> I wouldn't go quite so far as some people to
>say that such beliefs are necessarily harmful on
>the individual level (unless taken to the
>extreme of irrationality), but I seriously
>wonder what collective effect they have on
>society.

I wouldn't say that belief in the paranormal or supernatural is by itself harmful to anybody. Rather, what I think is harmful is the mistrust of science and the extreme crippling of reason and logic that usually goes along with such beliefs.

Science is what brought us to the dance. None of us would be here reading this message if not for science. And reason and logic are its main tools. To discount these is to throw away much of society, to return to medieval times of superstition and fear.

People who believe simply because they want to believe I have no problems with. World-renowned skeptic Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, believes in God. He's not precicely a Christian--I believe he terms himself a deist. But he believes in God not because he feels that science, logic, or reason have led him to this belief--in fact, he firmly believes that were he to go strictly on the basis of the evidence, he would NOT believe in any God. He believes in God simply because he *wants* to believe in God, because he recognizes it as a basic human need that needs fulfilling.

I have no issues with this position or similar faith-based positions for the existence of any God or gods or any other supernatural entity, power, or phenomenon. If it makes you feel good to believe in ghosts, go right ahead.

The issue I do have is with people who strenuously insist they are being reasonable, or have logic and reason and even science on their side to support their position. Science has so far found no hard evidence for any of the classic paranormal or supernatural powers or phenomenons such as ghosts, ESP, clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, telekinesis, psychokinesis, UFOs, alien abductions, past lives, astral projection, or magik. To claim otherwise is ignorance. Does this mean these things don't exist? *I* would tend to say yes, and so would most scientists--however, you can't prove a negative. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because you show that every single person who claims to be psychokinetic who would allow themselves to be tested under controlled conditions showed no mesurable powers doesn't mean there *isn't* somebody out there who *can* do what they claim--but it sure does lend itself fairly well to that conclusion. Likewise, just because we've never ever seen a violation of Newton's Third Law and can't even concieve how one might be possible doesn't mean it's NOT possible--but again, it sure lends itself to that conclusion.

This is simply how science works. You form a hypothesis, test it vigorously, and if you and thousands of other colleagues don't find anything to disprove the hypothesis, it becomes a theory. And "theory" doesn't mean "guess". HYPOTHESIS basically means "guess". "Theory" means "guess that has been tested over and over and over and has been found to be accurate to the limits of our abilities to test it." But the point is, you really can't ever claim "certainty". But you *can* approach certainty with arbitrary precision. Which is nearly the same thing. And I would say that, to the limits of our testing available today, no paranormal or supernatural power or phenomenon has ever been show to exist.

-- Dave