The Case of Reber and Alcock
One of the characteristics of dogmatic belief systems is that their adherents accept assumptions as proven facts. This is certainly true of scientism. For example, it is a fact that consciousness exists, and that it is associated with neurological activity. But the assumption that consciousness is
produced by neurological activity is questionable. (See this
article of mine for further discussion.)
It is a fact that evolution has taken place. But it is also a questionable assumption that evolution can be explained wholly in terms of random mutations and natural selection. As illustrated by the contemporary
"Third Way in Evolution" movement, there is growing evidence against this assumption, as Neo-Darwinists believe. In fact, as I show in my book
Spiritual Science, there is a dearth of evidence to support many of the assumptions of materialism, and a good deal of evidence against them.
Leading on from this, another characteristic of dogmatic belief systems is a refusal to consider evidence which contradicts their assumptions. There was a good illustration of this in a recent article published by the
American Psychologist journal.
Last year (2018), the journal published an
article by Professor Etzel Cardeña of Lund University, in which he carefully and systemically reviewed the evidence for psi phenomena—examining over 750 discrete studies—and concluded that there was a very good case for their existence.