# Are Skeptics Sometimes TOO Skeptical? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 30, 2016, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457 "2016-08-30T03:08:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/81 "2016-08-31T13:19:38Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > i have to say that the ‘Brown Lady’ story is not what I would call credible evidence, for several reasons. > 1/ It is a second-hand story; > 2/ It was told by a novelist to his daughter… > 3/ …who was a friend of Charles Dickens, and Dickens was author of some of the most famous ghost stories ever written. > 4/ It happened nearly two centuries ago, and all the primary and secondary witnesses are long dead, so no chance of an interview then. > As ‘credible sources’ go, this is pants. Also, just because multiple people saw the same thing doesn’t mean much considering how people can be suggestible. Even taking the story as written, it was late, the corridor was dark, Marryat was familiar with the Brown Lady story and had told the other two about it. So I’d think that either Marryat thought he saw something and freaked out and so the other two men saw the same shadow or weird something and interpreted that as a ghost, or they felt some weird cold spot or some other weird uneasiness, so when Marryat asked them later they thought back and ‘realized’ they saw a ghost. Or like eburacum45 says, the story could be exaggerated or just completely made up. If Marryat was just traveling through town and didn’t know that the house had a ghost, and hadn’t warned the other two men about seeing the ghost, and then all three saw a ghost that matched the description that other people had of a ghost in that house, it would be slightly more convincing. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/82 "2016-08-31T16:15:25Z")
Also in addition to pareidolia and sleep paralysis, another good explanation for a lot of ghost sightings is [infrasound](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound). > [@](#): > > Infrasound, sometimes referred to as low-frequency sound, is sound that is lower in frequency than 20 Hz (hertz) or cycles per second, the “normal” limit of human hearing. Hearing becomes gradually less sensitive as frequency decreases, so for humans to perceive infrasound, the sound pressure must be sufficiently high. The ear is the primary organ for sensing infrasound, but at higher intensities it is possible to feel infrasound vibrations in various parts of the body. > > \ > > Psychologist Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire suggests that the odd sensations that people attribute to ghosts may be caused by infrasonic vibrations. In 1998, Vic Tandy, experimental officer and part-time lecturer in the school of international studies and law at Coventry University, and Dr. Tony Lawrence of the psychology department wrote a paper called “Ghosts in the Machine” for the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Their research suggested that an infrasonic signal of 19 Hz might be responsible for some ghost sightings. Tandy was working late one night alone in a supposedly haunted laboratory at Warwick, when he felt very anxious and could detect a grey blob out of the corner of his eye. When Tandy turned to face the grey blob, there was nothing. > > The following day, Tandy was working on his fencing foil, with the handle held in a vice. Although there was nothing touching it, the blade started to vibrate wildly. Further investigation led Tandy to discover that the extractor fan in the lab was emitting a frequency of 18.98 Hz, very close to the resonant frequency of the eye given as 18 Hz by NASA.[41] This was why Tandy conjectured that he had seen a ghostly figure— he believed that it was an optical illusion caused by his eyeballs resonating. The room was exactly half a wavelength in length, and the desk was in the centre, thus causing a standing wave which caused the vibration of the foil.[42] Scientists have studied ghost phenomena, and if there was any thread that seemed to indicate anything supernatural, they would keep following it. But so far everything I know of has been explainable by natural causes. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/83 "2016-08-31T20:53:28Z")
My reaction to the OP is yes, but in a different way. Many people on this board, and in the real world, have that ONE experience that they can’t explain. They saw something, felt something, heard something, that doesn’t appear to fit normal science. When they tell a skeptic, that skeptic is likely to dismiss the experience out of hand, because “there are no ghosts”. Especially if the teller says “I saw a ghost”, rather than “I saw something I can’t explain”. It is possible that these one-off experiences are real, and caused by something rational and explainable, but rare. Investigating them, while admittedly difficult, could possibly find a “logical explanation” (as they always said in the spooky TV episodes) for all ghost and UFO observations. It doesn’t have to be (and most likely is not) ghosts, fairies or aliens, and not all deluded people and liars, but if skeptics immediately dismiss anything “unexplainable” out of hand, we’ll never know. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/84 "2016-08-31T20:56:40Z")
What are the odds that no one has ever been able to solidly document or repeat these unexplained experiences? Even if every person only had one such experience, we’d have tens of billions of chances at figuring out one was real. But it turns out every time that these observations are anecdotal and subjective and fall apart under scrutiny and can’t be reproduced under test conditions. And we have plausible alternative explanations because people can easily mis-perceive natural phoenomina. At what point, when you’re batting 0 out of 10,000,000,000 at verifying these experiences as being real, and not just the far more plausible natural explanation, do you start to think “it seems pretty unlikely that these things are magic”? Or look at this the other way. We know the human mind constructs its perceptions. Your eyes aren’t video cameras to the world. They’re filtered through your brain trying to make sense of complex sensory inputs. The brain is an incredibly complex network of countless interacting systems that does a remarkably good job of interacting with the world, but which can generate false experiences based on malfunction or incomplete data. This, combined with people’s cultural beliefs and credulity - and even desire to believe in magic, and their ability to steer their perceptions and memory towards the world they want to believe exists - means that you would expect the vast majority of people would have some sort of “non-natural” experience that they couldn’t quite explain, or that they jumped to the wrong conclusions about. In other words, in a world where magic doesn’t exist, we would actually expect the vast majority of people to have these sorts of experiences that makes them wonder or convinces them that magic exists. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/85 "2016-08-31T21:06:19Z")
We can actually see how culture shapes these sorts of perceptions. Hypnogagic sleep paralysis manifests hallucatinations while the brain is still half in dream mode. Different cultures tend to have the same sort of experiences within the same culture when people experience this, but different ones between cultures. Or stories about alien abductions that increase after popular movies about aliens come out, or that the experience that people claim to have changes to be shaped after the details of those movies and popular stories. There are some aspects of the Roswell stories that weren’t invented until the 70s, well after the incidents, and yet people who claim to have been seen UFOs or been abducted in the interim (between the 40s and the 70s) change their story about what happened on their abductions based on the pop culture motif of UFOs/aliens at the time. People’s near death experiences, when their brain is starved of oxygen and traumatized and creating faulty perceptions happen to fit their culture beliefs. Christians might meet Jesus, Hindus meet their gods, etc. They’re having basically the same experience, but shaping it in terms of their cultural knowledge. This highly suggests that it’s a creation of one’s own perceptions of the world rather than an accurate perception of an actual event. If there were no magic in the world, we would still live in a world where people thought they saw magic everywhere. Therefore, people seeing magic everywhere is not a conclusive indication that magic really exists. It’s totally congruent with a world in which magic does not exist. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/86 "2016-09-01T17:31:54Z")
Due to my background I view this problem statistically. I see skepticism as prior probability in a [Bayesian equation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes'_theorem). P(R) = (1-S)\*P(O|R)/((1-S)\*P(O|R)+(S)\*P(O|!R)) where P(R) is the probability that the phenomenon is real S is our level of skepticism P(O|R) is the probability of seeing the observed evidence given the phenomenon is real P(O|!R) is the probability of seeing the evidence given the phenomenon is not real. The difference between skeptics and non-skeptics is how low we set S and the degree to which we tolerate false postives and false negatives. True believers tend set S equal to 0.5. This is where you get statements like “Prove it didn’t happen!”. However given the vast multitude of things it is possible to believe and the relatively small number that are actually true, choosing a level of skepticism this low, will leave you drowning in false beliefs. On the other hand setting the level of skepticism go to high an you run the risk of failing to believe things that are actually true despite overwhelming evidence. Of course the level of skepticism depend on the claim, for example I might say that there is a prior probability of about 1 in 100 that Doubticus would have a sandwhich dream on any given night, and probably a 1 chance in 1000 if he didn’t have such a dream that he would claim on a message board to have such a dream (why lie?) so I accept his claim. But if someone tells me that ghosts exist, then I would set the threshold much higher, and the possibility that someone would lie or be mistaken is large enough that anecdotes by themselves won’t overcome my skepticism. Similarly I might set choose low skepticism for possibility that a new Cox-2 inhibitor would relieve pain because I understand it method of action. But a much higher bar for acupuncture where there is no known method action. And a higher bar still for prayer whose efficacy requires an entire re-writing of science as we know it. Too little skepticism and you believe in invisible pink Unicorns. Too much skepticism and you reject quantum mechanics. Varying values somewhere in between and you can have reasonable arguments about the survival or the Ivory billed woodpecker, and whether the James Ossary is legit. ---
**Author:** ![Doyle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doyle/32/439_2.png) [@Doyle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doyle)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/87 "2016-09-01T19:15:32Z")
I find that most skeptics are skeptical until it goes against their personal agenda. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/88 "2016-09-01T19:23:40Z")
> [@Doyle](#): > > I find that most skeptics are skeptical until it goes against their personal agenda. For example…? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/89 "2016-09-01T19:33:58Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > My reaction to the OP is yes, but in a different way. > > Many people on this board, and in the real world, have that ONE experience that they can’t explain. They saw something, felt something, heard something, that doesn’t appear to fit normal science. When they tell a skeptic, that skeptic is likely to dismiss the experience out of hand, because “there are no ghosts”. Especially if the teller says “I saw a ghost”, rather than “I saw something I can’t explain”. > > It is possible that these one-off experiences are real, and caused by something rational and explainable, but rare. Investigating them, while admittedly difficult, could possibly find a “logical explanation” (as they always said in the spooky TV episodes) for all ghost and UFO observations. It doesn’t have to be (and most likely is not) ghosts, fairies or aliens, and not all deluded people and liars, but if skeptics immediately dismiss anything “unexplainable” out of hand, we’ll never know. When I go to see Penn and Teller, I see lots of stuff I can’t explain. And I’m ready for it. Someone seeing “a ghost” suddenly, for a short time, in a strange place, is more likely than not to be able not to explain it. I used to be involved in debugging microprocessors, and we had some problems which were very hard to reproduce, happened without apparent cause, and which were not easy to explain even by a team of experts with expensive equipment. We finally got it (we think) but it took a year, longer than anyone would spend on a ghost. The world is very complicated. But it made a great presentation! ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/90 "2016-09-02T08:36:38Z")
So you all say you want me to give you more cites:). Here is one story that has fascinated me for some time: [Resurrection Mary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_Mary). Again, credible people, who have no reason to lie, have all reported similar stories. And there is more. Material evidence. Someone said they saw the “ghost” locked in the cemetery. Then mysteriously, hand prints were found burnt into the bars. [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_Mary#/media/File:Gatebars.JPG)’s the photo. I don’t want to sound sarcastic. But, skeptics, how do you explain _THAT_? P.S. I just read more deeply into the article, and I realize the cemetery says the damage was done by a truck. But, hey, they still look like hand prints to me;). ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/91 "2016-09-02T09:27:13Z")
I would respond to something like that the same way I would respond to UFO sightings and the claim that we were being visited by aliens: the fact that a great many plausible explanations exist for what someone _ **thought** _ they saw or experienced, and that all of them are far more likely than the astronomically improbable one being advanced. If there are dozens or hundreds of extremely plausible natural earthly explanations that match the evidence and one extremely bizarre utterly improbable one, which does it make more sense to believe? And that’s alien UFOs, which are theoretically possible and don’t require us to abandon several dozen fundamental laws of science to accept. Paranormal phenomena like ghosts stretch credulity even further by demanding that we essentially abandon science as we know it. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/92 "2016-09-02T10:03:11Z")
I think you’re right, but I think it’s also important not to purely phrase it in those terms. Because to a believer it simply sounds like you’ve stacked the deck against magical explanations and would never accept proof of ghosts, like you’re Agent Scully or something. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/93 "2016-09-02T10:50:14Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > So you all say you want me to give you more cites:). > > Here is one story that has fascinated me for some time: [Resurrection Mary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_Mary). > > Again, credible people, who have no reason to lie, have all reported similar stories. It’s a well documented fact that people report false stories despite not, on the surface, having a reason to lie. That you keep repeating this “no reason to lie” defence, speaks volumes about your biased analysis of these cases. And similar stories over several decades are not independent evidence. These people didn’t carefully record the exact details of their experience immediately after, they are very likely to have been influenced by earlier tales. If they hadn’t heard them themselves their listeners would have and would have influenced the telling of the tale with prompts and questions. > [@](#): > > And there is more. Material evidence. Someone said they saw the “ghost” locked in the cemetery. Then mysteriously, hand prints were found burnt into the bars. [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_Mary#/media/File:Gatebars.JPG)’s the photo. > > I don’t want to sound sarcastic. But, skeptics, how do you explain _THAT_? > > P.S. I just read more deeply into the article, and I realize the cemetery says the damage was done by a truck. But, hey, they still look like hand prints to me;). They shouldn’t have looked like hand prints to you in the first place. What skeptics sometimes do is stick the their preconceived notions, bypassing careful analysis. This behaviour is unfortunately reinforced by the skeptic most often still being right, but the base behaviour is still careful analysis. The non-skeptic will do the same bypass, and will most often be wrong and also unwilling to do the analysis even when challenged. I definitely don’t want more cites from you. Sure it’s a much too low number to be certain in my judgement of you as someone unable to examine these cites critically, but it’s sufficient evidence for me to not spend time on it as a past time. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/94 "2016-09-02T10:50:33Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > So you all say you want me to give you more cites:). A thousand anecdotes do not equal one fact. Instead of piling on with stories, just give us the one best case you’ve got, the one you think has the most verifiable evidence to support it. edited to add: If all we do is “Well, you might have proved that one is false, but what about this one.” “Well, you’ve proved that one is false, too, but what about _this_ one?” and so on and so on. This works on the argument that, until every single story on Earth has been examine, we just can’t say for sure that _all_ the stories are false. That is the reason I’d like to see the best one you can come up with right off the bat. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/95 "2016-09-02T11:09:01Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I think you’re right, but I think it’s also important not to purely phrase it in those terms. Because to a believer it simply sounds like you’ve stacked the deck against magical explanations and would never accept proof of ghosts, like you’re Agent Scully or something. Proof isn’t being asked for here, though. Solid _evidence_ is always welcome. It’s funny you should bring up Agent Scully-on the show she is a denier of evidence she has both seen and scientifically examined, not a skeptic…but on the show fantastic evidence of magical things was practically thrown at the feet at those agents on a weekly basis, whereas in real life such evidence just doesn’t exist. In fact, if you want to see stacked decks and deniers in _real_ life, I would have to point the finger at a large number of the believers, who will ignore good evidence that points directly at mundane explanations in favor of far less possible(and sometimes even impossible) suppositions. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/96 "2016-09-02T11:14:52Z")
> [@naita](#): > > And similar stories over several decades are not independent evidence. This cannot be said often enough. 1. The plural of anecdote is not evidence. 2. If you were gathering evidence and trying to prove that car A had run a red light and hit car B, in what way would stories from other people in other places at other times about their various types of car accidents be evidence to support your case? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/97 "2016-09-02T11:16:41Z")
**Are Philanthropists Sometimes TOO Generous?** ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/98 "2016-09-02T13:45:40Z")
There is no such thing as a too skeptical skeptic. That person has crossed the line from being a skeptic to a denier. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/99 "2016-09-02T20:40:32Z")
I’m a skeptic. That means that when people make obviously false claims, I ask for evidence. Actually, that’s not true. I don’t bother asking, because if they actually HAD evidence, any kind of evidence that’s even worth a single nanosecond of my time, they’d lead with it. And they wouldn’t come to me; they’d go to the scientific community, and if they had anything that was real, the scientific community would back them up. Which means that anytime somebody bothers to bring up an anecdote to me personally, I know immediately that they’re full of crap. They’re either confused and overexcited about nothing, or they’re deliberately trying to trick or defraud me. Because legitimate world-changing discoveries don’t happen in inboxes, message boards, or tabloids. That’s just not how it works. So yeah. I’m a skeptic, and your anecdotes obviously aren’t worthwhile evidence of anything significant. Because if they were we wouldn’t be having this discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457/100 "2016-09-02T21:47:49Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > There is no such thing as a too skeptical skeptic. That person has crossed the line from being a skeptic to a denier. Do "deniers’ put sugar on their porridge? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-skeptics-sometimes-too-skeptical/764457.md?page=6)