You can imagine you have made sense of it, but without testability there is no real explanation at all. Unless the phenomena are repeatable in some way, all you can say is that they are unique phenomena.
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Can the scientific method be applied to study supernatural phenomena?
- Thread starter Dan From Smithville
- Start date
You can imagine you have made sense of it, but without testability there is no real explanation at all. Unless the phenomena are repeatable in some way, all you can say is that they are unique phenomena.
Thought experiment:
The various ghost-hunter shows assert that 'ghosts' are an electromagnetic phenomenon, detectable because of variations in electric and/or magnetic fields. In the TV shows, the investigators use a variety of devices originally designed for other purposes to detect these fluctuations.
If one had sufficient funding and cooperation of property owners and local government, one could go to one of these allegedly haunted locations, and
1) make sure no one was on or around the property
2) monitor the surrounding area for environmental effects (for example, we can often hear/feel the rumble of trains passing about three miles away, which could be under proper circumstances interpreted as "ghostly" vibrations);
3) set up appropriate devices to monitor various EM emissions and fields;
4) let to monitors run for an extended period of time to set a baseline
5) send in the 'investigators' to see if anything happens that is either outside of the baseline, or is otherwise unusual.
A control would be to set up the same or identical equipment at a nearby but 'not haunted' location.
A research project of doing this at a number of 'haunted' and 'not haunted' locations would allow one to build up a database of evidence which would answer whether or not there was a pattern of EM effects or phenomena associated with haunted versus not haunted locations.
That is, such a project would test the assertion that 'ghosts' are or cause EM effects.
Now, who is going to fund that? Who is going to carry it out? Any volunteers?
The various ghost-hunter shows assert that 'ghosts' are an electromagnetic phenomenon, detectable because of variations in electric and/or magnetic fields. In the TV shows, the investigators use a variety of devices originally designed for other purposes to detect these fluctuations.
If one had sufficient funding and cooperation of property owners and local government, one could go to one of these allegedly haunted locations, and
1) make sure no one was on or around the property
2) monitor the surrounding area for environmental effects (for example, we can often hear/feel the rumble of trains passing about three miles away, which could be under proper circumstances interpreted as "ghostly" vibrations);
3) set up appropriate devices to monitor various EM emissions and fields;
4) let to monitors run for an extended period of time to set a baseline
5) send in the 'investigators' to see if anything happens that is either outside of the baseline, or is otherwise unusual.
A control would be to set up the same or identical equipment at a nearby but 'not haunted' location.
A research project of doing this at a number of 'haunted' and 'not haunted' locations would allow one to build up a database of evidence which would answer whether or not there was a pattern of EM effects or phenomena associated with haunted versus not haunted locations.
That is, such a project would test the assertion that 'ghosts' are or cause EM effects.
Now, who is going to fund that? Who is going to carry it out? Any volunteers?
I think even in a dualistic scenario, the concept of a supernatural, as something that cannot be investigated by science, is incoherent. Sure, in Cartesian dualism, you can identify one plane as 'natural' and another as 'supernatural', but I'd say that was an unnatural way to divide things.
I see your point. There is a collection of phenomena that have been labeled as 'supernatural' and if we actually see such phenomena it makes sense to keep the word, even though we would say they are natural.
There's always been such cases. For a long time, we could not detect ultraviolet radiation. Nor could we detect radio waves.
If there is valid observation, then we can use that technique of observation to make measurements. And that allows for scientific investigation.
Either there is observation, in which case science can be used, or there is not observation and the existence is irrelevant.
What is interesting about this is that we understand electromagnetism pretty well. In many ways we understand it better than we do gravity. Put a Faraday cage around the house and see what happens.
Good idea, but it still falls back to who will fund it, and who will risk their professional reputation to run such a project?
Right, that agrees with what I said: 'at this time'.
Unfortunately the scientific method does not work well with random and spontaneous phenomena.
Paranormal investigators and lay people may occasionally capture phenomena on equipment and science can study that. However, I suspect we are not studying the super-physical planes of reality directly even then, but just their rare direct effect on the physical plane (as the equipment only captures the physical).
Doesn't seem to be a problem with quantum phenomena.
Put me as skeptical such 'planes' exist.
That's fine.
I believe because it is the direct observation of many clairvoyants I respect and that it presents the best framework explanatory model for the mountain of paranormal observations and events in the human experience.
I don’t know exactly all the methods but I believe the world desperately needs science to clean up religion in my opinion because in my opinion it has become entangled in so much superstition.
The very notion that we are born sinners I believe leads many to give up all hope that humans can create a better world so very few even contemplate building a just and noble system. Theories like this need to be debunked by science because they thwart human advancement and progress. I’m involved in building a new world civilisation but we are very few because half say man is an animal and is always warlike and so can never change so waste of time trying and the other half say we are born sinners and only Christ coming on clouds bringing the kingdom of God with him can change the world.
So who builds the world anew? No one or almost nobody. So because we believe we are animals and sinners we give up and don’t bother trying - a defeatist attitude. Yet humanity has made extraordinary advances and we CAN have things like world peace and world unity. Why so much pessimism? People have been brainwashed into paralysis believing we can’t do anything positive so we just give up in hopelessness and despair and don’t bother even trying. Science needs to change these misconceptions so that we can begin building the world anew.
Science needs to debunk this nonsense that we are born sinners and are just animals and warring beings. It needs to show that we are spiritual and intellectual beings capable of almost anything we put our minds to.
We have billions of people who claim that they are religious yet they won’t come together and unite to establish world peace. Science I believe, needs to help clean up religion showing its main purpose is not rituals or resurrections or sinners but about peace and harmony.
Examining the scriptures objectively can show evidence of this but I believe practitioners focus mainly on the supremacy of their religion as if it’s some kind of competition,
Here is a link to a talk that ‘Science will unite all people’ and it’s no wonder because religion has let us all down stuck in a quagmire of disunity and needs to be shown the way to true religion, Already it’s science that has brought the world together through the internet, dissolving borders and making of us one humanity while the religious are left behind instead of leading the way to love and unity between all humanity.
Science Shall Unite all People
Science shall unite all people, making of all the nations, one country, and of all the earth, one homeland. All the religions shall be one, and science can reveal this reality
With science alone can man unlock the secrets of the past and accurately forecast the shape of future events
Science can also unlock the secrets of the Holy Books: It uncovers the secret of reality. Science serves the world of reality. It can save man from the superstition of the religions of the past, revealing to him the reality of the religions of God. Excerpts from link)
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firedragon
Veteran Member
Scientific is can be and is applied to even non-scientific research. Technology is not relevant to that.
Applying the scientific method does not mean application of science.
In a simple field like Market research they apply the method or the general principles are applied. A lot of researchers first perform a qualitative research to come up with a hypothesis which will be tested through a quantitative research to generalise.
Same principle can be applied.
Technology is a totally different matter.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Here is what you are unable to understand. That which you do is covered by phenomena itself and is not outside the world. When we then test that using your demand of testing it fails, because it is not science. It is a normative rule and a form of ethics.
So I have explained what you do without science. You make a rule for what you consider correct as far as knowledge goes. But the rule is not knowledge itself, it is a rule about how we ought to behave when we use the word "knowledge".
Now I know this because I experience what you do and I test it using cognition and not observation and I then explain what you do. The explanation is that you are using a social and cultural cognitive rule for claiming authority over what knowledge is. That is sociology.
Native
Free Natural Philosopher & Comparative Mythologist
It´s really funny that a modern scientific method requests "repeatable experiments" when it comes to the term "supernatural".
Ancient tribes all over the world didn´t and don´t differ between "natural" and "supernatural". It was all just natural and they got lots of repeatable patterns just by watching nature itself and the daily and annual seasonal changes. This natural "experiment" provided all the needed informations - even from far beyond the terrestrial realms.
Besides this, modern science have lots of theories and hypothesis which never can be tested according to it´s own scientific claims.
Ancient tribes all over the world didn´t and don´t differ between "natural" and "supernatural". It was all just natural and they got lots of repeatable patterns just by watching nature itself and the daily and annual seasonal changes. This natural "experiment" provided all the needed informations - even from far beyond the terrestrial realms.
Besides this, modern science have lots of theories and hypothesis which never can be tested according to it´s own scientific claims.
The scientific method can be applied to anything that's supported by evidence (or would be supported by evidence if it were true).
If supernatural claims aren't subject to empirical investigation, then this would imply that there could be no valid reason to accept them as true.
FWIW, I don't differentiate between "natural" and "supernatural" either.
Inferring what "supernatural" means by how it's used suggests that "supernatural" just means "things that the speaker wants to assume are true, but can't demonstrate are true by any way that involves a reasonable amount of rigor."
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Again it depends on what you consider valid and if there is only one kind of truth? Further it is the question if empiricism can be reduced down to external sensory experience?
E.g. I would not claim, it is true with science, but God is true to me. As I am a skeptic, I am aware of the limitations of that and that it has nothing to do with you. But still, God is true to me.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
It is true, that you can't with science observe the meaning of this sentence. That is true, yet not true with science.
Supernatural claims are generally empirical claims. An empirical approach is entirely reasonable when trying to decide whether they're true.
Edit: when you say that God is "true to you" but not "true with science," in what sense is God "true to you?"
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
It makes me feel better.