Peter, you have made your point. We understand your point. Now please let it go and let the conversation move on.
Everyone else — we all seem a bit testy today; I don’t know if it’s the topic, the current phase of the moon, the presence of werewolves or what. But let’s try and make our points with respect toward one another, shall we? If you are unable, again I point you Pitward, which exists for all your insult needs.
Ellen Cherry
Moderator
The threshold has been met over and over again. The woos make a claim, tests discredit it and the woos move the goalposts. This will go on forever. It’s been pointed out to you that you can’t prove a negative especially when the goalposts are being moved.
Your hypothetical assumes that an event can exist that will escape scientific testing (“Further, if the usual suspects, (high EMF’s, infrasound, pressure variations between rooms, etc) were eliminated, I would have no option but to conclude that either there is a poorly understood natural phenomena occurring…”), the implication being that that might be the things the woos call “paranormal”. The problem with the hypothetical is that it doesn’t exist. Those event have been proven to be either hoaxes or having an easily proven scientific basis over and over again.
Not being snarky - real question, do you mean ‘default’ for this thread or in general? I ask because I thought I remember from past threads that you do believe in the paranormal. If not I apologize. But it does seem to me that you are trying to prove ghosts do exist by showing that we don’t have the means to eliminate the possibility.
Full disclosure, do you think the paranormal could exist?
I could be wrong about this, but if I understand him, he doesn’t entirely believe in ghosts, and he doesn’t entirely reject the existence of ghosts. What he wants is to see a properly designed test, look at the results of the test, and only then decide if he believes in them or not.
It’s called critical thinking.
Critical thinking tells us that such a test cannot be devised, because the exact parameters of the “ghost” and it’s abilities are never described sufficiently.
A test for what. Critical thinking requires specificity of purpose.
We just built a new, modern, state-of-the-art town hall for a million dollars.
The lights in the storage room, cable TV room, and bathrooms are operated by state-of-the-art motion sensors. They are intended to save us money by turning on the lights only when needed.
All the sensors have been carefully adjusted by experts several times.
So far, I replaced the cable room sensor with a manual switch because the light was often going off when I was in the room using the computer and was sometimes on all night when no one was there.
The storage room light is on most of the time even though no one enters it for days at a time.
The bathroom lights are often on when you enter, then turn off just as you sit down on the toilet. Or so I have been told by some ladies.
So, no, I don’t think we have poltergeists, just unreliable technology. Certainly nothing appears to violate the laws of physics. I wouldn’t rely on it to prove the paranormal by any means.
I don’t think you understand what critical thinking even means.
Hun, that is exactly how you do it.
Way back in the dark ages, we didn’t know that subsonics, electronic interference and pressure variations could cause woo. We had to go with I feel scared, and odd bangs and bumps in the night, and swinging doors. Then, we came to understand that natural things can cause is to feel paranoid, uncomfortable, make doors swing - so now we can check for those influences to discount them as a possible source. I have no idea what can cause that odd but very clear little boy voice saying get out or i will eat your face, so I have to take that as an example of actual woo - UNTIL WE FIND SOME NATURAL EXPLANATION THAT CAUSED IT and then we can discount that - “poorly understood natural phenomenon” But we first have to actually find and understand the poorly understood natural phenomenon so we can say that it isn’t woo.
What more do you want? Paranormal investigation is a process of discovery of the natural world as it intersects with the manmade world. We are finding that our ways of making the natural world comfortable for living in can actually affect the way we sense the natural world in ways that were not expected. It is a slow process, and it hinges on discovering and working with tiny improvements and understandings of technology. The only thing we can do is set up our haunted location to be checked for what we do know - air hammer, errant electrical impulses, infrasound, ultrasound, headlights reflecting off odd stuff, shadows of people walking past being projected in unexpected locations. Once you eliminate the known, that leaves the unknown that you have to work with to see if you can reproduce then eliminate. What you want is a bomb - WHAM- and it isnt going to happen.
“If there was nothing to it, why are there so many studies” is not a strawman designed to falsely ridicule woo-believers. Czarcasm is correct that the very existence of research (regardless of what it shows) is frequently held up by the pro-woo crowd to bolster their claims.
Many, many times I’ve had discussions online with proponents of “alternative medicine”. They’ll point triumphantly point to some anecdotal report or preliminary study in tissue culture that indicates a possible physiologic effect (of an herb, for example) as “proof” that research backs them up - then get bent out of shape when it’s pointed out that such minimal findings do not justify saying that “X cures cancer!”
For a specific example, take “Morgellons disease”. This is a popular term for skin-centered complaints of itching, crawly sensations and mysterious fibers that have supposedly been found embedded in or on the surface of skin. Believers think they are the victims of anything from undetected parasites to alien infestation to electromagnetic frequency experimentation. It was a godsend to the Morgies (as they call themselves) when the Centers for Disease Control, under pressure from influential politicians, agreed to conduct an investigation of this “unexplained dermopathy”. Instantly the press started reporting that “The CDC is investigating Morgellons’ disease” (as though a disease had actually been shown to exist by the mere announcement of a study) and the “Morgellons community” went into overdrive, vindicated by the CDC study which they felt gave the “disease” instant credibility as more than just a psychiatric condition or undiagnosed conventional medical problem. Here’s an excerpt from a press release by a Morgellons’ group:
“After years of denial by the CDC that this disease is real, the CDC has commissioned the first Morgellons research study to begin soon and set to be conducted by a private corporation.”*
It is inevitable also that cherished beliefs will not die in the face of repeated unsubstantiation through good research. Antivaccine activists routinely dismiss studies showing no links between vaccination and autism (or other diseases), either moving the goalposts for what they want others to prove, or damning the investigators as all being unethical and biased. Meantime, the pitiful handful of flawed and irrelevant studies that seem to support them get trumpeted as proof of their assertions.
I’m sure these examples will be insufficient for Peter since they are not a cite of a woomeister quoted in the exact same language as Czarcasm used. But it’s nonetheless common for the mere existence of research, any research to be misused in support of some quack/woo concept.
This doesn’t mean that negative findings don’t have value. At some point though, it’s reasonable to ask when we can stop beating a dead horse.
*Sadly, the Morgellons’ groups are now turning to denunciation of the CDC, which has reported completing its investigation but is taking a long time to release findings - leading to suspicions by the Morgies that a sinister coverup is taking place.
I don’t think I fully understand your post but…
I don’t understand your bomb comment.
At the end is the ultimate catch-22: The ghost/poltergeist/esp/whatever will not work in the presence of skeptics. Impossible to refute.
James Randi’s million dollar prize is still unclaimed. And he is unworried about it. But to win it, you have to come to an agreement with him on the protocol and most potential claimants won’t even try.
The usual sticking point being that the outcome cannot be open to interpretation or judging.
Yes it is. That’s exactly the reason for it. It’s a quote that he invented with the purpose of ridiculing people that don’t share his exact set of beliefs. It has nothing to do with the discussion, he just wanted to threadshit.
Even if you can find a few people that have expressed similar ideas, it won’t change thefact that Czarcasm just invented the quote for purposes of childish mockery.
I’m going to answer for the OP because I refuse to let such a promising and interesting topic die such a horrible semantic death!! 
Dio, the OP is trying to create a test that would pass the threshold for credibility to be used in proving the existence of ghosts, spooks, spirits, the dead, the afterlife, those who have passed away, specters, lost souls, etc.
Given that most people assume experiences associated with hauntings are evidence of such things, and given that hauntings can be faked, the test should be something that is capable of distinguishing between hoax hauntings (either mistaken or purposefully set up) and unexplained natural phenomenons and ones generally associated with the aforementioned ghosts.
Good enough for you?
This is the opposite of what you do. You never assume magic as the default. That’s ridiculous.
But he says he isn’t trying to prove ghosts. He’s just looking for some kind of unspecified “evidence.” For what, I have no idea.
He obviously is, he just doesn’t want to say it, just like you’re obviously pretending not to understand him in order to force him to say it. It’s ghosts, end of argument. He’s trying to prove ghosts
That raises an interesting point - It would be possible to develop a sensible test for the claim that you can read Czarcasm’s mind (the only way you could claim that it is a “fact” that you know why Czarcasm paraphrased the people he did).
Setting up a test of a specific paranormal claim often wouldn’t be that hard - Heinlein described such a test in his first published story “Lifeline” - the claim was that Hugh Pinero could predict the date and time of anyone’s death. The claim was tested by having Pinero test a moderately large number of people (about a hundred perhaps) - for each person, he wrote the predicted death date and time on an envelope and sealed the person’s name in the envelope and also wrote the person’s name on an envelope and sealed the predicted date/time. The pile of envelopes were to be turned over to a judge, and whenever an envelope’s date arrived, or an envelope’s person died, the appropriate envelope would be opened. In a matter of a couple of years at most (given ordinary mortality rates) it would become obvious whether or not Pinero was right or wrong (any unpredicted death, or predicted death date passed without a death occurring would disprove Pinero - and each successful prediction would be evidence that he was right (people would have different thresholds for deciding how many successful predictions made it ridiculous to disbelief him, of course) - and there’s no way for Pinero to cheat (even if he was willing and able to kill people at the “right” time, he couldn’t prevent people from dying at the “wrong” time)
There’s lots of productive things you can do:
Measure vibration around the house due to things like trucks on the road outside, water flowing through pipes, the furnace turning on and off - any motion of the door during periods when known vibrations are occurring should be discounted (and any vibration sources you can stop, you should stop, so you have more undisturbed time to watch the doors).
Measure air flow in the rooms that the doors connect - how does the air flow change when the doors are open, versus when they are closed - and how does air flow change due to other events (sunrise heating the front of the house, etc.). Again, eliminate all the air flows you can - so that one fewer variable is involved.
Look into how the material the house is made of (wood/brick/plaster) expands and contracts with change of temperature - and again, do your best to control those changes.
Continue. If you find that the doors open or close when the temperature changes a certain amount under specific conditions of humidity, that’d be really interesting. If you eliminate everything you can, and the doors still seem to open and close by themselves, that’s the point at which to call in someone else (or several other somebodies) - they may have other ideas. You’ll certainly have eliminated a wide range of potential natural causes at that point - and it’s fair to say that you have proof that something non-obvious is going on.
But until you are able to make a positive prediction, like, “the doors will open within a minute of when someone sitting still outside the room writes ‘doors, please open’” with all controllable effects held constant, you won’t be testing a supernatural claim, exactly; you’ll just be trying to learn all you can about the dang doors.
No, it’s just years of experience dealing with him.