Many of you may know that my colleagues and I wrote a paper for the JSPR which critically reevaluated the claims for infrasound in paranormal / apparitional experiences (John - Teek has a copy of the journal for the UKS files). I have had a very good response from the article on the whole.
I have been told that there is a response to it in Fortean Times (if anyone gets this can you send me a copy of the article). From what I have been told they argue in that article - the authors make a number of fallacies. I understand one point they try to make is that Tandy never said it was an explanation for everything. Well, nor did we and our critique does not assume this - indeed we explicitly acknowledge this in the introduction of the paper and in a footnote. However, the suggestion of infrasound and eyeball resonance seems untenable and implausible - so it does not matter if Tandy was referring to 5% of experiences or 95% - its untenable under all circumstances because it does not work!
I will discuss these later when I get the chance - but it has led me - even more so - to a simple conclusion.
I think, more than anything else, the reason for controversy and lack of progress in paranormal fields comes down to a complete failure of some researchers to accurately charactrise an argument and place it in its proper context. They cannot spot the scope of an argument, let alone its reasoning. So it may be - that it all comes down to being able to represent an argument made by an arguer - and it is here where confusion and delusion can be found. I would be interested in your thoughts on this one
Personally, reading some of the reports, articles, etc I think it can be put down to two phenomena:
1: Wilful - they realise that they don't characterise their arguments properly and are still engaged in spurious research as they want to find a paranormal / pseudo-scientific explanation
2: Ignorant - they really don't see the inherent contradictions / problems and carry on regardless
Sometimes, I think the line between the two is very blurry
Very blurry indeed.
I think the problem basically comes down to the fact that there is simply no evidence for anything paranormal ever having happened. This means that if anyone ever defines their argument properly they will be left with no leg to stand on. No "researcher" can afford to define exactly what they are talking about since as soon as they do real scientists can jump on them and point out where they are wrong. Instead they give vague answers so when their errors are revealed they can simply say that that wasn't quite what they meant.
I'm really not sure how much is due to ignorance and how much due to active dishonesty. I find it hard to believe that so many people could be so stupid, especially when many of them have scientific training, but I find it equally hard to believe that an entire field of research is populated almost solely by liars. It seems that either people are far less intelligent than I give them credit for or people are far less honest than I give them credit for. I'm not sure which one I would find worse.
It sounds like the sort of thing we should have on the website. I don't know if we can reproduce the article - or if it's too technical for general readership - but I could take the main findings, look at the criticisms in the Fortean times (if I can get a copy) and write it up.
It may get lost in our ghosts section though: http://www.ukskeptics.com/ghosts.php
As you can see, it's crammed with quality articles. :D
Of those of us who started UKS a couple of years ago, no-one wanted to tackle the ghosts section for some reason. So I stuck that article up as a filler.
Anyway, if Tracy can post the journal up to me, I'll have a good look at it.
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My colleague on the paper has written to FT. If he gets his letter published there - i will send one to the SPR or possibly even the Skeptic magazine.
Basically, its wait and see what happens and then respond in the highest impact manner we can.
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