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Explaining the Unexplained

Entry 2095, on 2020-12-18 at 16:07:54 (Rating 3, Skepticism)

I was recently asked by a friend to write a blog post on paranormal phenomena; specifically extra-sensory perception, telepathy, and precognition. When I search the internet for information on these subjects I see a lot of material both for and against their reality, and Wikipedia classifies them under the category "paranormal" which it defines as "unexplained phenomena".

So, superficially at least, there are no negative connotations regarding these topics, although under the same category there are also less respected examples, such as astrology and psychic reading.

In general, science-oriented people tend to reject the paranormal, although that is certainly not universally the case, and the friend I referred to above is generally quite fact-based and I generally respect his opinion. But even the most intelligent, logical people can have weaknesses in some areas, especially when they have experienced apparent personal examples of these phenomena.

It is good to keep an open mind on all subjects, but I also think it is entirely reasonable to form an interim opinion while being aware that new evidence might arise resulting in the need to change that opinion. In my case, my interim conclusion is that these phenomena are not real, and that most apparent support for them results from personal anecdotes, poorly controlled experiments, and wishful thinking. But I could be wrong!

I hope to do a future post on this same subject, covering why I reject the supporting evidence, but this post will be more a general philosophical discussion and overview, so please excuse the vagueness and generality of this post.

OK, here are the general points of discussion which I want to present today...

First, anecdotes are not data. If we took people's personal experiences seriously, without trying to use more rigorous techniques to study them, we would be forced to believe almost every questionable belief in history: numerous incompatible gods; many types of UFOs and aliens; fairies and other folk stories of paranormal beings; psychic abilities including physical manipulation through pure mind control, predicting the future, talking to the dead, etc; cryptozoological species like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster; and many others. We would be swamped in a bottomless quagmire of mutually incompatible, poorly defined, and inconsistently supported ideas, probably to the point where any chance of truly understanding reality is gone.

That doesn't mean that personal experiences are wrong, and it doesn't mean they should be ignored. All it means is that they cannot be taken as the basis for belief in something which is not also well supported by empirical science.

Second, you can most likely find some study to support any belief at all. One study, or even a small number of them, don't prove anything, especially in the area of difficult to study subjects like parapsychology. It is necessary to look at all the research - or at least a representative sample of it - to see both the positive and negative studies, and then form a conclusion based on the balance of those two.

In addition, you must be aware of the aware of the "file-drawer effect" (AKA publication bias) where studies with negative findings tend to be published less often than those which are positive. Many paranormal researchers assume the effect they are studying is true, so they are less likely to publish papers which show lack of evidence.

Third, not all research is equally good, not all journals are of equal quality, and not all people studying these phenomena are equally competent or honest. When a phenomenon seems to be supported by papers published in lesser journals (or non-peer reviewed sources such as books), done by less well respected researchers, and using less rigorous methodologies, but is not supported by papers in more respected journals by well respected researchers using good methodologies, it is appropriate to be suspicious.

Almost nothing has no supporting evidence, but when the results are mixed, and the positive results are from less credible sources, then it is appropriate to assume that the phenomenon isn't real - as an interim conclusion only, of course!

Fourth, if a phenomenon requires a complete reset to existing knowledge then it is fair to require a higher standard of supporting evidence. This is best stated in the well known phrase "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Many paranormal phenomena do contradict existing well-accepted physics. For example, seeing the future, instantaneous communication, manipulating the world using unknown forces should be impossible using current physics.

If a claim is made which requires abandoning the science which works so well for all the other things we see, then we should be very suspicious.

Fifth, there are numerous well understood behaviours which can account for even quite extraordinary events. One is confirmation bias. People think about the future many times per day. If they think something might happen and it does, they will probably remember that. If they think about the future a thousand times and get it wrong, then they forget it. But we would expect to get our predictions right purely by chance. If there is a one in a thousand chance of getting it right and we get it right once while forgetting the other 999 predictions which were wrong, then nothing unusual has happened. That's just the laws of chance in operation.

Also, people have very poor memories. When something happens and a person remembers thinking about that event in the past, they are very likely to fit the memory into the facts of the present. This will make the prediction look a lot better than it really was. This is a very well understood phenomenon with significant relevance to witness testimony as well as paranormal research.

And people who think that they never make those cognitive errors are in fact just reinforcing the fact that they are prone to them. There's a very good reason science uses double-blinded trials to test this stuff: individual recollections are terrible!

Finally, poorly defined explanations and connections using mysterious but well accepted science should be treated with caution. For example, any claimed connection between paranormal events and quantum physics is almost certainly wrong. In fact, it is probably worse than wrong; it is probably either a deliberate attempt to deceive, or an incredibly naive attempt at an explanation based on a poor understanding of one or both of the paranormal and the scientific phenomena.

For example, saying that seeing the future is possible because there is a fifth dimension, and that extra dimensions are predicted by moderately reputable theories like string theory, are disingenuous unless there is some real detail, preferably including a proper mathematical analysis. And the fact that string theory predicts 11 dimensions, not 5, doesn't make the connection stronger, it makes it more nonsensical.

Numerous charlatans invoke quantum theory to explain a lot of poorly understood (and possibly bogus) ideas including homeopathy, clairvoyance, and other new-age mysticism. Note that invoking these theories doesn't automatically make the person a charlatan, but it does put them in close proximity to some of the less credible purveyors of quantum theory as an explanation of the paranormal.

Is it totally impossible that extra dimensions allow information to travel backwards in time? I guess not, but it's just too convenient to invoke something that most people have little understanding of, like quantum theory, as an instant answer to difficult questions. It's almost like religious people answering difficult questions by saying "God did it" or "because God wanted it that way". As soon as people hear "quantum theory" they might think something like: "oh yes, that allows all sorts of weird things to happen, that makes sense". But it doesn't; it's just too superficial.

Finally, what would make me change my mind? Well, if a well designed study showed a strong effect, and a competent, independent team replicated those findings, I would need to pay attention. Or if a new scientific study from a completely independent area of science found a mechanism that might explain a paranormal effect, then I would think that's interesting. Or if a strong trend developed amongst experts in a relevant scientific community, then I would need to re-evaluate my position.

But the opposite seems to be happening. As we learn more about the world, we have less need to believe in the paranormal. I think my interim conclusion that common paranormal phenomena are all invalid is completely justified.

Comment 1 (6030) by Anonymous on 2020-12-23 at 12:00:07:

Here's what you need to do OJB. Do some research. There are so many studies showing that paranormal phenomena are real. So much science today used to be paranormal. Why would you assume that there is no more that should be science?

Comment 2 (6033) by OJB on 2020-12-23 at 15:31:42:

OK. First, look at the post. I did concede that there are some research results which support the possible validity of paranormal phenomena. But I also said that there are studies which don't support that, and that is usually a sign of no no real effect. There a studies supporting everything, and its important to look at the quality of those studies and compare that with contradictory results.

As far as the old "this was paranormal before we discovered it was real science", I have 2 issues: first, the phenomenon might be the same but the explanation isn't; and second, there are plenty of things which were paranormal which didn't end up being science, so that has no real power of prediction.

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