NPR’s Science Friday had an interesting guest on 10/27/06, Mary Roach, author of the book ‘Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife.’ She’s been a science journalist for decades and her book looks fascinating.
http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2006/Oct/hour2_102706.html
I’d walk away from this one too. Why spend time talking to someone who only wants to attack? Being able to pick someone apart is a shallow skill. featherlou makes a good point, we are not nearly as open minded as we claim to be.
Actually, I find this forum refreshing. Usually when I tell someone I don’t believe in ghosts (or psychic phenomena, bigfoot or what have you) I usually get the “closed-minded” thing thrown at me and that’s the end of it.
As for ghosts, can we come see the ghost? Touch it? Feel it? Smell it? Shoot spray paint on it and watch it run around all covered in paint? Can we use any kind of instrument to detect its magnetism, radiation or anything else?
What’s the difference between a ghost that can’t be detected by any means and no ghost at all?
Being unflinchingly credulous is not the same thing as being open-minded. You don’t seem to realize that virtually all discussions in science are like this: someone proposes a theory and his peers attack it and try to tear it down. The ideas which survive this process are the ones which gain more credibility; the ones which don’t ultimately get dismissed. Thus far, putative theories about the ghosts have been placed firmly in the latter category. While the tired old maxim “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” is certainly as true as it ever was, it is also true that a continued absence of evidence in the face of in-depth searches for it is not at all supportive; rather, the probability that such evidence exists begins to approach zero.
I concur! If you watch that stupid TV show (“TAPS”), those “ghost hunters” have all kinds of stuff (to detect the spirits). They have Infrared scanners, electric filed strength meters, thermometers, IR cameras, etc. Only they never seem to detect anything! I suspect that ghosts (if they exist at all) are highly subjective phenomenae, and not amenable to laboratory analysis. 
What? Where on earth do you get ‘only wants to attack’ from this, which you quoted yourself:
Please explain how that translates to trying to pick someone apart? I’d love to have a real discussion between believers and skeptics on this topic which is not dragged down by insults and flat dismissal. Iswhat you mean is that you do not want to have such a discussion, even with the negativity removed, because you’d prefer to only talk to people who agree with you about this?
No, acquiring critical thinking and intelligently applying it to an assertion to determine its worth is a hard-won skill, and one that has taken humanity centuries, if not millennia, to achieve. There’s nothing shallow about a skill which enables us to distinguish between shit and brown sugar.
I’m breaking my own rule about staying out of these threads, but …
I’m neutral on the whole subject. In the past I posted in threads about my family’s personal experiences in our house. I’m willing to admit that some of those could be caused by other things. But here is what I don’t understand about the skeptic mentality…
You say you absolutely won’t believe unless you see proof. Yet, you actively avoid the sources where this proof might be found. I’m not saying that the paranormal sites are loaded with evidence, some of those people are batshit insane if they believe that every speck of dust on a camera lens is an orb. But some of the “evidence” makes me neutral instead of skeptic.
If a person lives in a cave with no access to the outside world, it’s easy for them to believe that nothing exist outside the cave.
Personally, I think all “hauntings” can be explained by one of two things. One of those is scientific, the other is not, but only because there isn’t currently a way to measure it.
What sources would those be?
“Might” means, if someone did have proof, you wouldn’t know about it because you wouldn’t be caught dead in the place where it would be revealed.
You’re going to have to try harder to twist my words around to mean what you want them to.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. What places MIGHT such proof be revealed? What places am I avoiding?
Batsinma, I’m not a parapsychologist. I don’t expect to be aware of the front lines of ghost research. It is entirely possible (though extremely unlikely) that absolute proof of the existence of ghosts has recently been posted on batshitinsane.com but that I haven’t heard about it yet because I don’t spend my time wading through such sites.
That doesn’t mean that I won’t ever become aware of such evidence. There are plenty of people who do surf parapsychology websites, and if anything approaching objective evidence were discovered, I’m sure I’d read about it. Probably on the Straight Dope, where I’m, sure it would be huge news. If there were actual proof that most skeptics like me would accept, it would be a headline in every newspaper in the US.
If asked I suppose that I would say that I don’t believe in ghosts. I’ve never seen any evidence for ghosts, and my house is old enough that if there were such a thing, the house would be haunted.
Yesterday, my wife and I were going to bed and I was already half asleep when I awoke to a start because I heard the smoke detector going off. In my mind, it sounded exactly the same. I asked my wife, who was still wide awake and she told me that it was a bus which had stopped at the bus stop in front of the house.
**“Precisely because of human fallibility, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”
–Carl Sagan
**
If you told me that there was a red Corvette driving down the street yesterday, I’ll accept even the flimsiest of evidence (my friend’s cousin’s roommate heard a rumor that…) and completely believe you. It’s perfectly within the realm of what is widely accepted as possible.
If you get further out and tell me that a dear walked down the street with an American flag shaved into its fur, I’m going to require a more serious form of evidence. Maybe a photo or a video, or maybe if you’re a trustworthy person I’ll believe it if you tell me that you witnessed it with your own eyes.
But come on, people! If you want me to accept something so outlandish as to go against scientific principles and scientific consensus (ghosts, psychics, etc.) you’re gonna need a lot more extraordinary evidence. You’re going to need to show me something that can be repeated and studied.
This is not being closed-minded. It’s just the way it is.
RIP Mr. Sagan
Well, once again I’ve failed to make myself clear.
How can there be absolute proof, either for or against? It’s the same thing with God. True believers will refuse to believe proof against, and true skeptics will refuse to believe proof for.
I wasn’t being so general in my earlier post. I just meant if somebody had some pretty good footage of their own personal experience, it wouldn’t be widely known.
Personal experience is not evidence.
I’d still like to what kind of sources we’re avoiding or refusing to look at.
There’s a woman in my hometown who believes that my step-Great-Grandfather haunts the historic theatre. I wish ghosts were real, because the old fart was the town drunk and I’ll bet he’d be a ton of fun.
I don’t believe in ghosts either, but how could I NOT believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster? He lives on Falls Road in Baltimore, with a big sign that says “Believe your noodly master, Hon!”
Astroboy14 says
“Perfectly true, of course. My point, however, was not to prove that water doesn’t exist (or scotch, for that matter!)”
Well, you can pry my scotch from my drunken, cold, dead hands!
Don’t no one mess with my scotch! 
That’s twice that you’ve taken ONE word from my entire posts and tried to run with it.
Did you even comprehend the part where I said I’m not a believer? So, if you’re just trying to be annoying, it’s not working. Infact, it’s starting to be kind of fun to predict which word you’ll pick next.