The cult of skepticism

Some strange skeptical arguments

Just because we have no evidence of another realm of reality beyond the physical world, how can we conclude it doesn’t exist?
It’s not a matter of certainty, ever. I would make the argument that if there were a supernatural element that played a role in our everyday life in some noticeable way, it’s very, very likely we would have noticed it. It just seems weird that this kind of thing would be so crucial and yet so difficult to notice in any controlled scientific way. I would make the case that it is sufficiently unlikely in a fair Bayesian accounting that we don’t need to spend any time thinking about it anymore. Five hundred years ago it would have been a possibility. I think these days we’re ready to move on.

• Consciousness itself which does play a more than noticeable role in our everyday life, may be such a supernatural element (and an indispensably supernatural one according to some understanding of ontology, which is unfortunately still controversial)
• A big fallacy there, is based on the ambiguous use of the word "we" in "we would have noticed it" as explained above.
• His last sentence contradicts the first, and also encourages us to see as legitimate the attitude of no more investigating such phenomena which may actually occur, a kind of legitimacy which is actually self-refuting.
• Some other skeptics have a completely different, incompatible basis for their convictions.

1. The supernatural cannot exist
2. But the scientific method proves that it exists (there is strong scientific evidence for it)
3. Therefore the scientific method is invalid.

Massimo Pigliucci "...I can tell you from first-person experience [in a different field] that there is in fact a lot of garbage out there that gets published in pretty much every field".
Julia Galef: "One of the main reasons I'm interested in parapsychology studies is because of what it tells us about the way we conduct science in general. If you're nearly convinced just based on a priori scientific theories that parapsychology is really unlikely to be true then this is kind of a useful test case for science like if our standard scientific methods give us significant results in these cases then that tells us that there is something wrong with the way we're doing science and that includes the way we do science in lots of other subfields that aren't parapsychology"

"Les recherches en parapsychologie sont à l'heure actuelle d'aussi bonne qualité que celles existant en psychologie. Sur base de ce constat, on peut soit accepter l'existence du psi, soit rejeter ces résultats à cause du manque de plausibilité antérieure, soit encore considérer que ces travaux démontrent en réalité qu'il y a des problèmes importants avec les méthodologies et les outils statistiques utilisés dans d'autres champs des sciences humaines. Certains auteurs avancent ainsi que la parapsychologie est le groupe de contrôle de la science. L'idée est que si les parapsychologues prouvent avec les techniques habituelles de la psychologie que le psi existe, vu qu'il est impossible que ce soit réellement le cas, cela démontre que les méthodes utilisées sont fondamentalement problématiques. Sans entrer dans une longue discussion, il y a effectivement à l'heure actuelle une crise de la psychologie portant d'un côté sur les difficulté de réplication, et de l'autre sur la manière dont les statistiques sont réalisées, particulièrement l'usage de la valeur p."

Translation:

Research in parapsychology is at present of as good quality as that existing in psychology. On the basis of this observation, we can either accept the existence of psi, or reject these results because of the lack of previous plausibility, or consider that these works actually demonstrate that there are significant problems with the methodologies and statistical tools used in other fields of the humanities. Some authors thus argue that parapsychology is the control group of science. The idea is that if parapsychologists prove with the usual techniques of psychology that psi exists, since it is impossible for this to be really the case, this demonstrates that the methods used are fundamentally problematic. Without going into a long discussion, there is actually at present a crisis in psychology bearing on the one hand on the difficulties of replication, and on the other on the way in which statistics are produced, particularly the use of the p-value.

"Je rajoute par ailleurs que de nombreuses critiques des sceptiques à commencer par celles de Massimo Pigliucci dans Rationally Speaking me semblent insister de manière disproportionnée sur des failles mineures. En particulier, il me semble y avoir un énorme raisonnement motivé de nombreux sceptiques à vouloir trouver les failles de l'étude parce qu'ils pensent a priori que l'étude doit être fallacieuse, voire parfois parce qu'ils pensent que l'auteur de ces études est incompétent. Et d'ailleurs ça été totalement mon cas lorsque j'ai commencé à lire ces articles. Plus généralement il semble y avoir un double standard dans la manière de juger différentes disciplines qui met bien en évidence la malléabilité de la méthode des scientifiques en pratique. Quand on veut vraiment être critique, quand on est motivé pour une raison x ou y à être critique, on trouve souvent beaucoup plus de raisons de rejeter telle ou telle expérience scientique. Et ça bien sûr c'est tout aussi valable pour les sceptiques que pour les croyants ou que pour les scientifiques. La malléabilité de la méthode scientifique permet le raisonnement motivé et une interprétation biaisée des résultats scientifiques motivée par des fins idéologiques. Bref, si malgré ces études vous doutez fortement de la parapsychologie, alors vous devriez sérieusement questionner la vérité de la plupart des publications scientifiques, et en particuler la confiance qu'on est justifié d'attribuer à la méthode scientifique surtout si vous pensez que cette méthode scientifique contient des aspects usuellement non formalisés et donc fortement malléables. Et du coup il semble devenu urgent de davantage réfléchir à comment faire de la meilleure science. "

Translation:

"I would also add that many criticisms by the skeptics, starting with those of Massimo Pigliucci in Rationally Speaking, seem to me to disproportionately insist on minor flaws. In particular, there seems to me to be a huge motivated reasoning from many skeptics to want to find the flaws of the study because they think a priori that the study must be fallacious, even sometimes because they think that the author of these studies is incompetent. And besides it was totally my case when I started to read these articles. More generally there seems to be a double standard in the way of judging different disciplines which highlights the malleability of the method of scientists in practice. When you really want to be critical, when you are motivated for an x or y reason to be critical, you often find many more reasons to reject this or that scientific experience. And that of course is just as valid for skeptics as it is for believers or for scientists. The malleability of the scientific method allows motivated reasoning and a biased interpretation of scientific results motivated by ideological ends. In short, if despite these studies you strongly doubt parapsychology, then you should seriously question the truth of most scientific publications, and in particular the confidence that it is justified to attribute to the scientific method especially if you think that this scientific method contains aspects which are usually not formalized and therefore highly malleable. And therefore it has seemingly become urgent to think more about how to make better science."

Avant les travaux de Ben, comme c'est d'ailleurs discuté dans l'article même de Ben, la plupart des psychologues rejetaient la parapsychologie et il y a de bonnes raisons à cela qui ont tout à voir avec des préjugés raisonnables. Comme le dit le proverbe Bayésien : sans préjugé, aucune conclusion ne peut être tirée. L'argument le plus avancé est celui de la plausibilité physique. On a aujourd'hui une énorme crédence en notre compréhension de la physique et celle-ci semble complètement rejeter la possibilité d'une prémonition. Alors ceci dit ce n'est pas tout à fait vrai, en particulier certaines interprétations de la mécanique quantique laissent potentiellement encore entrouverte la possibilité de bizarreries quantiques typiquement à base d'intrication et de non-localité... L'argument quantique augmente ma crédence en la parapsychologie... de ce que je comprends de la mécanique quantique la prémonition demeure extrêmement improbable... Ce dit ce n'est pas la raison principale pour laquelle la prémonition ne me semble vraiment pas crédible aujourd'hui. L'argument que je trouve le plus convainquant est celui qualifié d'argument économique par xkcd. Aujourd'hui dans un monde capitaliste il y a des incentives énormes à exploiter toute faculté prédictive supérieure à celles qui sont déjà exploitées. En particulier la prémonition semble un moyen extrêmement efficace de faire de l'argent par exemple en pariant sur les cours de la Bourse. Vu les incentives économiques, dans un monde où il existe une prémonition juste à 53% au lieu de 50% il me semblerait improbable que les pontes de la finance se fassent remplacer par des algorithmes d'autant que de nombreuses études suggèrent très fortement que les traders de la finance sont en fait très loin de disposer de facultés prédictives au delà du hasard. Si aujourd'hui j'assigne si peu de crédence en la prémonition ça vient en fait essentiellement de cet argument économique et ce malgré les publications scientifiques aussi étrange que cela puisse paraitre, mes crédences sur le paranormal vont à l'encontre de ce qui a été obtenu par la méthode scientifique et en particulier à l'encontre des tests randomisés en double aveugle et des tests statistiques classiques. En particulier là très clairement mes crédences en l'absence de phénomènes parapsychologique n'est absolument pas comparable à la p value obtenue par la méta-analyse à savoir 0.000...1% à cause des préjugés fondés sur la plausibilité physique et l'argument économique, ma crédence en l'absence de phénomènes parapsychologique est bien plus de l'ordre de 99.9999%. Voilà qui devrait donner tout son sens au proverbe bayésien qui dit que la vraisemblance des données n'est pas la crédence de la théorie.

Translation

Before Ben's work, as is discussed in Ben's article itself, most psychologists rejected parapsychology and there are good reasons for this which have everything to do with reasonable prejudices. As the Bayesian proverb says: without prejudice, no conclusions can be drawn. The most advanced argument is that of physical plausibility. Today we have a huge credence in our understanding of physics and it seems to completely reject the possibility of a premonition. So that said it is not entirely true, in particular certain interpretations of quantum mechanics leave potentially still ajar the possibility of quantum quirks, typically based on entanglement and non-locality ... The quantum argument increases my credence in parapsychology ... from what I understand of quantum mechanics the premonition remains extremely improbable ... That said it is not the main reason why the premonition does not seem really credible to me today. The argument that I find most convincing is the one called economic argument by xkcd. Today in a capitalist world there are enormous incentives to exploit any predictive power superior to those which are already exploited. In particular, premonition seems to be an extremely effective way of making money, for example by betting on the stock market prices. Given the economic incentives, in a world where there is a premonition of just 53% instead of 50% it would seem unlikely to me that the pundits of finance will be replaced by algorithms especially since many studies strongly suggest that Finance traders are in fact very far from having predictive powers beyond chance. If today I assign so little credence in premonition it actually comes essentially from this economic argument and this despite scientific publications, as strange as it may seem. My credence on the paranormal goes against what has has been obtained by the scientific method and in particular against double-blind randomized tests and conventional statistical tests. In particular there very clearly my credences in the absence of parapsychological phenomena is absolutely not comparable to the p value obtained by the meta-analysis namely 0.00... 1%. Because of the prejudices based on the physical plausibility and the economic argument, my credence in the absence of parapsychological phenomena is much more than 99.9999%. This should make sense of the Bayesian proverb which says that the likelihood of the data is not the credence of the theory.

Now my skeptic debater, who clearly judged me as an idiot for what seemed to him fuzziness in my thinking, also put forward himself something of the economic argument. First by complaining that, in some discussion, I did not seem as interested as he thought I should be about potential industrial or military applications (the use of remote viewing to uncover military secrets) or for winning the lottery. He asked whether all remote viewers (such as out-of-body experiencers) refuse such uses of their abilities. Like, 2 ants debate on the existence of humans, that the one believes in, and the other challenges her to respond about why humans could not be used as a tool to get food or compete against the next ant colony.

Somehow, these are still good questions. I will not try to develop detailed answers, but only mention a few things.

Something I happened to stumble on in some facebook groups (long ago, I did not keep references). One story I read is (unless I am mistaken in some detail) an OBEr guy who had undertaken a sort of game with a female friend of his (also OBEr ?) consisting in, from time to time as they are far away from each other, doing an OBE visit to check what the other is doing. One day he did an OBE and wanted to check about her but he couldn't, as he faced a kind of dark veil while trying. Later he called her to talk about this, and she explained that at that time she was having sex with another guy.
Another time I read that a similar phenomenon occurred when trying to unveil military secrets.

Moreover, how can anyone tell that the use of paranormal abilities is not actually widespread ? Somehow it is, somewhere in alternative medicine, just under cover because the world may not be well organized to properly identify and officially recognize what works. On this subject I saw in particular the documentary film in French by Stephane Allix "Guérisseurs, magnétiseurs et barreurs de feu" showing that many well-established hospitals are actually using some alternative medicine in complement to their main standard medical practices, and it appears efficient. I also saw somewhere the info that in the US there are some mediums working with the police to investigate murder cases, and happen to be useful there.
Now as macro-economical issues cannot be well understood without a look on some micro-economical cases, I can comment about economic sides of my experience with magic stones. I suffered many years the trouble which turned out to be cured in this way. If only during all those years I stumbled on someone who saved me in that way I could have thanked such a person with much money ; but there wasn't. Why ? I don't know. First, of course, I was not telling loud around about my trouble, as it was not something so good to claim around. Second, very few are the people aware of the power of stones. Some people may have sensations with these, and yet not know how much it would have helped me. Actually the Tiger eye stone I have is a gift from a friend I knew from some time before, was aware that this stone gave special energy sensations, but had not the idea how useful to me it would be before I discovered the power of Boji stones with the man I met later.
Since then, I only personally know a couple of people who I "converted" to the interest for these stones by direct meeting (= independently of my online activities). I informed them for free, not for any profit. And none of these had any big need of these comparable to the need I had.
All that said, I fail to see what skeptics mean by their economic argument : what more consequences of the supernatural would they see as altogether strongly expected and missing ?

To finish this overview of few oddities of skepticism, here is my transcript of the main content of a video in French of a skeptic (author of a youtube channel on dinosaurs and other evolutionary topics), reacting to previous videos (the skeptical ideology is also called "zététique" in French), namely

• Decay of skepticism by "Mouton Lucide"
• A debate between Mouton Lucide and a skeptic : The failure of skepticism - part 2

...j'aimerais commenter sur le fait qu'il y ait des gens qui trouvent à critiquer à la zététique, des gens qui sont absolument pas convaincus, j'ai eu envie de réfléchir à pourquoi est-ce que la zététique convainc finalement si peu de gens que ça, et aussi ça fait longtemps que je veux faire une vidéo pour expliquer des astuces pour repérer le bullshit (...) quand on se retrouve à table pendant les repas de famille le zététicien c'est celui qui a le plus envie d'ouvrir sa gueule mais qui le regrette le plus à la fin parce qu'il se retrouve seul contre tous et ça c'est quelque chose que tout le monde a vécu au moins une fois quand on est sceptique. J'en viens à me demander, finalement on va en revenir à l'essence même de la zététique qui est quel est l'avantage qu'on tire à être zététicien parce qu'il faut bien se l'avouer c'est quand même la merde d'être zététicien au niveau intégration sociale. On se fait rembarrer par tout le monde, tout le monde nous déteste parce qu'on donne l'impression de mieux savoir que tout le monde. Les gens nous accusent de ne pas avoir d'ouverture d'esprit, et en plus on passe des temps monumentaux à vérifier nos sources, la quantité de temps perdu à chaque fois qu'on croise une info pour arriver à recroiser les sources, remonter à l'origine de l'information et prendre une décision sur est-ce que c'est du bullshit ou non, la zététique c'est quand même loin d'être optimal comme manière de penser, comme philosophie de vie.
(...)
Voilà ce qui, moi, m'a poussé vers la zététique. C'est les réseaux sociaux. J'en avais marre de passer pour un con à relayer des informations qui finalement étaient fausses... et je crois qu'on a tous commis l'erreur un jour de relayer une info de... de relayer une de ces chaines débiles, et on finit par se regarder et se dire merde, j'en ai marre de me faire avoir. Marre de passer pour un con après. La zététique a ce grand avantage de nous protéger des charlatans. Au début vous vous protégez des chaines sur internet et puis vous vous rendez compte que l'homeopathie c'est des gens qui vous tirent de la thune pour vous soigner avec du sucre, et puis vous vous rendez compte que toute votre vie on vous a servi peut-être des merdes qui servaient à rien et que vous avez payé tres cher. ... c'est quelque chose que la zététique permet de s'épargner...
Il y a aussi des charlatans qui ne se savent pas, sont de bonne foi. Par exemple... qui réclament de la thune pour aller à la chasse à l'extraterrestre... et après vous découvrez les sourciers, les magnétiseurs... il y en a qui le font gratuitement mais ils vous fournissent un service qui ne marche pas, qui n'a pas prouvé son effet au-delà du placebo.
Le dernier point c'est que, depuis que je suis sceptique je dors vachement mieux. Toutes ces questions que tu te poses dans ta vie, et tu réalises que ça sert à rien de se les poser parce qu'elles ont une réponse, c'est fou. Et la suspension de jugement, c'est un autre truc de la zététique. Premièrement les questions qui ont des réponses. Est-ce que les fantomes ça existe, est ce que les extraterrestres ça existe. Est-ce que je vais me faire enlever par un extraterrestre. Est-ce que je vais me faire agresser dans la rue par des drogués séropositifs avec des seringues qui veulent me contaminer parce qu'ils ont les boules d'avoir le sida. Non ça n'arrivera pas. Voilà vous dormez vachement mieux. Quand vous savez que vous pouvez faire confiance à votre médecin. Quand on a confiance aux médicaments qu'on prend. Et on suspend son jugement quand on ne sait pas. Y a-t-il une vie après la mort, c'est des questions qui m'ont empêché de dormir à une période, maintenant je m'en fous. On n'a pas la réponse et on l'aura jamais, voilà c'est tout. Vis ta vie. Je ne vais pas aller chercher une secte pour me dire la réponse que j'ai envie d'entendre. Ce dont des choses qui probablement ont échappé à Mouton Lucide dans la video...
Si vous êtes zététicien vous-même et que vous avez du mal à convaincre pendant les repas de famille... expliquer en quoi votre façon de penser est supérieure aux autres. J'insiste sur le mot supérieur parce que je sais qu'il y en a qui vont pas l'aimer. La pensée zététique est clairement supérieure. Elle n'a pas toutes les réponses, et c'est ça qu'il faut retenir, la suspension de jugement quand on a pas la réponse. Parce qu'on dit toujours méfiez vous des gens qui ont toutes les réponses, il faut encore plus se méfier des gens qui n'ont que des questions, comme Mouton Lucide qui pensent qu'on ne sait rien, que la science n'a jamais rien démontré. Non il y a des choses qu'on sait béton. La théorie de l'évolution c'est autant une théorie que celle de la gravité.
La façon de penser d'un zététicien clairement permet d'apporter des réponses là où il y a de vraies questions, de clore les débats là où il n'y a plus débats, et de vivre beaucoup plus sainement. Il n'y a pas qu'une seule vérité, par contre il n'y a qu'une seule version de la vérité à laquelle on a accès. C'est très clair. Les autres versions de la vérité ne sont pas pertinentes pour nos vies. La zététique permet de limiter sa philosophie de vie à ce qui est pertinent.

Translation:

... I would like to comment on the fact that there are people who find to criticize skepticism, people who are absolutely not convinced, I wanted to think about why does skepticism finally convince so few people, and also it's been a long time since I want to make a video to explain tips for spotting the bullshit (...)
when we meet at the table during family meals the skeptic is the one who most wants to open his mouth but who regrets it the most at the end because he finds himself alone against everyone, and that is something that every skeptic has experienced at least once. I come to wonder, finally we will come back to the very essence of skepticism which is, what the advantage is that we get from being a skeptic, because you have to admit it is nonetheless shit to be a skeptic in terms of social integration. We get rebuffed by everyone, everyone hates us because we seem to know better than everyone. People accuse us of not having an open mind, and in addition we spend monumental amounts of time in checking our sources, the amount of time lost, each time we come across some information, to cross-check sources, to go back to the origins of the information and make a decision on whether it is bullshit or not, skepticism is still far from an optimal way of thinking, as a philosophy of life.
(...)
Here is what pushed me towards skepticism. It's social networks. I was fed up with passing for an idiot relaying information which finally was false... and I believe that we all made the error one day to relay an info of... to relay one of these stupid channels, and we end up looking at each other and saying Gosh, I'm tired of being fooled. Tired of looking like an idiot afterwards. Skepticism has this great advantage of protecting us from charlatans. At first you protect yourself from the channels on the internet and then you realize that homeopathy is people who get your money to treat you with sugar, and then you realize that all your life you have perhaps been served crap that was useless and for which you paid very dearly. ... this is something that skepticism helps to save...
There are also those charlatans who do not know it themselves, acting in good faith. For example ... who demand money to go hunting the alien ... and then you discover the dowsers, the magnetizers ... there are some who do it for free but they provide you with a service that does not work, which has not proven to work beyond placebo.
The last point is that since I have been skeptical I sleep a lot better. All these questions that you ask yourself in your life, and you realize that there is no point in asking them because they have an answer, it's crazy. And the suspension of judgment is another thing of skepticism. First, the questions that have answers. Do ghosts exist ? Do aliens exist ? Am I going to get kidnapped by an alien ? Am I going to be assaulted on the street by HIV positive drug addicts with syringes who want to contaminate me because they are upset at having AIDS ? No it won't happen. This way you really sleep better. When you know you can trust your doctor. When you trust the drugs you take. And we suspend judgment when we don't know. Is there life after death, these are questions that kept me from sleeping at one time, now I don't care. We don't have the answer and we never will, that's all. Live your life. I'm not going to go find a sect to tell me the answer I want to hear. These are things that probably escaped Mouton Lucide in the video ...
If you are a skeptic yourself and find it difficult to convince during family meals ... explain how your way of thinking is superior to others. I insist on the word "superior" because I know that there are some who will not like it. Skeptic thinking is clearly superior. It doesn't have all the answers, and that's what we must remember, the suspension of judgment when we don't have the answer. Because we always say beware of people who have all the answers, we must be even more wary of people who have only questions, like Mouton Lucide who think that we know nothing, that science has never demonstrated anything. No, there are things we solidly know. The theory of evolution is as much a theory as that of gravity.
The way of thinking of a skeptic clearly makes it possible to provide answers where there are real questions, to close the debates where there are no longer debates, and to live much healthier. There is not only one truth, but there is only one version of the truth to which one has access. It's very clear. The other versions of the truth are not relevant to our lives. Skepticism allows you to limit your philosophy of life to what is relevant.

In the rest of the video he presents 3 criteria to identify "bullshit":

1. Emotions : appeal to emotions is a trap, so for example when something is in the news he focuses on reading the scientific paper at the origin of it, to assess the content without emotions ;
2. Conspiracy : conspiracy theories are usually wrong;
3. Authority : any claim is based on some authority but the one of a single or very few scientists should be dismissed when the overwhelming majority of other scientists are against them.

Taking the tree to hide the forest

Similarly, when skeptics undertake to discuss with someone on either philosophical issues or paranormal phenomena, they usually come along with their big brothers named "Reason" and "Science". They do not hesitate to put these on their side in their picture of the balance of forces against their opponent seen as an isolated individual having to stand against all of these. Indeed, presuming that no evidence for the supernatural could be found until now, anyone's claim of having any good reason to believe in such a thing, would mean being the first such person in the world, against all the best experts of the world who regularly proved all such claims wrong. In such a picture, obviously, the chances for supernaturalists to look serious are very poor.

This is why Near Death Experiences did not seem to exist until 1975 when it was suddenly discovered that there are millions of these. Indeed : when one patient in critical condition comes to be placed under the authority of a doctor who did long studies to get high professional recognition for knowing everything about what goes on in the human body much better than the rest of people... how can this doctor listen to such a story and still not send the patient who told it to a psychiatric hospital ? Such horrors were actually committed. To avoid these, patients needed to shut up. And leave the doctors in ignorance, sincerely believing that no such thing ever happened in their hospitals. Still more recently, such research-blocking denialism persists about other end-of-life phenomena. So there are such times when those who are supposed to best know about something in their field of professionalism with its materialistic dogmas, namely medicine, turn out to be those who know the least about it and block the actual research.

They picture themselves on the side of science, as if they knew what science really says... but what is science ? Science means to know, and to understand what we know. But what is there to know ? There are megatons of scientific articles out there, plus even much more data available beyond these. No matter the effort, nobody has had any chance to study and understand more than a ridiculous fraction of all of that in one's lifetime. Therefore, claiming to speak in Science's name is about as nonsensical as claiming to speak in God's name.

Given this, all that anyone can do in trying to have a scientific viewpoint, is to try to explore things that are there... make one's own selection of what to study, trying not to miss what would be relevant for the topics one is trying to have a scientific view about. How to make the best selection to minimize the worst omissions of crucially relevant information for what one needs ? Only God really knows... but is not on the phone to answer this.

In a sense, there is no possible way to be objective. Anyone can search for the kind of information one believes to be relevant, and blame others for following wrong choices and biases, missing the relevant information.

From that ocean of possible knowledge, skeptics made their selection as follows. Metaphorically speaking, they have specialized themselves in the science of mud, and of all the possible reasons to doubt the possibilities in building any stable construction on top of the most slippery possible mud. From that viewpoint, of course, mud seems to be everywhere and everything looks like mud, so whenever someone is coming to mention any new finding or new kind of evidence, skeptics will dismiss it as mud since that is all that they know about and they analyze everything in such terms. But without reliable ways to prove anything, no way remains to refute wrong views either.

About the experiment of putting envelopes in ceilings in operation rooms

"they put closed envelopes above wardrobes to see if someone in an NDE would go to see what is inside...if we want to prove it like this we are not close to reaching good results. Personally when I lived this NDE I definitely did not feel like going above wardrobes to check what was there. I lived what I felt like living and I lived it that way"

• Putting many cameras that record all events, then ask the people to tell their testimony before any interaction with the people involved, then the videos would be used to check the truth of these perceptions in a rather controlled way
• Making pictures that are not visible for the human eyes, but only visible in infrared or ultraviolet, so that they would not need to be hidden for their observation to be accepted as paranormal.

Another report of NDE study with diverse interesting info, including how patients did not happen to look at the targets.

The politeness argument

"I regret that you have such a bad opinion of the skeptics, who to my knowledge are often full of good intentions and passionate about science. This is the case in any case with the people of our association."

"I have the impression that you are not really trying to argue but to put me at fault, which is very unpleasant for me.(...) "

"...I still find your tone accusatory and obnoxious, so I would really like you to be more courteous and less in value judgments (e.g. you could talk about mistakes rather than lies, which is not connoted with a negative intention). Otherwise, I will be forced to stop this discussion"

• As any act of pointing out the obvious, it is an insult to the intelligence of the other person so assumed to need such an explanation
• Generally speaking, in natural conditions and on any side either right or wrong, the one who makes the least distinction (the biggest confusion) between a conviction (object of criticism by opponents) and the person holding it (who needs respect), is that person himself. And there is nothing wrong with that. I mean, if someone did not take his own conviction seriously, what would still be the point of trying to defend it ? So, to point out the need to separate someone from his convictions, is just another way of saying that these convictions are wrong. And a fucked up way of doing so.
• The last reason, to say in short, is that beyond ridiculous cases (which unfortunately can happen too) the responsibility of everyone to contribute to the rationality of a debate with respect to the risk for it to collapse by the force of insults, is less a matter of not telling insults, than a matter of not feeling them. Here is why :

"I never was to this group, but that is not the type of thing I would follow, sorry. There are probably some interesting things, but I would hardly put up with all the propaganda publications either anti-vaccine, pro-anthroposophical or bordering on racism, which I consider to be real medical and social dangers. If you don't mind, great for you, but I understand that it might be hard for some to take and some may feel discouraged from arguing by all that."

"As for the comparison between science and dogma, it is irrelevant because science requires precisely the ability to be questioned (which seems to be the object of your criticism), and this is precisely the absence of this capacity which one can reproach movements with sectarian tendency like the evangelists."

Skeptics may find very interesting to study the thinking of people who believe that the Earth is flat, however they will run away crying as soon as someone has the madness of going to criticize the skeptical ideology. Poor dears fearing to have a heart attack if they ventured in discussion spaces that are not properly censored by their peer skeptics to fit the way they need discussions to look like. Yet they proclaim themselves champions of self-criticism and accepting criticism. They are even ready to crush the world with their super proclamations of good intentions about it. Yes of course they are open to the criticism from the people who agree with them, like everyone else.

Let us come back to what it was which I was calling a "lie" rather than a "mistake" and why:

"The interference terms converge to 0... the probability to stay coherent only remains significant for a very short time... even if the state of superposition remains, it can only stay for (this short), then its probability becomes insignificant"

"I was presenting the standard point of view which is that decoherence is the loss of coherence, of which superposition is a part (among other effects specific to quantum objects, both are not confused). I am aware that decoherence has another role to play in the many worlds interpretation but that was not the topic. I would ask you for avoiding this kind of misunderstanding, and for me to not feel attacked, to try to adopt the philosophical position of indulgence, that is to say that which consists in always interpreting the speech of another assuming he's intelligent. As for ignoring the mathematical content, it is for pedagogical reasons that I made the decision to do so, seeing how many people have a blockage when we talk about mathematics"

On the math content of what is wrong. The reason why coherence and superposition must not be confused, is not that superposition is only a part of coherence, but the other way round (more comments below). Then, there is logically no such concept as the "probability to stay coherent". Quantum "coherence" consists in the presence of nonzero "interference terms" among the components of the state of a system. These terms are numbers which can contribute positively or negatively to the probabilities for the possible results of some kinds of measurements which can be made, in ways which differ from what a classically probabilistic superposition would provide. But these contributions to probabilities cannot consist in giving any non-zero probability for any measurement result which would have zero probability in non-superposed (or classically superposed) cases (indeed more precisely, mathematically changing the sign of an interference term must still give non-negative values of all probabilities).

About this "standard point of view" being "standard". Sorry I have no interest to investigate what the majority of other teachers happened to be saying on the topic, to find out whether it was really here a great parrot's intelligence which deserved my praise in a world dominated by the same BS, rather than an unfortunate fruit of a personal misunderstanding or distortion away from some more defensible "standard".

About this "standard point of view" being a point of view at all. How could it be ? The fact is, in the whole list of all conceivable and inconceivable interpretations of quantum physics, there does not exist any one in which the end of superposition would coincide with decoherence. And there is a good reason for this : that there is not and cannot be any exact definition for decoherence in terms of the precise state of a system at a precise time. Because the concept of decoherence is only defined as emergent from the fundamental evolution laws, without any straightforward definition of its precise amplitude from the given state of a system at a precise time. It all remains relative to the precise abstract way of analyzing the system, whose relevance must be meant as trying to reflect the possibilities of solving the engineering problem of coming up with a measurement device from outside the system (a concept itself dependent of how you defined the limits of the system outside of which a measuring device is allowed to come up), that could achieve this or that much difference of probabilities of results mentioned above. How much hopeless it could be to try designing such a measuring device, and how daunting the complexity of such a device you can still afford to make, which would be needed for a given achievement. All that matters to the definition of how much "coherence" there is left at any given time (and becomes practically insignificant only due to how fast all of this is wiped out by the exponential decrease with a so extremely short time unit which applies to any given variant of the definition). So whenever a given precise value of an interference term is given, which you may like to call "the probability for coherence to remain", it does not mean that the complementary probability would be the probability for the end of superposition to have really occurred; only that you gave up trying to design a measurement device more sensitive than this to the quantum superposition.

About the many-worlds interpretation being "not the topic". On the contrary the only possibly meaningful sense or relevant explanation to give to decoherence is the one it takes in many-worlds, for the clear reason that :

• Decoherence is purely defined, not directly from the well-established fundamental ingredients of quantum physics (states and evolution laws) alone, but still indirectly so, i.e. as emerging from them alone anyway;
• But these well-established fundamental ingredients of quantum physics alone, form the very definition of many-worlds. Therefore, there is no logical possibility for many-worlds to be out of subject from anything quantum, to such a point that all other reasonable interpretations, having to accepting this content which constitute many-worlds before adding some other ingredient, must still somehow integrate all the many-worlds understanding of every stuff which emerges from the fundamental ingredients anyway.

About the need to omit the math content for the sake of a better pedagogy. It is one thing to make efforts of trying to develop relatively good translations of math into words for this purpose. It is another thing to take this need of avoiding math for the public's sake as an excuse to conform one's own mind to this pedagogical standard of hatred of math, dismissing any care to understand this math for oneself, and then making heavy use of this personal ignorance of the actual content of known science, as a means to keep feeling innocent when proclaiming to the world that this math would prove the opposite of what it really does, while not letting people a chance to discover what might be wrong with the claimed conclusion.

About the need to help someone to "not feel attacked". It is one thing to divert from the topic by insisting on the duty of trying to adapt the expression of stuff for that purpose. But then specifying the expected expression of this requirement, first as "always interpreting the speech of another assuming he's intelligent", and later as "talk about mistakes rather than lies, which is not connoted with a negative intention" without anyhow noticing the contradiction, drives us further into the abyss of nonsense (but it would have been naive to not expect it to end up there anyway ; of course one might try to reject the contradiction, not in terms of lack of knowledge background for this case where competence is claimed, but of the possibility for some people to practice the art of sincerely using their intelligence inappropriately away from truth ; this would drive us too much away from the topic, moreover the methods of skepticism are not supposed to be the art of unintendedly using one's intelligence inappropriately, or are they ?)

About my reason to call this a "lie" rather than a "gross but still unimportant approximation for public understanding anyway" : I actually explained this valid reason before the request to talk of mistake rather than lie came as a reply:

It is on this ridiculous lie that rests the main usual physical argument of skeptics claiming that the von Neumann Wigner interpretation [seeing a fundamental role of consciousness to create physical reality] would be very problematic, when it is definitely not the case.

What should I conclude from this ? Poor dears are these skeptics victims of such a conspiracy of the laws of Nature which once entangled with their holy concerns for pedagogy throughout the math-dumb masses of people, drives them to so honestly and unwillingly fool everybody into the conviction that there would be a solid physical argument for physicalism when there really is none ! They deserve our compassionate understanding instead of a criticism don't they ?

Related topic : cognitive dissonance

On the diversity of skeptics

"I do not understand why you send me a text of virulent criticism of skeptics of this kind. What do you think I'm going to tell you? I do not recognize myself in what you denounce, and I do not recognize [skeptics peers] either. It would be silly to start talking in a Manichean way of good and bad skeptics. There might be people who claim to be skeptical and fit what you are describing, but this is not something to complain to us, we are doing everything we can to do a quality job. I don't see what more I can say."

Another aspect of how irrelevant it is to dismiss a criticism under the excuse of not recognizing oneself there, is also well explained by the famous atheist Greta Christina in these words

"And I get angry when believers act as if these offenses aren't important, because "Not all believers act like that. I don't act like that." As if that fucking matters. This stuff is a major way that religion plays out in our world, and it makes me furious to hear religious believers try to minimize it because it's not how it happens to play out for them. It's like a white person responding to an African-American describing their experience of racism by saying, "But I'm not a racist." If you're not a racist, then can you shut the hell up for ten seconds and listen to the black people talk? And if you’re not bigoted against atheists and are sympathetic to us, then can you shut the hell up for ten seconds and let us tell you about what the world is like for us, without getting all defensive about how it's not your fault? When did this international conversation about atheism and religious oppression become all about you and your hurt feelings?"

"— You think of skeptics as a uniform whole, but we are all very different individuals. We share the same goal, which is to promote critical thinking and the scientific method, but we do not have the same means, which creates major differences within the movement. And that's fine, a uniform movement is more likely to close in on itself. I understand you had a bad experience with a skeptic, but don't think they're all the same because of it"

What I reported in this exposition, for many quotes aside some less quoted others, is my experience with the only skeptic who, until now, had the patience and willingness of sustaining a very long and in-depth discussion with me on quite a number of topics. Moreover, if you really, seriously think that this one does not stand your standards of quality skeptical thinking, please say it so loud, denounce the mistakes so committed to stop other skeptics from committing the same mistakes in the future, and report it to him (I'll share contact), that would be a big news to him I am sure. Then if you believe that there is at least a noticeable fraction of the skeptics community with more intelligent and respectable behavior than this, it is up to them to prove it. First by understanding that my analysis deserves consideration without needing me to bother running after them, for serious reasons including the quality of my work of clarifying the foundations of mathematics and physics better than most other so-called science popularizers around. Then, by understanding that it needs serious replies publicly and officially in their publications. Because I have no time to waste for more private discussions with idiots speaking in the name of skepticism, in ways which could be more waste of time and nerves as, if I then tried to use these by writing further public reports on these (unless I'd be forbidden to, which would mean it really was an abuse of my time), that could be seen worth dismissing as another ridiculous attempt of extrapolation from a misfortunate experience with the wrong specimens of skeptics.

The idea of a diversity of views among skeptics raises the following issue. There is hopefully this fundamental observable difference between proper science which successfully studies reality, and cults with their dogmas or other failing research methods disconnected from reality : that in any given question altogether meaningful, important enough to get attention and work of serious and skilled investigators, old enough to have got that since quite a time, and easy enough to be accessible to clearly successful investigation in such time, science eventually reaches consensus, while cults fail and stay divided. There is the famous argument from locality, to criticize religions claims of knowing the truth of God for that reason.
Now if it happens for the community of skeptics to keep a heavy and persisting internal discrepancy of different views and different recognized lists of valid arguments on matters with the above mentioned qualities, then it should be seen as a bad sign to the credibility and claims of rationality of this community and its methods as a whole, rather than anything to be proud of.

If the limit to the possibility for skeptics to reach a reliable set of statements on important issues for their concerns is the too small number of active skeptics working on these, which would be ridiculously small compared to the more general scientific community, then they need to admit this: the skeptics community is only a tiny group of people still in their research at a speculative stage, not a proper representative and trustworthy voice of any kind of established science like other sciences can be.

This brings to remember a crucial structure of normal, mainstream science, that is the importance of clear distinctions between 3 different kinds of scientific activities in every field : research (which may be speculative towards new results), teaching of core established knowledge, and popularization. Skeptics do not seem to draw these lines so well in what they are doing. They may point out, as a useful part of rational thinking and debates, the need for people to specify, when making any claim, how sure these claims are seen. However beyond individual discussions done for practice and exploration, there are some topics of wide enough public interest, for which skeptics, in order to be serious and deserve the image of scientific credibility they are expecting, would need to better sort out their activities by not sharing what is sure and what isn't in the same communication spaces, but reserving their more speculative ideas for some more internal discussion spaces, while only spreading to channels for large audiences what was sufficiently checked and found to reach consensus among competent people, for which the risks and rights to commit mistakes can be ruled out.

Here is an example from another part of the conversation:

"(...)
[me:] — I even remember a private message from one (prominent) skeptic recommending me to go see a psychiatrist as an authority to justify that I would be mentally ill, even though in fact I was a victim of poisoning by them. But I can't find it, I seem to have deleted it from my mailbox (...) And so one of my big gripes with the skeptical community is that they generally side with psychiatrists against their critics.

— (...) it is possible that there is this problem because few people are aware of the damage that some psychiatrists can do... "

Now if it happens that official skeptics publications defend psychiatry as a proper science and dismiss its critics then I cannot see how any reasonable person aware of the damage of psychiatry can decently bear being featured as an active member of a skeptics organization without at least dedicating some energy to speak out loud publicly against those skeptics publications and their authors, declaring them a shame for skepticism, in imperative need to be clearly disavowed and contradicted through channels with at least as many readers or viewers as those through which the wrong views were spread in the first place. It should not be the duty of other people who discuss and try to assess the credibility of the skeptics community and its methods as a proper voice of reason, to happily praise the wisdom of true skepticism while excusing and ignoring the big faults committed in the most official skeptics channels, just in the name of the invisible existence of a minority of members of this community who silently think better. The burden to sort out such things should stand on the shoulders of skeptics themselves.

An important reason for this, is that it would be a great matter of practical application and testing of the belief according to which, in average, active skeptics would be no less rational and open to valid criticism and correction of mistakes than the rest of the population.

Summing up my old report

The main categories of those points:

• I developed a long list of contradictions and a list of sectarian aspects of the Zetetique movement
• I also listed lots of similarities of the Zetetique movement with both Christianity and Postmodernism (both are movements which skeptics officially claim to be radically opposed to), leading to classify "Scientific Skepticism" on the side of irrationality together with its "best enemies" that it is just a mirror image of, as opposed to mainstream science.
• I reported in French an attempt at discussion with the editors of the main French skeptical publication (Association Française pour l'Information Scientifique), showing their nonsense and scientific illiteracy. Some notes about them in English here, there and there.

• Their views are more diverse and naturally divergent, than the scientific community usually is; and it all diverges from the normal ways of science too. Divergence can be found among skeptical movements in France, even though most of them are based on the same doctrine written by their guru and founder (Henri Broch).
  Elsewhere, the Skeptical Inquirer, numbers 31/3 and 31/4, published an article in two parts, « Global climate change triggered by global warning » from the Center for Inquiry (organization for the defense of science and reason), explaining that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change really is the expression of the scientific consensus, and refuting one by one the main climate-skeptical arguments. Since the publication of the first part, and even more after the second, the editors received lots of letters from unhappy readers arguing that "Skeptics can only be climate-skeptics", some even requesting an immediate unsubscribe from this journal (Many such readers' letters are in 31/5). Generally, skeptics' forums are full of controversy and conspiracy theories about global warming, such as cannot usually be found in mainstream science.
• Their paranoia, that is, an exaggerated and unjustified belief in their opponents' irrationality and conspiracies, so as to dismiss them too easily. Namely, the way skeptics dismiss any contradiction by assuming without proper examination, that any opinion different than theirs (such as belief in afterlife, or claims of having observed paranormal phenomena) must be due to human error, fraud or desire to believe something, no matter how implausible such an explanation can sometimes be.
  
• Essentialism, that of mistaking reason with a specific metaphysical doctrine (ontological materialism); in other words, their confusion between a specific belief and an irrational way of thinking, under the same name "faith";
• Misunderstanding about what the existing body of scientific knowledge is really saying: while they are right to dismiss many pro-paranormal claims that distort the message of quantum physics and pretend to deduce much more from it ("law of attraction"...) than what it really says, the usual materialistic claims by skeptics (that the laws of physics would be complete enough to exclude the plausibility of paranormal phenomena) are usually no more compatible with quantum physics either. (In one argument page from the French Association for Scientific Information (AFIS), I even read the claim that the laws of physics are deterministic !!!).
• Lack of familiarity with the existing body of scientific knowledge that they claim to criticize (parapsychology)
• Lack of serious extended work to develop experiments (instead, skeptics are a lobby against experiments on the paranormal, not developing serious experiments themselves)
  
• Simplicity, amateurism
• A caricatural view of the scientific method
• Essentialism on their interpretation of the scientific method, which they present as a sort of spiritual, intrinsic virtue, a matter of intentionality, to praise and develop for itself, making us deserve to be right, forgetting that it should rather be undertaken as an adventure to explore and adapt to a reality that does not care about us, or for our virtue, sincerity and dedication.
• Double standard of criticism: blind uncriticized belief of biased and even sometimes false information from their own group (whatever agrees with them), but systematic reactions of hyperbolic doubt towards opposite claims
• Their focus on evangelization rather than curiosity and research
• Their conformism, assuming that everything is already known and that anything not conforming to their laws and fundamental truths would be evil.
• Their lazy confusion between all kinds of opponents
• Ad hominem arguments, with blind assumptions of the irrationality of opponents to avoid serious rational debates on the core of the subjects. Opposing views are often blindly dismissed as merely caused by feelings, such as desires, conspiracies, delusion or fear.
• A form of collective infalsifiability within the movement, that consists in remaining insensitive to having members of one's group convinced by contrary evidence, by excommunicating them as never having been authentic members of the movement; and replacing them by naive newbies to continue the movement.

Some historical aspects in France and in the world

The study of paranormal phenomena developed as a scientific field, that is parapsychology, which came to be somehow officially accepted as a science when the Parapsychological Association became affiliated to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1969. Among researchers in this field, a sort of consensus more or less emerged, that some proofs of existence of supernatural phenomena are present, but they are often very tenuous (with casual exceptions) so that it is not possible to provide as clear and simple proofs as many skeptics are usually requiring, but a long study in the field is required to figure out the existing evidence.
There is only one research organization on parapsychology in France, Institut Métapsychique International (IMI), which is recognized as a public interest organization but hardly has any public support, and roughly no recognition of its views by any other organization. (So, thorough debates usually have to refer to the data produced outside of France as evidence for psi)

Instead, the views of the skeptics groups ("Zététique") are strongly supported by the academic system and other official scientific organizations.

The founding organization of the whole French skeptical movement (Cercle Zététique) was more and more discredited and finally self-dissolved, as the leading and finally remaining few members were the most sectarian.
One of them is the Laboratoire de Zététique, an official laboratory in the University of Nice, directed by the founder of the Cercle (Henri Broch), and officially supported by 2 French Physics Nobel laureates, both dead but still put forward as honorary members.

The other, less official but the least sectarian and thus most respectable, thus with the most members, is the Observatoire Zététique, based in Grenoble. So they have basically the same ideology from the same guru (Broch) but make a difference by their "soft attitude".
Smaller groups and independent skeptical webmasters also exist.
The Observatoire made clear its independence to not be mistaken with the others' bigotry, and prefers to not put forward its divergence with the other groups, but all is explained in its forum.

The whole ideology of the Zététique groups is that they are not interested in the paranormal for itself, but made the choice to focus on paranormal claims (preferably the most crazy and incredible ones, or their own caricatural interpretation of them) as a toy model for a pedagogical project of teaching the scientific method to a large public. But the practical effect of doing so is a dogmatic, ideological fight against all paranormal claims across society through unserious investigations only; and their discrepancy with science is particularly manifested by their amateurist, demagogic approach of the scientific method (which one web site of a small zététique group claims to be applicable by a child) - while of course keeping the conclusion fixed by "science".

The Skepticism pole of IMI's student group, whose members had to remain anonymous to avoid any sort of personal attacks, hold a blog and made a lot of contributions to many online discussions. Finally they set up a web site (old version) to debunk the claims of the Zététique movement.
By taking the time to review some of the many debates across forums and blog comments, it is striking how more rational and convincing (while remaining very polite and civilized) is the argumentation of these critics, as compared to the visible dogmatism, sectarianism, amateurism and paranoia of the skeptics, who were already widely discredited across any forum not hosted by them nor by any "officially scientific" organization.

"To finish with some clichés: parapsychologists would be marginal, while skeptics would be the official representatives of science. And what if it were the contrary ?

(This text is an introduction to the lecture given by Pierre Lagrange January 28, 2005 at IMI)

I want to consider two points during this presentation. The first is how all actors, whether favorable to the study of parapsychology or against this study, present the debate. In their view, this debate would oppose a parapsychology at the margins of science that would be barred from becoming a normal science because of the opposition of skeptics, integrated with the institution. But if you look at the situation as it stands, we notice that it is parapsychology, particularly through the Parapsychological Association, that belongs to the institution, while the skeptics are those gathered in associations outside the establishment. It is therefore not a controversy for the admission of a discipline but a controversy between scientists (parapsychologists) and science consumers (the rationalists) who are skeptical towards the interest of obtained results for society, as often happens (GMOs, nuclear energy etc.). Thus why do even parapsychologists accept reports on the controversy that do not correspond to reality and promote the discourse of skeptics ? That is an enigma.

But this puzzle does not come alone. In fact, I think it is related, at least in France to another very powerful speech in parapsychology circles. Indeed, for decades, endless controversies always occurred following the terms imposed by rationalists. Thus parapsychologists scramble to meet the requirements of proof raised by rationalists rather than rely on the normal scientific practice and seek in the plurality of scientific practices the allies they would need. And this discourse on evidence taken from rationalists (that has the disadvantage of being by definition impossible to satisfy) is coupled with a lack of real practice of the discipline. However, it is difficult to accept that rationalists are such a great danger when we see that parapsychology has scientific societies such as the PA, newspapers referees and symposia. (...) there were other times, especially in the early 50s with Robert Amadou, when parapsychology had created the conditions for a debate without worrying constantly of the only rationalist opponents (...) By focusing on rationalists, parapsychologists today give the impression of wanting to support them at all costs by refraining in finding elsewhere the relays to build an identity for research in parapsychology (...)"

"If you want, to give you a picture, what OZ does for me represents what a young physics student who would suddenly want to do chemistry experiments would do. He knows nothing about chemistry but he wants to test what his neighbor told him about a chemical phenomenon that he is sure he can reproduce. The neighbor in question does not understand anything about the phenomenon and does not know that this phenomenon had appeared thanks to a catalyst. The physics student, who knows nothing about chemistry and who has not read the literature, does not know the catalyst. He therefore makes his experiment under these conditions, the most rigorous possible, and obtains nothing (because there is not the catalyst). He therefore concluded that he never saw this chemical reaction but that he remains open. He even publishes a detailed account on the Internet. When chemists see his work and suggest modifications to it, notably taking into account the catalyst, our physics student replies that he does not do research in chemistry, what he does is test what his neighbor said. He is not interested in knowing the scientific literature on the subject. Then, this student sometimes makes on stands (at exhibitions) some experiments supposed to show this chemical experiment, but in reality, he then demonstrates that it is a trick, he cheated to show this phenomenon. In reality, he never observed it. And on his site and when he talks to other people about this subject, he does not refer to the work of chemists because it is not his field.
...
In short, what I am trying to tell you is the following: if you want to allow scientific thought to be disseminated, that is fine. But please, do not do it using the support of Paranormal. Because by acting in this way, perhaps involuntarily, you harm parapsychology because for the public, OZ is a valid interlocutor in the field of the scientific approach of the so-called paranormal phenomena. Many people think that if you do not get anything, it is because these phenomena do not exist. However the question is very complex. You do not do research, you do not consult the publications and it is not your goal. If you really want to use the paranormal, then make it clear that you are not referring to scientific parapsychology and the reasons for that. For now, this is not clear on your site.