.

 

[Magical Realist]

Continued from above

In fact:

http://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue One/fisher&tversky.htm


It is remarkably EASY to manipulate an "eye witness" into recalling facts that simply are not true.

http://www.wired.com/2011/05/ads-implant-false-memories/

There was no "third party" telling the rescue workers what they heard. They all heard the same voice coming from the car. It was sufficiently clear enough to provoke them into andrenaline-pumped action to lift the car up. That's not some after the fact embellishment by a third party.

 

[Magical Realist]

The PEAR studies have been unreplicated, even by the PEAR group themselves. Furthermore their "scientific" studies have been shown to lack certain standards of rigour (no double-blind experimentation, for example) and the results of the studies themselves have shown nothing that warrants concluding in anything supernatural. Yes, individual studies may appear to, but the meta-data shows nothing.

The Pear Studies WERE replications of the Stanford Research Institute's studies in remote viewing. They were also confirmed by other studies:

http://www.greaterreality.com/notime.htm

 

[spidergoat]

The mundane is more plausible only if the paranormal doesn't exist. You make that assumption. I do not. Every case must be viewed totally agnostically--as probable that it is mundane as it is paranormal. From there we objectively weigh the evidence itself. If the evidence says "mundane" we say mundane. If the evidence says "paranormal" we say paranormal. We do not make biased assumptions about the possibility of the paranormal when objectively trying to find out if it occurs. That's bad science. That'd be like a creationist examining evidence for evolution while assuming evolution is not possible.

There is zero confirmed reliable evidence of the paranormal. Show me the respectable peer reviewed scientific journal that published it. Until then ANY naturalistic explanation is more plausible than the supernatural, however unlikely it might appear.