In the area of legitimate medical statistics, the problem is not one of misunderstanding by the public. Rather, it is the difference in understanding between the public and the scientists that have created the statistical mistrust.  ¶ 8:43 PM

  Last night, I chatted with my friends about the normal things: work, classes, and the like. One of them started telling me about a strage incident that occurred over the weekend. She's a TA, and her professor brought in a mysterious sheet of paper with writing supposedly dictated to the professor by a spirit. The professor, a woman, claims that she hears messages from beyond the grave, and that the writing was spoken by the dying father of a student in her class. There appeared to be remarkable accuracies: the student's private nickname, the father's brain tumor, the student's feeling of loneliness and disenchantment with college life. The father's message is trite but emotional: I will accept whatever path you, my son, chooses in life. My friend firmly believes that all this provides nearly incontrivertible evidence that spirits and mediums are real.

Now, she didn't know beforehand that I was a skeptic. So I told her. This is an interesting juxtaposition after my last post, and I was truly caught without knowing what to say. All I could manage was to say that various normal psychological behaviors likely lie at the root, and that some level of deception or self-deception (wheter intentional or not) played a major part. I also tried to allay her fears that quantum mechanics "proves" mediumship (it doesn't -- many paranormalists like Deepak Chopra have seized upon non-theories such as the EPR paradox that are not real axioms of quantum mechanics, misusing and stretching them to overwhelm non-scientists). But I realized that, short of obtaining a search warrant for the professor's house, I had no way of disproving her powers.

So I said, "What's really interesting about this is that I can't prove that your professor can't talk to the dead without hard evidence of cheating. And she can never prove to me, or someone like me [since such 'unwilling' mediums claim their power is involuntary and therefore untestable], that her powers are real. So it's the fuzzy area between proof and disproof where belief lies."

I didn't succeed at all in my first time as a skeptic confronted with such credulous beliefs. I simply tried my best not to offend my friend with condescension. However, I can at least make several educated guesses, based on cases I've read about, on how the professor could simply be self-deluded (assuming no outright deception). I suppose the easiest to understand is the "fact" that the students was feeling lonely and disconnected. Even my friend said that, retrospectively, the student was staying later at class and was unsocial with other students. This is an observable phenomenon, and it would not take much stretch of the imagination to see the professor reaching into her subconscious to conjure forth observation as though it were supernatural.

As for the nickname, I'd like to see the writing itself, and find how close the nickname was to the real one. The professor wrote it by hand, then spoke to the student, then reprinted it on the computer for my friend to see. I wonder if she may have corrected the name between the typings, since it would be easy for her to justify to herself that it is a small and simple correction. As for the knowledge of the brain tumor, I have to admit that seems quite inexplicable. However, it must be kept in mind that I have not approached the case first-hand, and as with many such claims, it is purely anectodotal. From the telling from the professor to my friend, and from my friend to me, there easily might have been unconscious distortions, buttressed by excitement and an inclination to believe. Were I to meet the professor and see the typed paper with my own eyes, I might be able to form a reasonable explanation. I don't have the time to pursue it now, but perhaps in the future.

However, what lies at the bottom of this story is not that I need to find ways to explain the phenomena. Rather, it is about the critical mind we must have when we approach such claims. Were these powers real (and there is always a possibility), their potential for helping others would be immeasurably greater than the best of technology we have today. Are we to accept such wild and amazing claims as real, based on an hour's talk with a self-proclaimed medium? Are we to forgo hard evidence in favor of what we want to believe, because it makes us feel comfortable (my friend likes to think that there is "something out there greater than us")? Or should we pursue the matter more before we decide to believe; pursue the claimant with educated people trained in detecting deception; pursue with more than wide-eyed wonder the path that seems to have light at the end? There is always room for emotion in this world, but logic must not be cast aside when our spirits are aroused.  ¶ 4:49 PM

  The Paradox of Skepticism?

I find it hard to speak to others about skepticism, not merely because of the formality of the topic, but because a deeper paradox seems to lie at its heart. I say "seems," because the paradox may already be resolved, just not for me personally. It is this: speaking to others about skepticism seems to constitute "evangelism," which can be dangerous for religions if done in a dogmatic manner. That is, if it purports to be the ultimate Truth. And is not skepticism about anti-dogmatism, about forgoing beliefs in absolutes? Yet the scientific method appears to lie at the heart of skepticism. Where, then, do we draw the line between education and evangelism, between the scientific method and dogma?

I suppose one answer is that science is about probabilities, not absolutes (a position greatly favored by Martin Gardner); it is therefore inherent in the scientific method that dogma is avoided by not adhering to infallible truths. But the statement that the scientific method is the most practical way to observe and describe an event is itself dogmatic. It is therefore sort of a meta-dogma: a dogma that "dogma is dangerous." Where does this leave me about speaking to other people about skepticism? I don't know. All I can conclude is that I'm not yet fit to casually discuss skepticism until I find the resolution to this paradox. Hopefully, continuing to write my thoughts out here can help me form a larger picture of skepticism, as well as by reading more. It truly is dangerous to try to educate when you don't know the whole story yourself.  ¶ 9:21 PM