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Running Your Own Ghost Investigation?
Quirkz writes "I am a skeptic, but have friends and family who swear by their ghost stories. I have access to a supposedly haunted house and been tempted to run a proper scientific investigation. My first question is what sorts of tools or measurements would make for sensible metrics to test during a hunt? Temperature change seems to be a common one, but the other devices you'll see ghost hunters use seem pretty random. The second question is what kinds of results would it take to be 'interesting'? Baseline readings at several presumably non-haunted locations seem to be obvious requirements for comparison. Once you have those, what kinds of results would it take to convince a skeptic there's something unusual going on, or demonstrate that there's not? I don't have much hope of changing the minds of those who believe, but it would be satisfying to at least be scientific about it."
What is it about "skeptics" that they tend to be such huge douchebags?
I mean, not believing in the supernatural is one thing, but has anyone else noticed that all the noted "skeptics", the kind that refer to themselves as "skeptics" and think the Amazing Randi is just the coolest guy and use "woo" as an adjective are socially repulsive? Seriously. Have you ever met this kind of "skeptic" that had a really good-looking girlfriend? Even the famous ones tend to be greasy nerds like Penn Jillette who almost certainly have to pay for sex.
It must be something about self-certainty that causes enlarged pores and body odor. Or maybe I've got it backwards and it's social failure that causes people to become self-certain jerkoffs who believe they know exactly where the border lies between "what is clearly true" and "what can't possibly be true" even when talking about fields that they know absolutely nothing about.
You know who don't generally consider themselves to be "skeptics"? Physicists. From Isaac Newton to the guys thinking about string theory and particles and thirteen dimensions and shit. They just say "I don't know" and keep working away. You ask them about aliens, they say "I don't know". "Not enough data".
Skeptics are to scientists what engineers are to mathematicians. Embarrassing and slightly retarded.
You are welcome on my lawn.
So then how do you define something that apparently doesnt exist? DNA didnt exist until someone found a way to show it. Is it no different here? Were bacteria not treated the same way? The fact that you're saying there's no way to prove exists means that it doesn't seems to me to be the exact equivalent of how the dark ages were. "Oh you think something other than demons caused your illness?! KILL THE UNBELIEVER!"... I believe that is how it goes.