Feather,
you might be interested in Alex Tsakiris' most recent interview -
JACK HUNTER ON PARANTHROPOLOGY, PARAPSCYHOLOGY AND SPIRIT COMMUNICATION
Jack Hunter is the guy whose table we shared at the Seriously Strange Paranormal Conference in Bath (was it actually three and a half years ago??).
Some interesting points are brought up in this interview and its ensuing discussions:
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/264-jack-hunter-on-paranthropology-parapscyhology-and-spirit-communication.1659/
you might be interested in Alex Tsakiris' most recent interview -
JACK HUNTER ON PARANTHROPOLOGY, PARAPSCYHOLOGY AND SPIRIT COMMUNICATION
Alex Tsakiris of Skeptiko interviews Anthropologist Jack Hunter on Paranthropology and the significance of cross-cultural spirit communication for parapsychology.
Jack Hunter is the guy whose table we shared at the Seriously Strange Paranormal Conference in Bath (was it actually three and a half years ago??).
Some interesting points are brought up in this interview and its ensuing discussions:
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/264-jack-hunter-on-paranthropology-parapscyhology-and-spirit-communication.1659/
Perceptual bias is a huge problem among scientists.
Neuro-plasticity can cause scientists to become hidebound from a lifetime of education and work in science:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/08/george-orwell-scientists-themselves.html
Most people know that George Orwell wrote about the dangers of authoritarian government in his novels 1984 and Animal Farm. What is less well known is that Orwell also wrote about the danger of the authoriarian potential of science. In his essay What is Science? Orwell argued that society confuses science, the "method of thought which obtains verifiable results by reasoning logically from observed fact", with narrow areas of knowledge such as chemistry and physics. Because of this confusion, society mistakenly attributes broad authority to scientists when their specialization actually makes them narrow minded and so unqualified to exercise broad authority.
Orwell wrote that scientists encourage this confusion in order to protect their own prestige and power.
Other causes include:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/01/someone-in-internet-discussion-forum.html
- Habitual reductionist thinking prevents scientists from accepting anything that they can't explain in terms of simpler phenomena, such as non-physical consciousness, qualia, and psychic phenomena.
- Indoctrination into philosophical naturalism during science education.
- Psychological attachment to the status quo scientific world view because it is the source of their status and livelihood.
- Fear of alternative means of obtaining knowledge about the universe that might supplant science as the most important source of knowledge. If you can ask a psychic or a spirit, why would you need scientists?
- Persecution of heretics. If Nobel prize winning physicist Brian Josephson is ostracized because of his interest in psi, what chance does an ordinary scientist have?