[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Venom

About the "the plural of anecdote IS data" bullshit, I wanted also to comment on Marc Beckoff about looking for repetability and consistancy.

Plural can mean more than 2. If there are great number of remarkably similar anecdotes by witnesses to such events under circumstances that effectively rule out alternate explanations and are simultaneously witnessed by more than one person and so on........ then science would be extremely foolish to dismiss these on a-priori grounds as having no substance....

Yes this is not quite scientific evidence but it is perfectly acceptable for scientists to gather data to consider various hypotheses worthy of further testing or experimentation. It is part of the scientific method.

I wanted also to comment on Marc Beckoff about looking for repetability and consistancy.

There is no law in science that an occurrence or effect can only be real if endlessly repeatable and consistent upon experimental demand. However looking for repeatability and consistency is an extremely useful and productive scientific method because what is most stable, most repeatable is also of most benefit to most people (e.g. a medicine might only work on some people, the better one is judged to work on more people) . But one should not confuse the success or seeking of only stable or predictable effects with 'reality' ...such classical like philosophy of science does not fit perfectly with quantum theory.

In the ufo phenomena, people argue sometimes that the phenomenum is "consistant", because you can find some "consistancy" between some of the testimonies.

2 remarks:

First of, often the consistency is in the eye of the beholder. If you look for consistency, you'll find some (but you forgot all the inconsistencies in the process).

I agree ... but when you read a science text book, unless you personally repeat every experiment, you take these upon the trust of the witnesses to these experiments. (Few of which experiments were blind or double blind in hard sciences, perhaps double blind testing is not essential in hard sciences but arguably it should be used in any disputed area). You have the choice of questioning everything you see on the TV news, read in newspapers and dismissing it as anecdotal .... you probably read the 'skeptics dictionary' like most sceptics do but this website mostly supplies anecdotal counter claims that would fail the criteria you would demand of evidence for psi.

The sceptic will justify their behavior with the catchphrase 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' which means little more than 'what I personally believe is plausible, requires less evidence than what I believe is implausible.' ... can people agree what is 'extraordinary' ?

However if the die-hard sceptic views an effect as impossible, providing enough contrary data is unlikely to ever be extraordinary enough.... they raise the bar, move the goalpost, etc. .....and if that fails they suggest something remarkably close to a conspiracy theory that being several reseachers must have cheated or lied ......without any extraordinary evidence whatsoever. The researcher may complain that these extraordinary debunker claims have no substance and to provide evidence what they claim actually could have occurred, but then the armchair debunker has been known to reply 'the burden of proof is on the claimant'

Second, in fortean phenomena, consistencies can be explain by some process creating de phenomenum. That does'nt prove the fact that the phenomenum is paranormal.

How can one prove the paranormal, if the debunker demands that only when the paranormal behaves normal (i.e. repeatable and consistent) should the paranormal be considered real?