There
is a new survey by Chapman University that claims to have determined
that roughly half of Americans believe in the paranormal. The study
reaches the claim that “half of Americans do believe in something
paranormal.” But the methodology used to reach this claim is very
faulty, and a strong case can be made that up to 90% or more of
Americans believe in the paranormal (although much fewer might answer
“Yes” if asked if they believe in the paranormal).
To try to determine how many people believe in the paranormal, the survey asked the respondents whether they believed in any of the seven items listed below. The percentages are the fraction that answered “Agree or strongly agree.”
Places can be haunted by
spirits 41.4%
The living and dead can
communicate with each other 26.5%
Dreams foretell the future
20.9%
Aliens visited Earth in
our ancient past. 20.3%
Aliens have come to Earth
in modern times. 18.1%
Astrologers, fortune
tellers, and psychics can foresee the future. 13.9%
Bigfoot is a real creature
11.4%
Apparently their thinking was: just add up how many people expressed belief in at least one of these seven things, and that gives you how many Americans believe in the paranormal. But it makes little sense to try to deduce what fraction of Americans believe in the paranormal from such a limited list of questions. The questions cover only a small fraction of the phenomena that can be considered paranormal. Also, the wording of some of the questions is poor. For example, “Dreams can sometimes foretell the future” would have got a higher response rate than “Dreams foretell the future.”
That raises the question:
what do we mean by paranormal? When you type “definition of
paranormal” in Google.com, you can get a definition that isn't too
bad, but which gives particular examples that should not be included
in a definition: “Denoting events or phenomena such as telekinesis
or clairvoyance that are beyond the scope of normal scientific
understanding.” Telekinesis is one of the more poorly
substantiated paranormal phenomena, so if you go asking people, in
effect, if you believe in “stuff like telekinesis,” the great
majority of people will say no. A skeptic might want to use such a
definition, in hopes of getting some survey result saying that most
people don't believe in the paranormal; but using that definition
wouldn't be fair.
A better definition of
paranormal is found at www.meriam-webster.com:
“Very strange and not able to be explained by what scientists know
about nature and the world.” This is a good broad definition that
doesn't “poison the well” by mentioning particular beliefs. How
many Americans believe in the paranormal, using this broad
definition?
To answer that, we would
have to ask many more questions than just the seven asked by the
Chapman University survey. We would also have to ask about belief in
ESP, belief in paranormal premonitions, belief in faith healing,
belief that you can sometimes get what you want through intercessory
prayer, belief in reincarnation, belief in demon possession, belief
in any type of miracles reported in the Bible, and a large variety of
other phenomena that qualify as “very strange and not able to be
explained by what scientists know about nature and the world.”
I may note that there is
no sound intellectual basis for saying that alleged phenomena such as
ESP or UFOs should be considered paranormal but alleged phenomena
such as biblical miracles or faith healing should not be considered
paranormal, on the grounds that the latter beliefs have been around
for so long that they are not “very strange” ideas. When talking
about what is “very strange” here, we simply mean outside of what
scientists can explain through scientific theory. From that
standpoint, the idea that a human's prayers might be answered by God
(or that God may have performed a miracle) is every bit as paranormal
as items such as ESP or UFOs.
So if we did in the right
way our survey designed to find out how many Americans believe in the
paranormal, it might look a little like this:
Do you believe:
Places can be haunted by
spirits. Yes __ No __
The living and dead can
communicate with each other. Yes __ No __
Dreams can sometimes
foretell the future. Yes __ No __
Aliens visited Earth in
our ancient past. Yes __ No __
Aliens have come to Earth
in modern times. Yes __ No __
Some psychics can foresee
the future. Yes __ No __
Bigfoot is a real
creature. Yes __ No __
Humans can sometimes
communicate through ESP. Yes __ No __
Photos can show
strange things science cannot explain. Yes __ No __
Miracles were performed
long ago. Yes __ No __
Faith healing sometimes
produces dramatic healing. Yes __ No __
You can ask God for
special favors, and have your prayers answered. Yes __ No __
There are special healers
who can heal without using medicine. Yes __ No __
Some writers have written
words that God sent to them. Yes __ No __
Miracles are sometimes
performed in modern times. Yes __ No __
Some people get paranormal
premonitions of disaster. Yes __ No __
Reincarnation sometimes
occurs. Yes __ No __
Given a survey like this,
I imagine that 80% or more of the American public would answer “Yes”
to one of these questions. So it would seem that we should say that
at least 80 percent of the American people believe in the paranormal.
But even a survey like the
one above would not be complete. We should add at least one other
paranormal item – one that is in the current canon of mainstream
scientific thought.
I refer to the Big Bang.
The Big Bang theory holds that our entire universe began in an
infinitely dense point called the primordial singularity. This idea
definitely does meet our definition of paranormal, which was: “very
strange and not able to be explained by what scientists know about
nature and the world.” Scientists have no explanation for the Big
Bang, which is a total mystery. There are a few speculative ideas
floating about as to the cause of the Big Bang, but no such
speculation has gained general acceptance. I may note that the
super-speculative idea of the universe beginning as a vacuum
fluctuation has no actual support from anything scientists have ever
observed, because no scientist has ever observed any visible object
appearing as a result of a vacuum fluctuation, not even an object as
big as a grain of sand.
The Big Bang: It doesn't get more paranormal than this
The Big Bang is really the
epitome of the paranormal – a totally strange, unexplained event
observed only once. It would not be as paranormal if we were to
observe an entire galaxy instantly popping into existence, or an
entire planet instantly popping into existence.
So we should add this last
line to our survey designed to find the percentage of Americans who
believe in the paranormal:
Do you believe:
Places can be haunted by
spirits. Yes __ No __
The living and dead can
communicate with each other. Yes __ No __
Dreams can sometimes
foretell the future. Yes __ No __
Aliens visited Earth in
our ancient past. Yes __ No __
Aliens have come to Earth
in modern times. Yes __ No __
Some psychics can foresee
the future. Yes __ No __
Bigfoot is a real
creature. Yes __ No __
Humans can sometimes
communicate through ESP. Yes __ No __
Photos sometimes show
strange things science cannot explain. Yes __ No __
Miracles were performed
long ago. Yes __ No __
Faith healing sometimes
produces dramatic healing. Yes __ No __
You can ask God for
special favors, and have your prayers answered. Yes __ No __
There are special healers
who can heal without using medicine. Yes __ No __
Some writers have written
words that God sent to them. Yes __ No __
Miracles are sometimes
performed in modern times. Yes __ No __
Some people get paranormal
premonitions of disaster. Yes __ No __
Reincarnation sometimes
occurs. Yes __ No __
Universe suddenly began in
infinitely dense point (Big Bang) Yes __ No __
With the addition of this last line, we finally have a fairly complete survey designed to find out whether the respondent holds any paranormal beliefs, defined as “very strange and not able to be explained by what scientists know about nature and the world.” With the addition of this last line, the percentage of respondents answering at least one “Yes” answer would probably exceed 90%.
In short, a strong case
can be made that 90% or more of Americans believe in the paranormal,
in the sense of having a belief in at least one thing that is “very
strange and not able to be explained by what scientists know about
nature and the world.” I may note that a large fraction of
Americans that say they don't believe in the paranormal will actually
find that they do believe in at least one paranormal thing, if they
do a complete inventory of their beliefs, and ask themselves whether
at least one of these beliefs is a belief in something “very
strange and not able to be explained by what scientists know about
nature and the world.”
Postscript: A 2024 study of the 2534 in the Netherlands found that "55.6% of respondents qualify as paranormal believers based on the preregistered criterion that they believe in at least one phenomenon with considerable certainty." The study was collected by some skeptic organization, and there is reason to suspect that the detected level of belief in the paranormal would be much higher if it had been collected by a neutral body with polling expertise offering a secret ballot. One of the graphs in the paper is an outrageous example of deceptive graphical misrepresentation, in which you see things such as bars representing 50% looking four times longer than bars representing 25%.
A 2024 study says this:
"Like lucid dreams, precognitive dreams are commonplace with approximately 30%–60% of people claiming to have experienced a precognitive dream at least once in their lifetime (Eranimos & Funkhouser, 2023; Haraldsson, 1985; Pechey & Halligan, 2012; Sherwood & Roe, 2013; Van de Castle, 1977)."
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