Sceptics are pretty much modern time witch hunters, infact the whoe sceptic methodology came into being during the Edwardian times, although this is more noticable in the Victorian times.
Doctors and Professors at that time were busy trying to prove scientific foundations for many things. Of course the occult and Macabre made them feel uneasy as they felt the people dealing with such things as necromancing, fortune-telling and lucky charms.
(At that time they thought that many people were wasting their money on such paraphenalia so they classed these people as petty crooks.)
This meant that there were many written documents, in fact Harry Houdini (The escapologist) believed very much like a sceptic for he saw and did many illusions. (I managed to find the following link on the topic of Spiritualists)
http://www.uelectric.com/houdini/spirits.html
There are many other articles to find (which I haven't found yet)
I believe even Alexander Graham Bell had experience in investigating occurances.
Quoted from Psy-learner:
Also, since when do you need a licence for something like creating a parallel dimension?
We already done that perhaps a thousands of times, by making a decision...
In movies they sometimes say, what if I made the other decision..
If you are a trekkie, you'd known this from the 1st season of Voyager...
And if we create a parallel, would we notice?
Lets see how can I put this, for a parallel to be created it isn't just about making one of two choices at an instance, it involves a little bit of time/information manipulating (I've mentioned information about this before).
What ever decision you make is a constant, no matter how much you swap you decision and when you get to decide, you are actually following a set destined path which you can not pervert through natural means.
If you were to pervert it you would need to be using a superconductor(possibly even a semiconductor) but that's all I'm going to mention on how.
I mentioned the whole understanding of licensing because of the possibility of what occurs if everybody did start creating parallels all over the show without some form of conformity.
Our world would end up a real state of odd sightings and occurances, far beyond that of what we have now. (In other words our world would be destined to have our civilization suffer a blight of madness far beyond that of lead poisioning from 150+ years ago.)
As for Voyager and Star Trek, it's entertainment and Fiction. Although many things might be based upon scientific discoveries there are still thing that do not and will not exist. It just something to captivate your imagination and make you aspire to create and do great things, not just believe.
As for "Creating a parallel would we notice?" you could open a channel to a parallel world but over time the channel will degrade as the universe grow in difference from each other and you wouldn't necessarily notice the world unless specific changes had occured.
(I mentioned some information on this in the "Ghosts" thread)
http://www.sciforums.com/t4350/s/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4350&perpage=20&pagenumber=2
I also mentioned some more information on this within the "change in past = change in future" topic within Frontier Science threads.
http://www.sciforums.com/f33/s/showthread.php?s=&postid=64811#post64811
Perhaps oneday I'll be able to conform all the information into one document on this subject