A lot has been made, over the years, and particularly moreso on the internet and places such as Unexplained Mysteries, of the role, idea, word, outlook and purpose of "skeptics". To some, this mindset is abhorrent, negative, close-minded, jaded, curmudgeonly and maybe just downright "mean", trying to dash hopes and beliefs which are "obviously incorrect", and yes, some skeptics do seem to cross the line from time to time, and sometimes present their evidence with a side order of smarm and haughtiness, so that doesn't help the way their message is received.

But skepticism is a long-standing tradition and system of observation, rooted in science and empirical and rational thought, and includes such luminaries in the paranormal "field" as Ehrich "Harry Houdini" Weiss, the Amazing Randi, Phillip J. Klass, Carl Sagan, Penn and Teller... hmm... anyone notice professional illusionists make up a large chunk of people who are opposed to people being deceived if it isn't for entertainment?

But what IS skepticism, truly? And I'm not going by the normal dictionary definition here, but the connotation, that we know in today's world, in the popular culture, how it is viewed, both by skeptics themselves as well as the people whom they may be trying to demystify.

Let us take a look at some "skeptic" publications and websites, shall we?

Skeptics' Convention (The Amazing Meeting)
Look at the frownie faces on all the skeptics.


Skeptic.Com
Promoting science and critical thinking.

From the above magazine, this seems awesome:

Bound into every issue of Skeptic, Junior Skeptic is an engagingly illustrated science and critical thinking publication for younger readers.

Skeptic's Dictionary

Digital Bits Skeptic
Skepticism. Critical thinking. Podcast. Community.
Article: Five Habits of the Skeptical Mind.

The Skeptic (UK)
Pursuing truth through reason and evidence.

Committee Skeptical Inquiry/Skeptical Inquirer (CSI/PSICOP)
To promote scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims.

Skeptic Friends Network
to promote skepticism, critical thinking, science and logic as the best methods for evaluating all claims of fact, and we invite active participation by our members to create a skeptical community with a wide variety of viewpoints and expertise.

How weird...
The Skeptic's Annotated Bible (and Quran and Book of Mormon)

Now, I don't know about anyone else, but would I want to teach my children critical thinking and deductive reasoning so he or she can make rational judgments and draw useful conclusions when confronted with things? Yes, I really think I would, so I have a hard time with any argument that skeptics are doing anyone a disservice or the long-favored "If you don't believe any of this, why are you on a paranormal forum?"

But here are some somewhat amusing skeptics' quotes, which... well, you'll see.
Sciforums Skeptic Quotes

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." - Pierre
Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

"This foolish idea of shooting at the moon is an example of the absurd
lengths to which vicious specialisation will carry scientists."
-A.W. Bickerton, physicist, NZ, 1926

"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be
obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at
will." -- Albert Einstein, 1932

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken
Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp.,
1977

And now I'd like to tangentialize a little bit here, article also from Rom Houben and DBSkeptic. This is something I'd read about and think is a tragedy but this is the first full story I've found that highlights this "practice", of Facilitated Communication.

A facilitator holds the hand or arm of the impaired person or client, supposedly giving the strength and steadiness necessary for the client to type with a single finger, one letter at a time. A video of Houben, including his facilitated communication, can be seen here:



While it is possible that Houben’s facilitator is willfully perpetrating a heartless con, it is more likely in this case, and in all uses of facilitated communication, that the facilitator’s actions are attributable to the ideomotor effect. Familiar to anyone who’s seen a Ouija board in action, the ideomotor effect is defined as purposeful movement by a person not consciously aware of his movement. That is to say, when a person wishes a given outcome (a ‘yes’ answer on a Ouija board, for example), that person’s hand will move to produce that answer, without the person feeling any conscious movement.

Scientific testing of facilitated communication has disrobed the technique’s mystique and, unsurprisingly, double-blinded experiment has produced embarrassing failures among the facilitators. Information given to the client, with the facilitator blinded or absent, could not be later reproduced by the facilitator helping the client. Apologists to the technique claim that factors such as the duress imposed by doubters, who indirectly threaten to remove rights gained only by the impaired person’s communication, wreck the client’s performance and strain the special bond between facilitator and client. Skeptics reply that this is a common complaint of paranormalists who find they have failed under laboratory conditions and that, furthermore, impaired people who have attended college and given public speeches, all thanks to facilitated communication, should be already acclimatized to whatever stresses may be produced by testing.

To me, this really underlines the fact that dismissing the very real results produced by the ideomotor effect can have worse consequences than scaring teenagers, but instead put innocent people, families and friends of the "client" through needless anguish, all because they want to believe something so bad, they'll grasp for whatever answer that affirms their hope, ignoring reality.

This was posted on Unexplained Mysteries by a member, and I replied and decided it was a good question and I felt my response was suitable for posting here.


1. Define "Paranormal"
To the etymological meaning, anything beside, outside of "normal", something unusual or extraordinary, that doesn't happen everyday, and happens so rarely, even among large groups of people, that the occurrence is remarkable or unbelievable, as it usually also defies or is unrecognized and untestable by science.

2. Define "Ghost"
Sensory phenomna in which one or more persons perceive, either through vision or any other senses, an unusual apparent willful entity, that has a level of strangeness about it that convinces them it is not "normal"; these may or may not be believed to be or recognized as spirits of someone the person knows.

What is a..

1.Apparition
Any unusual visual phenomenon, usually of a figure, and commonly thought to be related to "ghosts" and spirits.

2.Haunting
The chronic presence of various apparently unexplainable phenomena in a location or structure, usually a house - in a "full" haunting scenario, objects moving by themselves, disappearing, unusual noises, disembodied voices, apparitions/images of entities, music, aromas and physical sensations, from so-called "cold spots" to light or firm "contact" being noticed by the experiencer. Residual hauntings generally involve only perception of a figure seeming to be performing one or more tasks, usually unaware of the percipient, perhaps repeating a task that same figure has been seen doing before. According to popular lore, haunting durations are indefinite, potentially centuries.

3.Poltergeist
German for "noisy ghost", and differentiated (usually) from hauntings in that most "diagnosed" poltergeist cases last six months at most, and may be over as quickly as a week. More "grounded" parapsychological thought suggests poltergeists are not actually willful entities or ghosts or spirits, but are referred to as Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis, or RSPK, which comes about by a human agent unconsciously manifesting their natural, latent "psi" abilities, usually believed to be due to stress, trauma, extreme anxiety, emotionality, etc. Whatever they are, poltergeists also usually encompass the more dramatic haunting behavior, things moving or even seeming to be thrown, disappearing and reappearing at later times, knocking noises, voices, etc. It is when people start ascribing intelligence to poltergeist cases that things generally turn negative and begin to escalate to their nearly inevitable nearly-traumatic culmination.

Have you ever..

1.Felt a ghost
No.

2.Seen a ghost
No.

3.Heard a ghost
No.

Do you think..

1.A ghost can actually harm a person
Only via psychokinetic/RSPK effects, which I think are rare for true ghost encounters, and usually only incidentally, and not seriously, though the person may injure themselves if their reaction to witnessing the ghost is severe enough.

2.A ghost can pick up items
If by "pick up", apportation to another location is included, and again, we're talking about more of a haunting or poltergeist situation, an unsure yes. Otherwise, I don't think things can be "grasped" as we understand it, assuming manual dexterity and finesse, but more seem to be affected by gross physical force of some kind, resulting in things moving dramatically, usually appearing to have been thrown or knocked off, which frightens witnesses and makes them assume "he's mad", which is actually not a logical assumption.

3.A ghost can be seen by the naked eye
If not visibly, though there are reports, some effects.

Last question..

Do you belive in ghosts?
I believe there is "ghost phenomena", though what that means, which could even be mundane, but I do not believe in "spirits", demons or any incorporeal entities.

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Being a moderator on a paranormal forum has its perks, and removing crazy bullshit like this from people's signatures is one of them. God I love the intertubez.

Sharing with you my X-Files Valentine Day fan fiction I wrote years back, in honor of the holiday. Don't know where my head was at - nothing exciting in it, just more a bit of vague dramedy. If it makes it any more intriguing, it is NOT a Mulder/Scully what you call it, "'ship".

Please note: This is not written as an actual X-Files “case”, just a “downtime” skit.

(<>..<>)

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

FBI HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, DC
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1998, 4:17 PM
"Really though," says Fox Mulder as he disembarks from the elevator and jogs up behind his red-haired
partner, Dana Scully, who looks back over her shoulder and continues down the hall. "What, Mulder?"
she asks, a little disinterested in Mulder's opinion.

"Really, tell me about the case with the 'talking doll'. When you first called me, I thought you were
just checking up on me, but I think there was really something going on." The unorthodox FBI agent
catches up to Scully and matches her stride as they continue toward his little basement office. "Yes, and
as I remember, the most helpful thing you did was to propose to me. Besides, don't you think I would
have told you if there was an X-File?" She looks surreptitiously at Mulder, wondering how much of that
she could put over on him. He sighs and rubs the back of his neck as they turn a corner. "I guess so, but
the scenario I was getting when I finally started putting together what you were saying..."

Scully interrupts him with a derisive, nervous laugh. "The scenario you were getting probably involved
evil spirits and ancient curses, Mulder. You usually manage to come up with those when you seclude
yourself in your little office down here and don't have anything to do." Her partner looks at her, feigning
shock. "Alright, you don't have to tell me; you WERE on your vacation after all, I just thought you might
like to talk about it."

X-Files: The Muffin Man (PDF)

I'd like to preface this by saying I'm not ridiculing anyone or trying to deny or disprove anyone's own claims, only give my own personal opinion of this subject, which I do not believe most people do intentionally, but is more an unconscious tendency that manifests subtly, creating the environment for this to take place.


I think the idea that children are sensitive or can see ghosts and such is imagination or misidentification and confusion on the part of the child (or adult), as well as the adults wanting to ascribe specialness to their child, and to also use their child as a conduit, to allow them to also believe in "magic" again, the paranormal.


They project this perception onto their child, until the child hears this enough and believes it or even starts to behave appropriately in a manner to be rewarded by the parent, by positive reinforcement and nurturing these "abilities", possibly even developing in the child a lifelong "gift" or idea that they can see and feel things, but which are actually not there at all, but is instead the wind, a draft, etc.


At the same time, regardless of their previous beliefs (though most were already inclined toward the mystical), the parents suddenly "rediscover" and "remember" old abilities they themselves "had", and could see and hear and feel spirits, and now can still do it "sometimes". Since the parent's genetics or psychic aura or something is allegedly transferred to offspring, that means not only is the child obviously a very special being, but that means the parent must be too!


In one example, a mother was carrying her 22 month old, which pointed at empty air and said "ghost", which the mom asked for her to repeat what she said, and the 22 month old said there was a ghost (according to the mother - though I'm skeptical on the clear and accurate speech of 22 month olds). We are not born knowing what ghosts are, or what significance they have or that they're unusual or break natural laws and established theories, or are a philosophical and religious hot button, so it is rather unlikely a child (especially ones so young) would "recognize" or understand a ghost if they saw one.


They most definitely couldn't know or use the correct traditional word, unless they have been raised, surrounded and influenced in an environment in which such things are talked about as factual or at least regularly, much the same way more religious Christian children might report "seeing angels", or earlier rural Europeans reported seeing fairies - it is part of the inherent condition and legend of the ambient culture, so it is incorporated into their belief system, expectations and personal symbolism.