Auwvax.329 net.misc utzoo!decvax!harpo!uwvax!doug Sun Apr 18 14:45:59 1982 psi skeptical remarks The person who remarked: "When people see things that they have no way of explaining, then new theories are in order. On the other hand, when people have theories but no evidence, research rather than flaming is called for." made a good point. The arguments of proponents of theories for which no evidence exists are always things like: "just because you don't understand a phenomena is no reason to ignore or ridicule it" or "there are things in the universe beyond our current understanding - not to recognize that is the worst kind of intellectual narrow-mindedness." While both these statements are obviously true, neither addresses the claims of the "psi proponents". What phenomena? What specific thing is it that we don't understand that we ought to spend time and effort studying? The only phenomena that I see of real interest here is that of people making claims of existence for a state of things for which not a shred of evidence exists. Why do people do this? Could it be that people faced with the complexity and seeming spirituality of their own selves simply cannot face the very real possibility that we live in a strictly material universe? The people who say that skeptics are narrow-minded should honestly confront themselves and ask, "do I believe these things simply because I wish they were true or is there *really* a reason why I think they might be true?" ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.