Richard Dolan and the "normality of the paranormal". (baloney detection kit included.)

Richard Dolan and George Hansen, self proclaimed UFO & Paranormal researcher and parapsychologist respectively, will… (Let me see, yes!) They will normalize the paranormal, but it’s not simple to tell something about this oxymoronic concept, because IF the paranormal is normalized it simply disappears, right? It’s not paranormal any more.

 UFO researcher Richard Dolan and parapsychologist George Hansen argue that advances in technology are expanding the limits of human consciousness to the point where supernatural phenomena will become commonly accepted occurrences.

http://omtimes.com/2013/11/normalizing-supernatural/

This complete nonsense implies several things. Basically, what is called paranormal phenomena exist but our limited consciousness is unable to perceive these phenomena. At the same time, the statement implies that people like Richard Dolan and George Hansen are “advanced” enough to detect these paranormal phenomena.

 “As evidence of otherworldly contacts increases, - says Dolan without giving any evidence, as usual -the motivation to keep such information suppressed increases as well. Richard Dolan feels public disclosure will happen, but it will require a major paradigm change.”

For Richard Dolan, privileged visionary, otherworldly contacts (?) and the conspiracy of the authorities to cover up these “phenomena” are facts. Dolan feels that he doesn’t need to give any concrete reliable evidence of what he says.

Our advice is this: read about this meaningless fiction given as fact, but keep the Baloney Detection Kit included below with you.

 CARL SAGAN'S BALONEY DETECTION KIT

Based on the book The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan

The following are suggested as tools for testing arguments and detecting fallacious or fraudulent arguments:

• Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts
• Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
• Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities").
• Spin more than one hypothesis - don't simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
• Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours.
• Quantify, wherever possible.
• If there is a chain of argument every link in the chain must work.
• "Occam's razor" - if there are two hypothesis that explain the data equally well choose the simpler.
• Ask whether the hypothesis can, at least in principle, be falsified (shown to be false by some unambiguous test). In other words, it is testable? Can others duplicate the experiment and get the same result?

Additional issues are

• Conduct control experiments - especially "double blind" experiments where the person taking measurements is not aware of the test and control subjects.
• Check for confounding factors - separate the variables.

Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric

• Ad hominem - attacking the arguer and not the argument.
• Argument from "authority".
• Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an "unfavourable" decision).
• Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).
• Special pleading (typically referring to god's will).
• Begging the question (assuming an answer in the way the question is phrased).
• Observational selection (counting the hits and forgetting the misses).
• Statistics of small numbers (such as drawing conclusions from inadequate sample sizes).
• Misunderstanding the nature of statistics (President Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence!)
• Inconsistency (e.g. military expenditures based on worst case scenarios but scientific projections on environmental dangers thriftily ignored because they are not "proved").
• Non sequitur - "it does not follow" - the logic falls down.
• Post hoc, ergo propter hoc - "it happened after so it was caused by" - confusion of cause and effect.
• Meaningless question ("what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?).
• Excluded middle - considering only the two extremes in a range of possibilities (making the "other side" look worse than it really is).
• Short-term v. long-term - a subset of excluded middle ("why pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?").
• Slippery slope - a subset of excluded middle - unwarranted extrapolation of the effects (give an inch and they will take a mile).
• Confusion of correlation and causation.
• Straw man - caricaturing (or stereotyping) a position to make it easier to attack..
• Suppressed evidence or half-truths.
• Weasel words - for example, use of euphemisms for war such as "police action" to get around limitations on Presidential powers. "An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public"