What Kind of People are Pseudoskeptics? Part V

Here are more examples for my series What Kind of People are Pseudoskeptics? These examples show how pseudoskeptics inhibit scientific freedom, abuse medical science, and persecute children and veterans:

• The first example is from an interview in which near-death experience researcher, Raymond Moody, tells how his own family committed him to a psychiatric hospital when he began to study the afterlife. He later went on to become one of best known pioneers of near-death experience research and is the author of the classic work on near-death experiences Life after Life as well as several other books.
  
• The second example shows how Nobel prize winner Brian Josephson was ostracized by his colleagues and excluded from a scientific conference because of his interest paranormal research.
  
• In the third example, Richard Sternberg explains how he was persecuted for authorizing the publication an article on Intelligent Design that had passed peer-review in a journal he edited.
  
• The fourth example describes how psychic medium George Anderson was persecuted as a child and treated as a psychiatric patient because of his psychic abilities.
  
• The fifth example describes how a veteran "was medicated and sent to a psychiatric ward" after he told his doctor about a near-death experience.
  

1. In this excerpt from A Conversation with Dr. Raymond Moody by Sharon Barbell, Raymond Moody tells how his own family committed him to a mental hospital because of his research into the afterlife.
   

   Nearly twenty years ago, Dr. Raymond Moody wrote Life After Life, the culmination of groundbreaking study on the NearÐDeath Experience. His work helped legitimize a phenomenon that had once been regarded as fantasy, hallucination or something we simply could not explain and most often, would not even acknowledge. Dr. Moody is once again helping to en-lighten us all by having written Reunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones (Villard Books). This book is hot off the presses and is certain to intrigue and fascinate its readers. The following is part of a recent conversation I was privileged enough to have had with the author at his research facility in Anniston, Alabama.
   

   ...
   

   SB: Have you encountered any resistance to this research from colleagues, friends or relatives?
   

   RM: That has been so funny. One thing is that my family had me put into a mental hospital about it, and I suppose you can call that a form of resistance (laughter). And so it was a really funny situation. And of course the people at my college thought that I had lost my mind.
   

2. The next example shows how pseudoskeptics will persecute and ostracize a Nobel prize winning physicist like Brian Josephson for being interested in paranormal phenomena. If they persecute a Nobel prize winner, what chance does an ordinary scientist have of expressing or pursuing a similar interest?
   

   From How to Run a Conference at Brian Josephson's web site.
   

   Certain invitees to a workshop on the Foundations of Physics received from the organisers letters withdrawing their invitations. The letter to Brian Josephson asserted:
   

   "It has come to my attention that one of your principal research interests is the paranormal ... in my view, it would not be appropriate for someone with such research interests to attend a scientific conference."
   

3. In the next example, Richard Sternberg explains how he was persecuted for authorizing the publication an article on Intelligent Design that had passed peer-review in a journal he edited.
   

   In 2004, in my capacity as editor of The Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, I authorized The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories by Dr. Stephen Meyer to be published in the journal after passing peer-review. Because Dr. Meyer's article presented scientific evidence for intelligent design in biology, I faced retaliation, defamation, harassment, and a hostile work environment at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History that was designed to force me out as a Research Associate there. These actions were taken by federal government employees acting in concert with an outside advocacy group, the National Center for Science Education. Efforts were also made to get me fired from my job as a staff scientist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Subsequently, there were two federal investigations of my mistreatment, one by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel in 2005 , and the other by subcommittee staff of the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform in 2006. Both investigations unearthed clear evidence that my rights had been repeatedly violated. Because there has been so much misinformation spread about what actually happened to me, I have decided to make available the relevant documents here for those who would like to know the truth.
   

4. In We Don't Die: George Anderson's Conversations with the Other Side by Joel Martin and Patricia Romanowski, the authors explain that when the psychic medium George Anderson was a teenager, he was bullied at school and punished by his teachers because of his psychic abilities. His parents took him to a psychiatrist because they didn't understand what was happening to their son. George was diagnosed with schizophrenia and put on Librium and then Valium which caused him to sleep up to 20 hours a day. The psychiatrist told his parents to take him to a state run mental institution. At the institution one psychiatrist recommended electro-shock treatments. A second psychiatrist disagreed and was in fact alarmed at the prospect of institutionalizing a child in an adult facility because he would probably be raped by other inmates. Due to the actions of the second psychiatrist, George was spared institutionalization although he was kept on mind-numbing drugs.
   

5. An article by Keith Upchurch published in The Herald Sun on January 25, 2012, RETIRED COLONEL HAS DEALT WITH NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES SINCE VIETNAM WAR, tells us that Diane Corcoran, a "retired Army colonel and nurse ... said she knows of one veteran who tried to discuss his near-death experience, but was medicated and sent to a psychiatric ward. 'We’ve seen this reaction too often,' she said."
   

In this series on pseudoskeptics I have been trying to show that the science scam is one of the biggest and worst scams of all time perpetrated on humanity. This installment gives more examples of how pseudoskeptics have inhibited scientific freedom and abuse medical science in the process. What knowledge or discoveries about the human mind have they prevented us from learning? What technology does not exist now that otherwise might be saving lives and improving our standard of living? Without pseudoskepticism our civilization would much better off. Pseudoskepticism harms everyone.

Copyright © 2013 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

What Kind of People are Pseudoskeptics? Part IV

In a previous post, I explained that evidence of the afterlife eases grief and fear of death, it deters suicide, and gives hope, meaning, and purpose to people's lives. Also, preventing the acceptance of the fact of ESP throughout all sectors of society cauess emotional distress for people who experience ESP and don't know what it means and wonder if they are going crazy and at the same time other people may think they are crazy, deluded, or a liar.

Considering these facts, it is enlightening to observe several items from my web page on Skeptical Misdirection that show the deceptive tactics that pseudoskeptics use to try to fool people into disbelieving in ESP and the afterlife and other paranormal phenomena.

• Richard Dawkins asked Rupert Sheldrake to participate in a documentary film on irrational beliefs but Dawkins refused to discuss evidence that telepathy is genuine which would mean that belief in telepathy is not irrational.
  

  
  

• Martin Gardner made false statements about skeptics failing to replicate parapsychological results when the skeptics never even tried to replicate them.
  

  
  

• Martin Gardner claimed psychic medium Mrs Piper used cold reading techniques. He neglected to say that she had many successful readings using proxy sitters who knew nothing about the actual spirits that were coming through.
  

  
  

• James Randi made false statements attempting to debunk a video of dog telepathy when he never even watched the tape. He was forced to retract his statements.
  

  
  

• CISCOP fellows had to make six errors in a statistical analysis in order to hide evidence that astrology might have some basis in fact.
  

  
  

• Susan Blackmore justified her claim that she could not demonstrate any paranormal phenomena by ignoring her own studies that demonstrated a paranormal effect.
  

  
  

• Wiseman and Hyman tested the 17 year old Russian school girl Natasha Demkina's ability to make psychic diagnoses. She beat odds of 78 to 1 against chance, a statistically significant result. Twenty to one is the usual scientific standard. Wiseman said she failed and mistakenly said she achieved odds of 50 to 1. Hyman told her to forget her delusions. The commentator said she would return to Russia discredited.
  

  
  

• Houdini's assistant tried to plant fake evidence to discredit a psychic medium Mina Crandon. Her spirit guides exposed the plot. Houdini's assistant later admitted planting the evidence.
  

  
  

• More at Skeptical Misdirection including pseudoskeptics paying for fake confessions and fake accusations of fraud.
  

What kind of people would treat a 17 year old school girl visiting from a foreign country like that? She demonstrated a statically significant effect. Discrediting her could prevent her from using her abilities to help people suffering from illnesses.

What kind of people would use those tactics to discredit evidence for the afterlife and ESP when doing so could cause people to suffer anguish, grief, confusion, or it could result in suicides that would otherwise be prevented?

Someone asked why pseudoskeptics do this. I replied this way:

Why do pseudoskeptics cling to materialism?

They are afraid of being embarrassed when the truth is finally accepted by all sectors of society.

Mainstream science has been saying unambiguously, emphatically, and repeated that alternatives to materialism are false and that the empirical evidence against materialism is invalid for far longer than a hundred years.

When it becomes generally accepted throughout all sectors of society that this denial of the truth is the greatest scam in history, deliberately perpetrated on humanity, Science will be disgraced beyond any possibility of recovering its reputation. It will have to live in a future of infamy lesser only to that of governments guilty of genocide.

What could be more important to humanity than the knowledge that the afterlife is real? What could be more important to science than huge gaps in its understanding of the universe revealed by the empirical evidence for ESP and the afterlife? By clinging to the false religion of Materialism despite several independent forms of overwhelming, extrordinary, empirical evidence to the contrary, Science has betrayed humanity and itself, by neglecting its duty to Truth.

Imagine what the world will be like when it is a generally accepted scientific fact that human consciousness survives death, and that everyone will have to experience in a life review or future incarnation the harm they have inflicted on others during their life. The world will be an incalculably better place because it will be an established scientific fact that when you harm another person you are harming yourself. How much pain and suffering could have been avoided if materialism had not been advocated so strongly by scientists? How different the world will be when everyone knows that there is an afterlife waiting for us after death where the atmosphere is permeated with love and all souls are aware of their interconnectedness and brotherhood.

The shame and guilt that is the due of Science is so great that those who have adopted Scientism as their religion, those materialists whom the blame will fall upon, will do whatever is necessary, consciously or unconsciously, to prevent the truth that materialism is false from becoming accepted through all sectors of society.

Copyright © 2013 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Copyright © 2013 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

What Kind of People are Pseudoskeptics? Part III

In Part II of this series, I wrote the following about near-death experiences:

There are thousands of people who have had near-death experiences, who say the afterlife is permeated with love, that the afterlife is just by any sane definition of justice, that consciousness is eternal, that we are all connected, etc. etc. Knowledge of this gives hope, purpose and meaning to people, it consoles people, deters suicide, eases grief and fear of death. Not just for people who have near-death experiences, but for millions of people who learn about other people who have near-death experiences.

Unfortunately, pseudoskeptics often resort to wrong explanations to discredit the reality of near-death experiences.

What kind of people would use wrong explanations to discredit the reality of a phenomena that helps people suffering from grief, eases fear of death, deters suicide and gives people hope, purpose and meaning in life?

One answer to that question is: people like Caroline Watt and Dean Mobbs the authors of a paper titled, There is Nothing Paranormal About Near-Death Experiences which ignored the evidence of the paranormal aspects of near-death experiences.

The evidence that near-death experiences are paranormal comes from verifiable (veridical) events that the experiencer perceives while their brain is inactive. Near-death experience researcher, Dr. Pim van Lommel MD says:

These [veridical] aspects can be corroborated by doctors, nurses, and family members. It’s important, because it not only can tell us what they perceived, but also the moment that it happened can be corroborated. That what they perceived from a position out of the body really happened at a time that they were unconscious. In other words, no cardiac function; there was no brain function at all.

In an interview on Skeptiko Podcast, Caroline Watt said, about the paper There is Nothing Paranormal About Near-Death Experiences:

"Our paper didn’t deal with this question of veridicality at all."

As I said, it was intended to be a provocative piece. It’s not claiming to be balanced.

Near-death experience researcher, Dr. Bruce Greyson MD says:

If you ignore everything paranormal about NDEs, then it’s easy to conclude, there’s nothing paranormal about them.

What kind of people would resort to wrong explanations to discredit the reality of a phenomenon that helps people suffering from grief, eases fear of death, deters suicide and gives people hope, purpose and meaning in life?

Here are some excerpts from the interview:

165. Dr. Caroline Watt Defends, There is Nothing Paranormal About Near-Death Experiences

...

Dr. Caroline Watt: These articles are deliberately designed to be provoking of debate. The whole idea of this group of articles, this type of articles in this journal, is not to claim that you’re making some comprehensive review. It’s not to produce any new evidence for testing a theory, for example.

...

Alex Tsakiris: Do you stand by the title?

...

Dr. Caroline Watt: ...I believe it’s an overstatement. It’s too soon to say there’s nothing paranormal, because we don’t have all of the evidence in yet.

...

I think the title, which is deliberately provocative, is going too far because it’s too soon to say there’s nothing paranormal. The content of the article itself is not saying anything new.

...

Alex Tsakiris: ... all the main researchers in the NDE field; Bruce Greyson, University of Virginia; Pim van Lommel, who you cite in the paper; Jeff Long; Peter Fenwick; all of them agree in saying a conventional medical explanation of NDEs doesn’t fit the data.

I don’t know where you can point to any prominent NDE researchers that would support the title like that. It’s provocative, okay, but is it representative even of the field and of the research?

...

Alex Tsakiris: In the paper, your first citation for van Lommel doesn’t seem to be correct. You site this case; here’s from your paper. ... “One example is a case study in which a patient with diabetes reports a near-death experience during an episode of hypoglycemia. There’s REM…” At the end, it’s cited as being in the Van Lommel paper.

I can’t find that in the van Lommel paper; I have it pulled up right here. Did I miss something? What is going on there?

...

Alex Tsakiris: Here’s the point, I guess. What I read, I’m going to read directly from his paper on his findings, and this is the most important point. Occurrences of the experience, the near-death experience, were not associated with duration of cardiac arrest—that’s very important, or unconsciousness, medication, or fear of death before cardiac arrest.

This directly contradicts what your inclination or theory about what some of the causes would be. That’s why this was such a landmark study, because they looked for these things on the physiological or psychological front, and they didn’t find it. I guess I’d come back to saying, if we’re really going to push against this, then I think it behooves you to put forward some data.

...

Dr. Caroline Watt: I disagree with you on that, because I don’t think van Lommel or anybody else has yet provided the evidence that the experience occurred during the time when the patient was clinically dead.

...

Alex Tsakiris:

Dr. Pim van Lommel: …an out-of-body experience, where they have [inaudible 32:57] perception. These aspects can be corroborated by doctors, nurses, and family members. It’s important, because it not only can tell us what they perceived, but also the moment that it happened can be corroborated. That what they perceived from a position out of the body really happened at a time that they were unconscious. In other words, no cardiac function; there was no brain function at all.

Alex Tsakiris: He goes on in that quote, then, to cite the paper by Dr. Jan Holden, who I told you we just had on in the previous episode to talk about this paper. She did a peer reviewed published paper that did exactly that; it followed up with people, and found that their perceptions were significantly more accurate than the control group. We’ve also had Dr. Penny Sartori from the UK who’s done a similar study, and had similar findings. I think we can pinpoint and say that these conscious experiences are happening during the time when there is no brain activity.

...

Dr. Caroline Watt:

These out-of-body experiences are actually quite rare when you tabulate their frequency. Even when people have a near-death experience, they don’t always have an out-of-body experience as part of it, so it takes a lot of time to gather the data.

...

Our paper didn’t deal with this question of veridicality at all.

...

Alex Tsakiris:... Dr. Jeff Long. ... He’s compiled probably the largest database of NDE accounts, and has done some very insightful analysis that I think would contradict a couple of things that you’re saying. One, the veridicality of the evidence and the number of percentage of people who have had an out of body experience is much larger. Hundreds and hundreds in her [sic] survey have experienced that, and have reported that.

...

Alex Tsakiris: Let me just throw this last quote. I’ve been dying to get this quote in. Please. This is Dr. Bruce Greyson from the University of Virginia, and it’s a great response to your article.

His quote is, “If you ignore everything paranormal about NDEs, then it’s easy to conclude, there’s nothing paranormal about them.” That’s what I think I hear over and over again. Let’s ignore this, and then we can talk about how they’re not paranormal.

...

Alex Tsakiris:You also reference people like Susan Blackmore in the paper. We’ve had her on. She said, specifically, “I’m no longer a researcher in this field. I shouldn’t be considered a researcher in this field,” and yet she’s cited, even though her research has been pretty thoroughly countered in, for example, the Handbook of Near-Death Experiences by Greyson and Jan Holden. They cover all that stuff.

...

Dr. Caroline Watt: As I said, it was intended to be a provocative piece. It’s not claiming to be balanced.

What kind of people would resort to wrong explanations to discredit the reality of a phenomenon that helps people suffering from grief, eases fear of death, deters suicide and gives people hope, purpose and meaning in life?

Copyright © 2013 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

What Kind of People are Pseudoskeptics? Part II

(Part I will be posted after Part II.)

On a discussion forum I am a memeber of, someone asked:

Are skeptics mean?

I replied, which I will post later as Part I. In my reply I asked:

How can we help them?

Someone answered:

Perhaps it will help to show them the error of their ways?

I thought I would give it a try. This was my reply:

Just look at any near-death experience thread. There are thousands of people who have had near-death experiences, who say the afterlife is permeated with love, that the afterlife is just by any sane definition of justice, that consciousness is eternal, that we are all connected, etc. etc. Knowledge of this gives hope, purpose and meaning to people, it consoles people, deters suicide, eases grief and fear of death. Not just for people who have near-death experiences, but for millions of people who learn about other people who have near-death experiences.

What kind of people would resort to wrong explanations to discredit the reality of those near-death experiences?

Next, read this post by a new member of another forum:

Hi,

My name is -----,

I found out a year ago that my daughter and I have psychic abilities. I am so happy to have found this forum. It is very isolating (and shame producing) when you are seeing, hearing, smelling,and feeling things that other people don't seem to. I am just glad that my daughter, who is 11, has similar experiences.

I am coming to terms with these abilities, although I cried for many months, was angry, terrified and angry at God because I have always felt different from other people to begin with.I was extremely sensitive.

How many tens of thousands of people go through this needless anguish because the truth of ESP has been prevented from being accepted by all sectors of society?

What kind of people work to make life miserable for an innocent person, often a child, to make it hard for them to get reliable information about their psychic experiences, to make them think they are crazy or self-deluded, and to treat them like liars?

Finally, consider that some people advocate materialism, an irrational philosophy that makes people feel hopelessly alone in a brief, pointless, existence, in an amoral, meaningless, and desolate universe. They attempt to destroy hope, love, meaning, purpose and all the higher aspirations that other people find in their lives by claiming all those are illusions. They claim they do feel meaning and higher sentiments but everything else they say (eg, see all the questions above) reveals their true beliefs are the exact opposite.

What kind of people would do that?

I don't mean to rouse anger in people or to spread hatred by this post. I've written before that I do not believe all pseudoskeptics are bad people. However I think it is important that everyone understand the harmful effects of pseudoskepticism are not theoretical, they are real.

Copyright © 2013 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.