Prior info again, the question has already been reasonably settled by more than adequate evidence.
The link you provided is to the Wiki article on “Ancient Astronauts”, and it isn’t automatically designated as “pseudo-science”. It is given this designation in the article for the very good reasons stated in the article. For many years the “Ancient Astronaut” theory has been supported by ill-thought-out junk science and a poor understanding of history, and until new and solid evidence contrary to the piles of crap given up so far is put forth, it can stay in the “pseudo-science” as far as I am concerned.
Like most woo, it didn’t “automatically” get designated as pseudo-science: It fought for that designation.
I guess the question then becomes which questions have been reasonably settled by more than adequate research. I think most scientists would say the ghosts, ancient aliens, and out-of-body experiences fall into that category but I suspect it wouldn’t be universally agreed upon. And who gets to decide whether a question is settled or not?
Nothing prevents anyone from continuing to try to count the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin.
But, “what angels?”, remains settled until new (peer reviewed and verified) evidence is provided.
Isn’t that typically how science works?
A pretty neat idea, but I think if I were floating around the OR while people worked on my body below, I wouldn’t pay a whole lot of attention to a six of clubs on top of the cabinet. But of course, now I will.
People often claim things like “I floated up above my body, I saw everything going on around me. I can prove it! I saw [some specific thing in the room] - how would I know that if I wasn’t really outside my body?” - but often these claims are dubious. I have no doubt that this experience actually happened to some people, but our brains - especially our malfunctioning brains in the middle of trauma - can misinterpret experience, fabricate memories, and conflate our sense of time - we might think something happened during the surgery when it actually happened during recovery, for example.
Something like the cards gives a concrete way to separate an actual out-of-body experience (how would that work, anyway? How are those light rays that are reflecting off surfaces getting to you, if you’re an incorporeal ghost? You would need light to strike your retinas to see anything) from an experience that was created in someone’s trauma-addled mind which seemed real to them.
And in the late 19th century there were lots of people looking for evidence of ghosts and life after death, extending to the early 20th. If relativity (much stranger) had as little supporting evidence it would have been discarded ages ago.
Link?
Part of skepticism is looking for the simplest answer that meets all the data. I don’t see why anyone would think a dream about eating a sandwich was unusual.
But internal hallucinations brought on by stress is a lot more likely than a soul floating around. Egyptians figuring out how to build the pyramids (and we have evidence) is a lot more likely than ancient astronauts.
Why do you think science is all about the lab? Astronomy and cosmology are not done in a lab. Neither is geology. Neither is paleontology.
If there were ghosts, they would not necessarily hide from us. You notice that stories involving ghosts have them appear consistently - like they would if they existed. In real life they don’t.
Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that he’d believe in flying saucers when he saw their Mars license plates. That’s good advice. Especially now that anything that moves gets photographed, except UFOs.
Sorry, I just poking a little fun at the literalists on the board who seem to say that something can’t exists in less there’s an equation that shows how it works. I consider myself a skeptic as well, but I do think that in some instances such rigidity can be somewhat presumptive, and limit imagination. Take UFO’s for instance. I’ve never seen one and given the great expanses of space it is almost a certainty that we’ve never been visited. But our technological phase is only what, 200 years old? What would a technological civilization look like after a billion years? Perhaps warp drives and the like are impossible, perhaps we are being naive making such statements given our technological infancy.
I agree, I’d be more convinced that ghosts existed if there was more consistency in the stories. But from hearing various ghost stories, they vary wildly in what the ghost can do, say, affect in the real world, and how they are gotten rid of. And I believe there is even more inconsistency when you compare across cultures, where ghosts in the US or Japan tend to behave differently, as if the things that different cultures believe about ghosts affects the stories that people tell about them.
It seems to me that you, and some others here, are poking fun at strawmen then, because I can’t recall anyone going to that extreme when it comes to wanting evidential support for supernatural claims.
A lot of people on SDMB seem to think that RationalWiki is a valid and credible site (or cite). “Better” than the competition like Conservapedia is faint praise.
Going back to the OP again, which specific supernatural claims have supposedly been rejected out-of-hand by skeptics?
Yes, if there are some claims that should be reconsidered I’d sincerely love to hear them.
I would love to hear about something new, or see new evidence about something already put forth…but so far, all I’ve seen are very vague complaints about skeptics.
My primary complaint about some skeptics is not their skepticism (which is a useful trait), but their value judgement that the only things of value are those things for which we have scientific evidence. There’s nothing wrong with that value judgement, but people need to realize that is a personal value.
On the flip side, my primary complaint about many people of woo is the same thing: they claim to only value things for which we have scientific evidence. And then because they believe in woo, they accept all sorts of junk and fabricated evidence to justify it. They’d be better off accepting that not everything needs to have scientific evidence.
I can’t recall ever seeing a skeptic making this claim…but I’m open minded enough to look at any examples you can show us.
I think that different levels of skepticism are appropriate for different types of claims.
Among claims generally lumped into supernatural/woo, I think the most plausible are:
-cryptozoology, particularly in the ocean
-UFOs
-Unknown ancient civilizations
The reason I consider those “most” plausible is that (a) no laws of physics are necessarily being violated, and (b) it’s something which, if it existed, would in fact presumably be very very rare, or would have left behind very scant evidence
Generally speaking, the more easily reproducible and verifiable the claim is, the less I believe it, because it would have been reproduced and verified by now. If humans could have telepathy, someone with telepathy would have decided to make their ability public. If fakirs could levitate, someone would have done it on Good Morning America. If crystals or pyramids or magnets or ley lines made plants grow faster, we would know it for certain.
It’s not quite what the OP meant but Max Planck once said:
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
Meaning: old scientists can be skeptical of new ideas. I don’t think UFO’s, paranormal, etc. count as new ideas, though.