Scientific rigor and the paranormal.

I'm not really into this sort of thing, but I got a bit curious and thought I'd take a crack at this.

I'll be up front, I'm very skeptical. But I'm skeptical about everything until adequate proof is presented, so don't take it as an outright denial of the ideas.

Questions:

Do any of these claims stand up to scientific rigor?
Does scientific rigor actually apply to paranormal claims?
If so, how is it that they haven't been verified in peer-reviewed scientific journals?
If not, how is it that we can verify these claims at all?

Thank you for your time.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Well i think the paranormal does stand up to scientific rigour. In the fact that people sre trying to use scientific methods to try and prove it. The problem is, when somebody does get proof, like with EVP's for example. No one believes it.

I think the problem is that the paranormal cant be recreated or tested in the same conditions time and time again. Scientists cant accept this. I would need this to verify any claims. Maybe current technology is'nt able to do this yet

Personaly i dont think its something that science alone can prove. You have to experience it personaly and then base your beliefs on those experiences. Come to some private conclusions and let the rest squable.

I can't answer your questions, but in case phenomenons like ghosts have been "disproven" yet:
Doesn't science systematize things based on knowledge verified trough previous observation?
There might still be things we cannot explain with our level of knowledge.
That is why parascience is trying to systematize the observations of not verifiable claims in themselves, suggesting relations between them. And what you need for that is creativity.
In a "realists" way of view, that is very, very sad. However, it is how science started.
The difference here is the massive amount of observations and knowledge already collected and how it doesn't connect to certain phenomena.

So let's hope to find a clue and connect it to mainstream science.

*chrrz* over!

reply to post by KrypticCriminal


I'm sorry, I'm unfamiliar with the jargon. What are "EVPs"? How are they detected? Through what instrumentation? What is the scientific basis of this?

reply to post by madnessinmysoul



Sorry i forgot you said you were'nt in to this stuff. Allow me to explain.


EVP's are Electronic Voice Phenomenon.

When people are in a haunted location, quite often they record as they call out and try to make contact with spitits, on digital voice recorders. When they play these recordings back. Voices can be heard answering and communicating with them. Aparently on a frequency we cant pick up at the time.

From a scientific stand point, you have the recording as proof of what was heard and the very device that you used to catch it.. Although people refuse to accept it because they claim its static that people just interprate as voices. Which is true in some cases but not acceptable in others, due to the fact that it inteligently answers your questions. Some say they are faked out of hand. Which i admit is possible.

The problem is you can go back to the same location the next day and get nothing or something completly different to what you got before.

Video wont embed for some reason. So ill just give you the link.

EVP

reply to post by KrypticCriminal


But how does that make sense? Most electronic recording equipment is purely aurally sensitive and has a lower sensitive level than the human ear.

Where is the science in all of that?

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Thats because your picturing it in terms of volume.

The range of frequency in which sound is heard is not the same as the volume that the sound is made.

A normal voice may come out on the recording at 700hz while EVP's come in at 2000hz. Far more powerfull but it still cant be heard with human ears because its beyond the frequency that our ears are designed to pick up.

So i ask you. How has this got nothing to do with science? Your using scientific methods to capture the EVP'S and scientific methods to analyze the EVP's and yet scientists still cant accept it.

I sense some denial in the air.

reply to post by KrypticCriminal


The range of human hearing extends from 20 hz to 20,000 hz

Audio recorders tend to stray below the 20,000 hz range because there isn't really much useful information above 15,000 hz anyway.

This is simply not denial, it's actual knowledge of the science of human hearing. Here is a simple hearing test for you to take, if you have trouble above 2000 hz you have some problems with your hearing

Unless the mid range on EVPs is above 16,000 hz there wouldn't be any trouble hearing it, and even then there wouldn't be a way to hear it after it's recorded, you'd only be able to see it in the waveform as recording it doesn't transform it into a frequency you can actually hear.

hi you need the book THE END OF MATERIALISM by Charles T Tart.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Thats the point. We cant hear these sounds. Yet they are still recorded during EVP sessions. Only when we play the tapes back do we notice them and then we can make them out, because the frequency of the sound coming out of what ever device or software we use. Allows us to do so.

If we were simply replaying the sound as it was when it occured. Then we still would'nt be able to hear it but were not. Were only playing the signature thats left on the tape. Which your right can also be picked up on the wave function and is usualy the first indicator that somethings there at all. Some EVP's have to be run through filters that lower the frequency specificly to over come the problems that we have hearing them.

Dont pay to much attention to the example i used above. Those numbers were'nt based on anything real i just plucked them out of nowhere for the sake of an example. If i have some free time when i get home i'll find out the true frequency ranges for you.

Thanks for the links anyways.

Heres a bit more info on how digital recorders record sounds.

Digital Audio

Digital audio is recorded by sampling a sound wave and assigning each sample a value. The quality of the audio depends on the sampling frequency and the resolution, that is, the range of values that can be assigned to each sample. The sampling frequency is significant to the extent it needs to be at least double the highest frequency one wishes to record. Music CDs use a sample rate of 44.1 kHz -- a rate more than adequate for encoding frequencies up to 20 kHz. For recording speech, a sample rate of at least 16 kHz will ensure good quality. Audio is normally encoded in 8 bits, 16 bits, or in some cases higher resolutions. The higher the bit depth, the greater the number of amplitude values that can be represented for each sample. An 8 bit resolution may be adequate for recording speech for some purposes, but 16 bits is better.

As you can see, in order to get good quality audio up to 20 Khz. They actualy record at more than double that 44.1 Khz and some go as high as 96 Khz.

This would explain why they pick up things that we cant hear.

Heres the source.

Source

As a side note. I checked out five mid priced Digital voice recorders online and they state in there specifications that they have a response bandwidth of 40 - 20,000 hz which means they must sample at, at least 40 Khz or 40,000 hz to maintain the quality.

Heres one example.

Mid priced digital recorder