http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=448456
Thread closed rapidly. http://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2990936&postcount=21
My guess is that someone complained. Typical. I have no idea what the moderator will decide.
Still, I got in quite a few refutations of the nonsense being confidently asserted by pseudoskeptics. It might get through to some, whether them or someone else seeing the thread from searches. I originally found the thread because it popped up in a search for "Storms Status of cold fusion (2010)" which is how I quickly find the links to the paper.
And I'm responding to the responses to me that started to come in. The usual intense bogosity confidently asserted as if it were the Scientific Consensus and Who the Hell are You to Question Me?
See http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7618367/ Really funny, and all too true, video on pseudoskepticism.
I like especially the last lines, where the cool and collected scientist blows him away by saying, in response to his comment about aliens, "I know aliens are real because I have seen them." Typically for a pseudoskeptic, he doesn't ask her what she means, shows no curiosity that someone who doesn't look at all crazy would say such a thing, he just says, "You're crazy, I'm out of here."
What did she mean? I have no idea! And, I think, that's the point. Pseudoskeptics reject stuff when they have No Idea what is meant. Maybe she meant, "I see one right now, your views are alien to the very concept of science, as built up using the scientific method." Characteristic of pseudoskeptics is a profound lack of curiosity.
Nobody has to drop everything because someone says they saw a ghost! But if I were actually talking with someone who said that, I'd ask *lots* of questions. What did you see, exactly? Sounds? What else was happening? How did you feel later? And on and on. And I'd watch them closely as they responded, allowing them to communicate through all the media including their eye movements and body language. I'd let them know that I was truly listening to them.
Did they actually see a "ghost"? What the hell is a "ghost"? Is it outside the mind or inside it?
To flat-out deny, without specific evidence, someone's experience, reported by them, is phenomenally rude, for starters. To try to understand it is the opposite. There could be many possible explanations for "ghost," some interesting, some not. I'll never know if I knee-jerk reject what someone is standing in front of me, telling me. Their experience. I don't have to accept their conclusions!
I'll respond to the comments on my posts in a response to this.
