Steve: Besides, it seems like most of what is presented as “science” in discussions is not actually scientific praxis but philosophical theory: scientism and materialism. The insistence that science alone can answer all questions about the nature of reality—often paired with materialism—is actually scientism, a type of quasi-religious faith that holds scientific knowledge as the only viable knowledge.
My mother and my best friend in my whole life have seen ghosts. Science tells me that they are lying, full of shit, hallucinating, or insane. I do not believe that are any of those things. They told me flat out that they saw them with their very own eyes as real as day as if you were standing here next to me as I write this.
My mother has also had some telepathy and clairvoyant experiences. Science tells me my mother is full of it.
People’s pets will often run to the telephone just before the master calls home. Science says this doesn’t happen or it’s just chance.
People go on vacations for a long time and on the day they come back, the cat goes outside and sits by the sidewalk waiting for them. Science says this doesn’t happen or it’s just chance that the cat sat outside.
They have done actual experiments that prove that people can sense when someone is watching them even when they cannot even see the person who is watching them. These studies are well done and have been replicated numerous times.
But Science refuses to accept these studies, with endless complaints about poor design, chance, lack of controls, selection bias, etc.. The truth is that the studies are never going to be good enough. For science to agree that humans can sense that someone is watching them even when they cannot see anyone watching them would mean that we have some sort of psi skills outside of the five senses. There is nothing that Science hates more than the idea of Psi Abilities. They probably hate that more than anything else. Because they hate it so much, they will never believe it. Their minds are already made up. They will reject every study showing that psi is real because it’s coming up with the wrong conclusions.
Science says that all of the psi evidence above is laughable bullshit, and anyone who believes it is an idiot or a kook or both.
I think science is wrong about all of the psi-type things described above, but on the other hand, most of this sort of thing is probably not provable by the scientific method anyway. The truth is that a whole huge hunk of the world is simply outside of the world of science. Science can prove, disprove or explain many things. But for a big slice of life, science has nothing to do with it, nor should it. Science needs to butt out of the whole part of the world that is outside of its realm in the first place.
