Scientists Too Often Give Us Their Laziest Efforts When Writing About the Paranormal

It seems that when mainstream scientists other than parapsychologists write about the paranormal, they usually give us their laziest efforts, failing to be diligent in either scholarship or logic. It's as if their rule was: when writing about the paranormal, just "phone it in." An example of the lazy responses scientists gave to the US Congress UFO hearing is a tweet by physicist Brian Cox, in which he stated, "I watched a few clips and saw some people who seemed to believe stuff saying extraordinary things without presenting extraordinary evidence."  How very lazy, to scold people based on impressions got after you just "watched a few clips" rather than watching the entire hearing (easily available on youtube.com) or reading a full transcript of the testimony.  In the post here I mention some extremely lazy-sounding writing by two  astronomers who discussed UFOs in a manner leaving us with the impression that the astronomers had dashed off their literary efforts without thinking very carefully, and gave us the impression that they had never seriously studied the topics of UFOs.  Then there's a certain widely-quoted psychologist who seems to resort to very lazy "shame the witnesses" gaslighting most of the times he is asked by the press to comment on some type of report of the paranormal. 

Recently I read an additional example of an astronomer writing about the paranormal, giving us what sounds like his laziest and lamest efforts.  The example was an article by astrophysicist Paul Sutter entitled "The key to fighting pseudoscience isn’t mockery—it’s empathy."  The title is self-contradictory. "Pseudoscience" is a mocking abusive term skeptics use about any observational reports that they do not wish to admit are real. Sutter's continual use of the abusive term "pseudoscience" throughout his article to refer to various observational reports or theories he does not wish to believe in is itself an example of mockery, not empathy.  

Sutter writes a long lazy article that seems scholarship-free, rather as if he couldn't be bothered to do a Google search.  He shows not the slightest evidence of having studied any reports of anomalous phenomena such as UFOs or apparitions. There is nothing surprising about this. What we should always remember is that the vast majority of physical scientists have never seriously studied any of the vast literature documenting observations of inexplicable phenomena.  Such scientists follow a "nothing spooky allowed" rule that controls their speech and their reading. One of the worst mistakes you can make is to assume that scientist specialists are generalist scholars. The vast majority are not.  When a physical scientist such as an astronomer makes one of his rare mentions of the paranormal, you should remember that in all likelihood such a scientist has not read even one of the 100 top books he should have read before speaking on such a topic. 

The subtitle of Sutter's article makes this claim: "Evidence shows that shoving data in peoples’ faces doesn’t work to change minds." No, that isn't true. Citing facts may not work as well as someone might hope, but presenting facts does help to change many  minds. Why would someone such as Sutter wish to cite so ridiculous a principle? The answer is probably that Sutter does not want to get into arguing about evidence because he has not done any of the relevant study he should have done if he wanted to combat the opinions he does not want people to believe in.  Of course, if you have not bothered to study any of the literature about the paranormal, then the most convenient principle you can cite is a principle that excuses you from presenting any facts, under the lame excuse that facts don't persuade people. 

Sutter's article gives us some paragraphs that give us the old Portrait of the Noble Objective Scientist portrayal that scientists like to trot out whenever convenient. In this portrayal scientists are portrayed as having some special intellectual virtue that the average man does not possess. We read this:

"It involves skills like rigor, where we take our own statements seriously and follow them to their full logical conclusions. Or humility, where we learn to accept that any statement can be proven wrong at any time. There’s also fundamental skepticism, in that we allow the evidence to dictate our beliefs. Science is characterized by a spirit of openness, by requiring that methods and techniques be shared and publicized so that others can critique and extend them, and connectedness, which is a sense that statements we make must connect with the broader collection of scientific knowledge. Lastly, science persists in a constant state of evolution, where we always refine our beliefs and statements given new evidence or insights.

These qualities together make the scientific method work on a day-to-day basis. And while any individual scientist will fall short at one or more of these qualities for at least some—or, sadly, the entirety—of their careers, the practice of science is to always strive for these noble goals."

This idealized "Normal Rockwell" portrait does not match the reality of what is going on these days among scientists. In particular:

• In fields such as neuroscience, cosmology and evolutionary biology, there is a very notable lack of rigor in experimental methods. In experimental neuroscience these days there is a massive preponderance of Questionable Research Practices, with such practices being more the norm than the exception. Cosmology and astrophysics are massively infected by speculation-driven analysis revolving around dubious dogmas such as dark matter and dark energy and primordial cosmic inflation, things never observed. 
• There is very little humility among today's physical scientists, and much more of the opposite of humility: hubris. Physical scientists massively claim with great dogmatism to understand great mysteries of nature they do not at all understand, such as the origin of species and the origin of the universe's physical structure and the origin of human minds. 
• Today's physical scientists have "fundamental skepticism" about various things they prefer not to believe in (such as paranormal psychic phenomena) but the opposite of such skepticism (credulous dogmatism) when dealing with any belief dogma that is cherished within their belief community, such as the idea that Darwinian ideas explain the origin of species and the idea that brains explain minds, and the groundless dogmas of dark matter and dark energy, not directly established by any observations. 
• Instead of there being a situation today where "we always refine our beliefs and statements given new evidence or insights," physical scientists for two hundred years have displayed the exact opposite behavior: a refusal to modify beliefs and statements in the face of massive evidence for paranormal phenomena such as ESP. 

The gigantic failure of the majority of physical scientists to seriously study two centuries of written reports of paranormal phenomena (often written by scientists and doctors)  makes a mockery of Sutter's claim that mainstream scientists have some special "deep soul" that makes them superior to researchers of paranormal phenomena, particularly given that such reports are of the utmost relevance to explanatory boasts such scientists make.  Such a failure makes such scientists seem largely like "heads in the sand" folks or "horse blinder" people or "see only what they want to see" guys rather than those with some special intellectual virtue. The Venn diagram below tells the truth about the shortfalls of today's scientists:

A good rule is: do not trust scientists making generalizations about the virtuous tendencies of scientists. Such statements are no more reliable than statements in which Republican congressmen lecture you about the virtuous behavior of Republican congressmen, or statements in which Democratic senators lecture you about the virtuous behavior of Democratic senators.  The table below helps put into perspective what is going on in the belief communities that physical scientists belong to. Below are some cases of social groups in which all members were conditioned to believe certain dogmas, with various forms of sanctions for any deviation from the group orthodoxy.

Social Group	Dogma Mandated by Social Group
Ancient Roman senators	The belief that Rome is destined to rule the world, and that local rebellions must be quickly crushed.
Medieval clergymen	The belief that the Church is the supreme holder of truth, and that heretics must be destroyed.
Southern US slaveholders, circa 1830	The belief that people with dark skin are fit only to serve as slaves.
German officials, World War II	The belief that Germans are destined to rule as the master race.
Soviet Union officials, circa 1950	The belief that history is essentially a class struggle that is reaching its climax in the creation of communist worker's paradises such as the Soviet Union.
American government and military officials, circa 1965	The belief that much of Vietnam must be thoroughly bombed to prevent Communist expansion.
Modern physical science professors	The belief that biological innovations have  appeared merely because of random mutations and natural selection, the belief that the brain is the sole source of the human mind and self, and the belief that spooky things suggestive of a human soul (such as ESP or apparition appearances or genuine out-of-body experiences) cannot ever occur.

Sutter then gives us this ridiculous statement about the study of apparitions:

"For example, if you’ve ever watched a ghost-hunting show, well.. first of all, I’m sorry. But you can tell it’s pseudoscience because, while ghost hunters use lots of fancy equipment and jargon, they don’t apply skepticism and rigor to their own statements. They don’t rule out more plausible explanations, and they don’t follow their thinking to its logical conclusion. If we can detect the presence of ghosts, then that must mean they interact with the material world, which would entail that their presence should manifest in any number of obvious ways."

Scientists have been seriously studying apparition sightings for more than 140 years, since the time the Society for Psychical Research published its massive two-volume work Phantasms of the Living, with a total of about 1300 pages, which you can read here and here. Work on this topic continues, and I recently received (in response to my query) an email from psychology professor Chris A. Roe sending me some very interesting recent scientific papers on this topic, including this one. The study with about 1000 respondents found 34% reported a sense of presence from a deceased person  and a higher percentage (46%) reporting a visual experience involving the deceased, along with 43% reporting an auditory experience. The 2021 study has this interesting quote, using the term "ADC" for "after-death communication":

"Surprisingly, 36.4% of our respondents reported that they were not alone at the time of their ADC, and of these, 21.0% asserted that the ADC was witnessed by their companions. Also related to the perceived evidentiality of the experiences, 24.4% of respondents stated that they had received information that was previously unknown to them (often concerning circumstances of the deceased's passing.)"

Numerous other scientific studies indicating the reality of apparition sightings are discussed in my post here. Citing TV ghost hunting shows to try to discredit the study of apparitions is a silly thing to do.  And Sutter hasn't said anything to discredit such shows,  which he probably never has watched. His claim that if ghosts existed they would be making themselves manifest "in any number of obvious ways" is a lame piece of reasoning. We do not know how ghosts would interact with the world if they existed. 

Sutter is not making sense when he states the following: 

"There’s more—way more. UFOlogy, cryptozoology, ancient aliens, flat-Earth conspiracies. These beliefs and practices may look like science from the outside, or at least share a small subset of its features, but they lack the deep soul that separates science from other branches of human inquiry."

There is no "deep soul" that distinguishes something like modern-day astrophysics from the study of UFOs or the study of archeological evidence that may suggest ancient alien visitors. Modern-day astrophysics hinges upon wildly speculative ideas such as dark matter and dark energy and primordial cosmic inflation, which have never been directly observed. The study of UFOs is based on UFO sightings that have been massively observed.  So for an astrophysicist to play "holier than thou" comparing his kind to UFO scholars makes no sense.  As for the theory of ancient alien visitors, one of the first people to advance it was the astronomer Carl Sagan, who advanced it in his book Intelligent Life in the Universe. The idea was very respectable among astronomers until a layman (Erich von Daniken) started making lots of money writing books advancing the theory. Perhaps jealous that a layman had mined this goldmine first, astronomers then senselessly declared the theory a taboo. 

In the "Why Pseudoscience Succeeds" section of his article, Sutter goes into disparagement mode. He attempts to argue that people believe in the things he calls pseudoscience because it comforts them. You could make exactly the same type of argument to disparage many of the things mainstream scientists believe in.  In particular:

• You could argue that the reason why biologists believe in the groundless boast that Darwin explained the origin of species is because this makes biologists feel better by allowing them to position themselves as Grand Lords of Explanation who understand deep mysteries of human existence, and also because such a belief comforts them when they are troubled by massive evidence of design and purposeful engineering within biological organisms, evidence that troubles them because it contradicts their atheist assumptions. 
• You could argue that the reason why biologists believe in the groundless idea that the human brain explains the human mind (despite so much evidence to the contrary) is that such a belief allows them to  to position themselves as Grand Lords of Explanation who understand deep mysteries of the human mind, and also because such a belief comforts them when they are troubled by massive evidence that human minds have very many  capabilities and experiences that such minds could only have if they are God-given souls,  evidence that troubles them because it contradicts their atheist assumptions.
• You could argue that the reason why astrophysicists such as Sutter believe in the dubious dogmas of dark matter and dark energy is that such a belief allows them to  to position themselves as Grand Lords of Explanation who understand deep mysteries of how the universe got its current structure. 

I may note that it makes no sense to claim that people believe in UFOs because it comforts them. A person believing in UFOs will typically believe that our planet is being visited by mysterious powers that may or may not be benevolent. Such a belief is as likely to scare someone as it is to comfort someone. 

You do not discredit beliefs by speculating about a person's psychological motives for holding such beliefs. After mentioning ghosts and UFOs, Sutter claims this:

"Ultimately, pseudoscience provides answers. Plausible-sounding, reasonable-enough answers. The world is harsh, confusing, and unfair. Pseudoscience gives comfort, explanation, and predictability. Pseudoscience makes the world appear more stable and understandable and relatable."

No, people who claim that UFOs are real and that apparitions are real are not offering "predictability" and do not make "the world appear more stable and understandable."  A world in which ghosts or UFOs are appearing is not more predictable, more stable and more understandable than a world in which no such things happen, but instead a world less predictable and more mysterious. So there is no credibility in Sutter's armchair psychologist explanations for why people report paranormal phenomena.

Very frequent use of the term "pseudoscience" (such as we see in Sutter's article) is a sign of investigative laziness. Good scholars investigate in depth theoretical and observational claims, and when they think such claims are unwarranted, they explain how those making the claims fell short.  When people are too lazy to do such work, they may just write vacuous pieces using the term "pseudoscience" over and over again. 

Sutter proposes what he calls "radical empathy" with people who report the paranormal.  What he actually means by this "empathy" is a kind of disparaging belittlement. Under the "radical empathy" he suggests, the skeptic says to himself something like, "I put myself mentally in the shoes of the person believing in the paranormal, and try to understand the psychological comfort factors that are causing such beliefs."  Such "empathy" is just a pleasant word Sutter is using for what seems like a recommendation to shame the witnesses and those who study their accounts whenever such accounts offend mainstream scientists.  

Writing on the paranormal, Sutter seems to have given us only his lamest and laziest efforts, which includes some "armchair psychoanalyst" stuff. His article shows not the slightest evidence of having studied human reports of paranormal phenomena.  A look at Sutter's papers on Google Scholar (and a look at about 200 articles he has written for LiveScience.com) fails to show any evidence of him studying seriously any claims of paranormal phenomena. The first article that comes up in that list of LiveScience articles finds Sutter promoting the idea there is some " 'dark mirror' universe," an idea that may make you wonder whether Sutter is throwing stones from a glass house in accusing others of pushing pseudoscience. On the first page of those articles we also see Sutter making the supremely ridiculous claim that life could have formed seconds after the Big Bang, on the grounds that "perhaps it's possible to have life without chemistry." Wow, that idea sounds a billion times more unbelievable than UFOs or ancient aliens. 

Postscript: In an interview appearing today to promote a new book he wrote, Sutter sounds far more candid than he did in the article I quote from above. He states this:

"We, as a community of scientists, are so obsessed with publishing papers — there is this mantra 'publish or perish,' and it is the number one thing that is taught to you, as a young scientist, that you must publish a lot in very high profile journals. And that is your number one goal in life. And what this is causing is an environment where scientific fraud can flourish unchecked. Because we are not doing our job, as scientists. We don’t have time to cross-check each other, we don’t have time to take our time, we don’t have time to be very slow and patient with our own research, because we are so focused with publishing as many papers as possible. So we have seen, over the past few years, an explosion in the rise of fraud. And different kinds of fraud. There is the outright fabrication — the creating of data out of whole cloth. And then there’s also what I call 'soft fraud' — lazy science, poorly done science. Massaging your results a little bit just so you can achieve a publishable result. That leads to a flooding of just junk, poorly done science."

But when asked at the beginning of the interview to name "the biggest problem with science today," Sutter says, "I think it’s an inability for scientists to meaningfully engage with the public." Huh? So that's a bigger problem than "an explosion in the rise of fraud" and scientists not doing their job, and producing "lazy science, poorly done science" and "a flooding of just junk, poorly done science"?