Is it Harmful to Believe in the Paranormal?

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE=begbert2]
What’s harmful about getting in your car and slewing down the road if you don’t get into or cause trouble as a result of it? Are you claiming that staggering out of a bar, slewing half a mile down a vacant road and then parking crookedly in front of your house without further incident is inherently harmful?

If not, then the analogy holds up just fine.
[/QUOTE]

Once again, this is a harmful action. You’re not just believing that it’s OK to drink and drive, you’re getting behind the wheel and acting on that belief, potentially killing crashing into a schoolbus and killing a bunch of schoolkids. Unless you’re saying that a woman with this belief is certain to act on that belief harmfully, it’s not the same thing at all.

Show me the cite that says that grieving mothers are statistically more likely to kill themselves or other people than the general population, and I’ll retract my statement. Otherwise, you have no argument to be made.

22

[QUOTE=Linty Fresh]
Once again, this is a harmful action. You’re not just believing that it’s OK to drink and drive, you’re getting behind the wheel and acting on that belief, potentially killing crashing into a schoolbus and killing a bunch of schoolkids. Unless you’re saying that a woman with this belief is certain to act on that belief harmfully, it’s not the same thing at all.
[/QUOTE]
Yes it’s an action. Now show that it’s harmful. Remember, the conditions explicitly state that the drinken drive begin described explicitly causes no harm.

Going to church and praying are actions too. Of course, unlike the described drunken drive, they’re not even entirely harmless; those are a waste of time. (Assuming there is no god/afterlife, of course.)

[QUOTE=Linty Fresh]
Show me the cite that says that grieving mothers are statistically more likely to kill themselves or other people than the general population, and I’ll retract my statement. Otherwise, you have no argument to be made.
[/QUOTE]
My argument is that credulous belief in paranormal and other unjustified things has a tendency to incite wasteful and/or harmful behavior. My argument is not that your particular chosen example and particular chosen exceptions are a stellar or even reasonable example of this harm. Yes, time (church) and money (tithing) will very likely be wasted by the faithful mother, but no, I don’t think she’s necessarly going to do anything drastic. Too bad we can’t say the same about the people who believed that white men were closer to god (or “more evolved”; there are more bad beliefs out there than religion), eh?

23

[QUOTE=begbert2]
Going to church and praying are actions too. Of course, unlike the described drunken drive, they’re not even entirely harmless; those are a waste of time. (Assuming there is no god/afterlife, of course.)

. . .

<snip>

. . .

My argument is that credulous belief in paranormal and other unjustified things has a tendency to incite wasteful and/or harmful behavior.
[/QUOTE]

You go on a lot about wasting time . . . Fair enough, let’s say wasting time is a harmful behavior

(Looking at my post count) Hmmmm . . . 1,637.
(Looking at your post count) Let’s see . . . 1,634.

Yeah, you’re right. We atheists and skeptics don’t waste any time on pointless stuff and wrongheaded belief, do we? You pretty much have to have a belief in the paranormal to do that, right? :dubious:

And btw, I went out of my way to choose the example of the grieving mother, because I wanted to prove the point that while some belief in the paranormal is harmful, calling it all harmful is an overgeneralization.

24

[QUOTE=Linty Fresh]
You go on a lot about wasting time . . . Fair enough, let’s say wasting time is a harmful behavior

(Looking at my post count) Hmmmm . . . 1,637.
(Looking at your post count) Let’s see . . . 1,634.

Yeah, you’re right. We atheists and skeptics don’t waste any time on pointless stuff and wrongheaded belief, do we? You pretty much have to have a belief in the paranormal to do that, right? :dubious:

And btw, I went out of my way to choose the example of the grieving mother, because I wanted to prove the point that while some belief in the paranormal is harmful, calling it all harmful is an overgeneralization.
[/QUOTE]
Hey, if you think that posting on the dope is a waste of time, then go ahead and stop doing it. When I have better things to do, I don’t post here either.

And atheists and skeptics can have stupid, destructive beliefs too. It’s simply an approach that actively attempts to engender less of them. Cause less stupid, destructive beliefs is probably a good thing. Maybe?

And, no, I totally thought you picked the greiving mother example because greiving mothers are the most total evil things ever.

25

[QUOTE=begbert2]
And atheists and skeptics can have stupid, destructive beliefs too. It’s simply an approach that actively attempts to engender less of them. Cause less stupid, destructive beliefs is probably a good thing. Maybe?

[/QUOTE]

Two points: Belief in paranormal activities are neither stupid nor destructive in and of themselves, and not all atheists and skeptics actively try to engender less of them.

On edit: And I’m actually quite fond of wasting my free time. I remember not having enough of it in school, and it’s fun to watch the world go by, just because I can. There’s no harm in it whatsoever.

26

[QUOTE=Linty Fresh]
Two points: Belief in paranormal activities are neither stupid nor destructive in and of themselves, and not all atheists and skeptics actively try to engender less of them.

On edit: And I’m actually quite fond of wasting my free time. I remember not having enough of it in school, and it’s fun to watch the world go by, just because I can. There’s no harm in it whatsoever.
[/QUOTE]

Actually, let me revise that statement. Quite a few paranormal activities are kind of stupid in themselves. But again, if we include believing in God in this, then I believe that’s an example of a paranormal activity that’s not inherently stupid. Inherently wrong, yes. Inherently stupid, no.

But no, I was wrong to put paranormal activities in general.

27

[QUOTE=Garula]
When people believe in astrology, they tend to become fatalistic and more willing to accept their condition as is, without trying to make things better for themselves. …so feel free to argue that believing in astrology leads to a happier, more fulfilling life.
[/QUOTE]

Thank you for bring up one of the biggest misconceptions of astrology. There are people who use astrology as a crutch - just like those who use alcohol, drugs, religion, etc etc. I use the information to better understand some of my biggest challenges in life. I have learned a lot from my BFF - especially when it comes to communicating with loved ones, such as my children and my hubby-thingy. It has also helped me understand myself better. It is a tool for those people who use it correctly and I, and others that practice astrology as I know it, do not believe in using it for telling the future. For guidance, yes. - for fortune telling and excuse making - no.

Understanding astrology, for me and some others I know, has contributed to a more fulfilling life, yes. It is no different than those who bellieve in God, or those who are Bhuddists, etc etc.

I look at it this way - Have you ever seen the movie Erik the Viking? There is a christian in the movie that believes in God and Heaven, and the Vikings believe in Valhalla and the gods and goddesses of their time. When they travel to the “heavens”, only the christian can see the “christian things” and only the Norse mythology believers can see what they believe and know … So, who’s world is real?

As far as paranormal:

If science cannot prove something exists, does it mean that it does not exist?

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

28

[QUOTE=Pixilated]
If science cannot prove something exists, does it mean that it does not exist?
[/QUOTE]

[shakes Magic 8-Ball] All signs point to yes.

29

[QUOTE=Pixilated]
Understanding astrology, for me and some others I know, has contributed to a more fulfilling life, yes. It is no different than those who bellieve in God, or those who are Bhuddists, etc etc.

I look at it this way - Have you ever seen the movie Erik the Viking? There is a christian in the movie that believes in God and Heaven, and the Vikings believe in Valhalla and the gods and goddesses of their time. When they travel to the “heavens”, only the christian can see the “christian things” and only the Norse mythology believers can see what they believe and know … So, who’s world is real?

As far as paranormal:

If science cannot prove something exists, does it mean that it does not exist?

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
[/QUOTE]

Except there is plenty of evidence that astrology is BS. My favorite study. From the abstract:

[quote=]
A large-scale test of persons born less than five minutes apart found no hint of the similarities predicted by astrology. Meta-analysis of more than forty controlled studies suggests that astrologers are unable to perform significantly better than chance even on the more basic tasks such as predicting extraversion.
[/quote]

30

[QUOTE=Pixilated]
If science cannot prove something exists, does it mean that it does not exist?
[/QUOTE]

No, but the more time that passes in the face of extensive experimentation without such evidence, the greater the probability that the thing being sought does not exist or occur. Absence of evidence is not proof of absence; but it is evidence of it, particularly when it significantly accumulates.

31

[QUOTE=Linty Fresh]
Actually, let me revise that statement. Quite a few paranormal activities are kind of stupid in themselves. But again, if we include believing in God in this, then I believe that’s an example of a paranormal activity that’s not inherently stupid. Inherently wrong, yes. Inherently stupid, no.
[/QUOTE]
Inherently stupid, yes. Belief in God isn’t less stupid than belief in fairies or psychic powers - if anything, it’s MORE stupid. It’s just more powerful politically and culturally. After all, it’s no sillier to believe in Thor than in God, but most people tend to mock Thor worshippers, but sneer at you as a bigot or monster if you mock believers in God. Not because believing in God makes sense, but because the God-believers are more powerful.

32

[QUOTE=Linty Fresh]
Actually, let me revise that statement. Quite a few paranormal activities are kind of stupid in themselves. But again, if we include believing in God in this, then I believe that’s an example of a paranormal activity that’s not inherently stupid. Inherently wrong, yes. Inherently stupid, no.

But no, I was wrong to put paranormal activities in general.
[/QUOTE]
What is quantifiably different between a belief in God and, say, belief in the easter bunny? Other than the staggering amount of time, money, energy, and resources that have been spent on on God, I mean.

I don’t see a difference, myself, except that the belief in the Bunny has less of an impact on people’s lives. (Well, those of the people I know, anyway.)

[QUOTE=Linty Fresh]
On edit: And I’m actually quite fond of wasting my free time. I remember not having enough of it in school, and it’s fun to watch the world go by, just because I can. There’s no harm in it whatsoever.
[/QUOTE]
“Wasting” time, if you’re enjoying it, isn’t really a waste. For the purposes of this discussion (and most others) I feel it’s best to define waste in terms of opportunity cost; if you derived as much or more benefit from your time by staring at the ceiling as you could have any other way, then it was not wasted, by my definition of the term.

Thus, given how reliably most people pursue activities that they percieve to be to their benefit, about the only way people truly waste time (energy, money, etc) is to be mistaken about the value/results of an activity. If you watch a movie expecting to be entertained and instead you hated it, then you have wasted your money. Similarly if you devote your life to a God in the hope of earning a place in a(n actually nonexistent) heaven.

33

I think it’s going to be very difficult to ascribe a quantitative value to a belief in the paranormal over the course of human history. Plenty of awful things have been done in the name of religion, but a lot of people also live productive and helpful lives following religious teachings, so it’s hard to say whether religion and superstition have had a net positive or negative effect on humanity.

Also, quite a lot of human cultures have some kind of religious/paranormal belief, which is persisting in many people, even as science advances. The thing I’m wondering is whether belief in the paranormal fills a need for some people that isn’t able to be met in other ways, and, if that’s so, whether paranormal beliefs can be said to be harmful if their real role is filling a need people have. I guess it depends on what your goal for humanity is. If it’s to be as logical and productive as possible, than religion may well be harmful. If it’s to be happy, religion does seem to help some people be happier, so it might have a net benefit.

You can say it’s a shame to waste our brains’ evolution on religion, but our brains may have evolved with religion- it’s not like it’s a recent invention.

34

[QUOTE=Garula]
There have been a few threads lately about paranormal phenomena and why or why not people should believe in them. So I wonder, exactly how is it harmful for a person to believe in something that has no scientific backing? For those of us who believe in science, do we have a responsibility to try and persuade others away from those sorts of thinking?
[/QUOTE]

Those of you who believe in science should learn enough about it to be convinced of its validity without the need for belief. You might think this is a quibble, but it is an important point, and distinguishes science from the paranormal. You will no doubt choose to trust papers and scientists, but the data they use and their logical chain of reasoning used to reach their conclusion is always open for examination.

I’m with those who say the danger of belief in the paranormal is that it weakens one’s skeptical filter. Maybe Nancy Reagan believing in astrology wasn’t bad in itself, but once she started trying to use the results of readings to influence her husband, then it became dangerous.

35

Hm, maybe outside the scope of this thread, but it worries me to hear statements like “belief in anything unsupported by the scientific method are harmful.” First of all, how do we know about everything that is going to be supported by the scientific method? Maybe we just don’t have a way of testing for it yet. For example, gut feelings. Maybe in the majority of cases, people who believe that something bad is imminent are wrong. But what about those times when your subconscious has put together some evidence that hasn’t quite made it to your consciousness yet? We don’t have any way of testing whether the person really knew that tree was about to fall on him, but maybe he’d noticed the angle and the decay of the exposed roots, etc etc and consequently didn’t walk under it just as it fell. But would he notice things like this in all cases, or is he even aware that he did notice those things? That feeling remains unsupported by the scientific method (failing reproduceability, for one thing), but is still valid.

And what about only believing things we have evidence for? How much evidence is required before we’re “allowed” to believe, and how long should this belief last? If I think I saw a ghost once, am I allowed to believe in them? And if I see no others for 6 months, does that mean I have to stop? Maybe I’m just not clear on what “evidence” is, but it seems to me that something might happen which gives someone cause to believe that the current scientific paradigm (thanks, Kuhn. Or was it Hempel? I think Kuhn-- been awhile since that class) isn’t explaining everything. However, maybe that evidence came about through an accident, and he can’t reproduce it for 6 months, a year, 5 years. When does he “have to” stop believing that what he saw wasn’t just a fluke? Maybe it was a couple of chemicals producing a red puff of smoke when that shouldn’t have happened. He didn’t record it, and has no evidence other than what he saw. Maybe in time he starts to question whether he saw it at all. How is this different than seeing a ghost?

While I know that proposing new theses and theories is part of the scientific method, it seems that blanket statements advocating the necessity of denying any beliefs not currently supported by the scientific method are dangerous and stagnating.

36

[QUOTE=BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed]
Hm, maybe outside the scope of this thread, but it worries me to hear statements like “belief in anything unsupported by the scientific method are harmful.” First of all, how do we know about everything that is going to be supported by the scientific method? Maybe we just don’t have a way of testing for it yet. For example, gut feelings. Maybe in the majority of cases, people who believe that something bad is imminent are wrong. But what about those times when your subconscious has put together some evidence that hasn’t quite made it to your consciousness yet? We don’t have any way of testing whether the person really knew that tree was about to fall on him, but maybe he’d noticed the angle and the decay of the exposed roots, etc etc and consequently didn’t walk under it just as it fell. But would he notice things like this in all cases, or is he even aware that he did notice those things? That feeling remains unsupported by the scientific method (failing reproduceability, for one thing), but is still valid.
[/QUOTE]

But gut feelings are reproducible and testable. Psychologists did a test (I read about it years ago; I think Malcolm Gladwell talks about it in Blink) where people were made to play a card game that involved drawing cards from one of two decks. One decks, unbeknownst to the players, was stacked against them. Before the players could articulate that drawing from this deck was bad, they got a bad feeling (a ‘gut feeling’) when reaching for that deck. Ergo, gut feelings can be reliable.

If something (like a gut feeling) is a reliable indicator of the truth, then it can be demonstrated as such. Of course, this leaves open the rationality of relying on such indicators before the demonstration has been performed. We’ve all relied on gut feelings, and most of us haven’t read that study, or even heard of it. But my point is that by its nature, the scientific method can ferret out these connections.

37

[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion]
But gut feelings are reproducible and testable. Psychologists did a test (I read about it years ago; I think Malcolm Gladwell talks about it in Blink) where people were made to play a card game that involved drawing cards from one of two decks. One decks, unbeknownst to the players, was stacked against them. Before the players could articulate that drawing from this deck was bad, they got a bad feeling (a ‘gut feeling’) when reaching for that deck. Ergo, gut feelings can be reliable.

If something (like a gut feeling) is a reliable indicator of the truth, then it can be demonstrated as such. Of course, this leaves open the rationality of relying on such indicators before the demonstration has been performed. We’ve all relied on gut feelings, and most of us haven’t read that study, or even heard of it. But my point is that by its nature, the scientific method can ferret out these connections.
[/QUOTE]

Sure, but that’s assuming either (a) that all gut feelings can be shown to be reliable by proving their reliability in one case, (b) that a reliable test can be designed to test for any gut feeling, or (c) that unless a gut feeling can be reproduced, it wasn’t reliable in the first place.

38

[QUOTE=BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed]
Sure, but that’s assuming either (a) that all gut feelings can be shown to be reliable by proving their reliability in one case, (b) that a reliable test can be designed to test for any gut feeling, or (c) that unless a gut feeling can be reproduced, it wasn’t reliable in the first place.
[/QUOTE]

But why wouldn’t I assume that? If a gut feeling is a reliable indicator of X, then that correlation can be demonstrated (as it was in the card playing case). If no correlation can be shown, then that’s good reason for thinking there is no actual correlation, and so the gut feeling is not a reliable indicator. Thus, claims of clairvoyance, telekinesis, etc., should in principle be susceptible to testing, and have been tested exhaustively over the past century and more. Results? Nada.

39

>Personally, I argue that we should try to dissuade people from nonscientific ways of thinking as much as possible. Humans are inherently flawed and biased in our ways of thinking, and only by developing objective means of evaluating the world can we make any real process.

I agree with this. My answer to the OP is yes, it’s harmful. We humans have senses and beliefs and principles and we conduct actions, and it’s all one integrated system. Believing in things that aren’t so introduces noise into this system. Generally, noise lowers the performance of any system that delivers actions.

“Paranormal” and “supernatural” both seem to me by definition to describe things that are outside of the normal, natural world. So, although it’s built into the derivation of the words and perhaps not so obvious, I think the words imply “untrue”.

A strict scientific method isn’t necessarily a good way to work ideas out in life - and I say that as a professional, practicing scientist. I think the way scientists work is more like an elaborate and extended and refined form of child play, that results in discoveries that can be duplicated. I don’t think the hypothesys - experiment - analysis cycle really dominates in our work, I think we fiddle with ideas and experiments until we have a mental picture that we can reinforce by demonstrating what we worked out to others and seeing them repeat our results. That being said, I think the essential element here is that our ideas are consistent with the way the natural world works, as proven by ourselves and others repeating our results.

So, expectations and hunches and perhaps weak beliefs ought to arise from things we would expect to work, and things we observe to work. Strong beliefs ought to arise from things we both expect and observe to work.

40

[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion]
But why wouldn’t I assume that? If a gut feeling is a reliable indicator of X, then that correlation can be demonstrated (as it was in the card playing case). If no correlation can be shown, then that’s good reason for thinking there is no actual correlation, and so the gut feeling is not a reliable indicator. Thus, claims of clairvoyance, telekinesis, etc., should in principle be susceptible to testing, and have been tested exhaustively over the past century and more. Results? Nada.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, but how do we know if it’s a reliable indicator of X? In the case you cited it is, but what about people who get gut feelings about something and then it doesn’t play out? Or what about the people who have gut feelings about something unreproduceable, like the example of the tree about to fall on the guy I mentioned. Maybe he would notice that the second time around, maybe he wouldn’t, maybe he only noticed because of a very specific set of variables coincided. I’m just not seeing the claim that all gut feelings can be tested for. Nor am I seeing that unless they can be reproduced, they were unreliable in the first place.