1
Things that go bump in the bank account
25 May 2011
There's a front page story in this week's Enterprise Bulletin about self-professed ghost hunters looking for a "haunted" house in Collingwood to feature on a new TV series called "Paranormal House Inspection." That really bothered me because it reads like an advertorial on the front page (and equally that the Discovery network runs such dreck, which discredits the rest of their programming).*
The claims of ghosts and hauntings in the article are never questioned, but rather are taken at face value. Apparently the concept of empirical proof is unnecessary to be able to get front page coverage.
"There are (sic) definitely a lot of hauntings in Collingwood," one of the investigators is quoted as saying. Definitely? In 20-plus years, I've only heard of one anecdote about a "haunting" and that tale is more than three decades old.** In fact, if you Google "hauntings in Collingwood" the vast majority of the references that appear in the first dozen pages relate to the quote from this very story!
People preying on the superstitions or gullibility of others isn't news, nor should it be treated on the front page to encourage others to get on the bandwagon. It's not as if any claims to the "paranormal" have any validity. I've written about the business of self-professed psychics, clairvoyants and mediums in the past (here and here).
Let's be clear: ghosts, goblins, demons, imps, fairies, angels, muses, haunted houses, spooks, wraiths, UFOs, orcs, trolls, Sasquatches, spirits, vampires, werewolves and Easter bunnies - they're all bunk. Unadulterated claptrap. They're as real as cartoon characters on Saturday morning. In the past two centuries not a single piece of evidence has been brought forward for their existence. No unqualified sighting by neutral observers, no photograph, no physical evidence: nothing. They are social and cultural baggage from our prehistoric past, the frightened-of-the-dark animists who painted on cave walls. Like our appendix, they are vestiges of older times and it's time we shed them.
So-called ghosts and haunted houses generally prove to be simple environmental effects, although others are easily chalked up to physiological artifacts. As it notes in Wikipedia, there is "...no credible scientific evidence that any location was inhabited by spirits of the dead. Limitations of human perception and ordinary physical explanations can account for ghost sightings; for example, air pressure changes in a home causing doors to slam, or lights from a passing car reflected through a window at night. Pareidolia, an innate tendency to recognize patterns in random perceptions, is what some skeptics believe causes people to believe that they have seen ghosts. Reports of ghosts "seen out of the corner of the eye" may be accounted for by the sensitivity of human peripheral vision... peripheral vision can easily mislead, especially late at night when the brain is tired and more likely to misinterpret sights and sounds."
The article goes on to state that "Some researchers... have speculated that changes in geomagnetic fields (created, e.g., by tectonic stresses in the Earth's crust or solar activity) could stimulate the brain's temporal lobes and produce many of the experiences associated with hauntings. Sound is thought to be another cause of supposed sightings... infrasound can cause humans to experience bizarre feelings in a room, such as anxiety, extreme sorrow, a feeling of being watched, or even the chills. Carbon monoxide poisoning, which can cause changes in perception of the visual and auditory systems, was speculated upon as a possible explanation for haunted houses as early as 1921."
That hasn't stopped Hollywood - and the families that sold their claimed tales - from profiting handsomely from movies about alleged hauntings supposedly "based on a true story" or "based on real events." The Amityville story is among the most famous of these fictions, a long list which the recent film "Haunting in Connecticut" joins. Never, ever lose sight of the fact that this is a business. Scaring people makes money and the more you can scare, the more you make. Debunking them doesn't seem to deter believers, any more than science deters creationists.
As Witter Bynner wrote, "Everywhere, men yearn to be misled by magicians." But for the magicians, there's money in those waiting to be misled. A veritable gold mine of gullibility.
I caught one of the Discovery Channel's "mysterious" so-called investigation shows recently. Using techniques plagiarized from the low-budget horror flick, The Blair Witch Project, the TV actors run around in the dark, the setting's spookiness enhanced by the use of night vision and grainy, dark vistas. Huh? Why don't they work in day time, or turn on the lights? That would make sense, and even suggest they were serious about their "investigations." Which, of course they aren't: it's a scripted TV entertainment show, not a documentary, and it's about as real as "reality" TV or TV wrestling. It's all about selling advertising and making money.
The story in the EB doesn't originate from the EB staff, thankfully, but is rather a wire story from the Quebecor Media Inc. (QMI), an agency that distributes (sells?) fillers like this to all of its papers. The same story by the same author ran in the London Free Press, Barrie Examiner, Ottawa Sun and Toronto Sun. Unlike most of these papers, the EB doesn't identify this as QMI material, however.
The EB article notes the team in the TV show uses "everything from hammers and flashlights, ultrasonic meters, infrared video, motion sensors and even psychic abilities." The same story in the Toronto Sun has the editorial wisdom to called them "alleged psychic abilities." Much more appropriate, given that there are no proven "psychic abilities", merely wishful thinking and charlatans.
The Sun story also says, "On Paranormal Home Inspectors, McKay works with self-described psychic Nadine Mercey and certified home inspector Brian Daley to differentiate structural defects from so-called spiritual manifestations." That's much more appropriate language. Self-described and so-called suggests doubt. The EB's uncritical story suggests unabashed belief in this codswallop.
The Sun notes: "The Cold Spot team claims to have turned up evidence of ghosts in homes, including flickering lights, faucets turning on by themselves, doors slamming and locking on their own and voices being heard." But in the EB article, it says, "The Cold Spot team has turned up evidence of ghosts in homes, including flickering lights, faucets turning on by themselves, doors slamming and locking on their own and voices being heard." See the difference? In the EB article, their claims are presented as true, not simply as an allegation or self-promotion.
Besides, that's not evidence. It's rumour, it's allegation and it's anecdote at best. Flickering lights is hardly proof of anything more sinister or inexplicable than an overloaded circuit. It's another term that deserves a modifier like alleged or claimed.
Like the characters in the Ghostbusters films, many of these "investigators" exploit a variety of what seems to the outsider as serious scientific equipment. Electro-magnetic frequency senors, digital thermometers to detect "cold spots", lasers and motion detectors. But that's just to give the cake a pseudo-scientific icing. There's no reason to believe that, if supernatural activity was real, it would create EMF activity or a physical change in temperature. Bunk, just more bunk. The science in these shows is less credible than that in Dr. Who (although the hammer seems a practical tool).
Claims for hauntings are frequent - and tend to arise when some media attention is directed that way - although none withstand even the most basic scientific investigation and its subsequent peer reviews. Examinations of the recent looniness of EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) recording has shown that you end up with a lot of background noise and static, but if you listen hard enough and long enough, your mind will tell you there are voices in the noise. Just like staring a clouds or wallpaper will make you see shapes and faces.
People want to believe in the supernatural, so they do, even when it's counterproductive and silly. A lot of the illusions, delusions and tricks of self-described psychics have been exposed by investigators like Joe Nickell over the last few decades. But as quickly as he and his fellow skeptics debunk one tall tale, a dozen more pop up. It's like trying to stop computer viruses - there's always another batch on the horizon. And like computer viruses, psychic phenomena are invasive and highly contagious. They are dangerous memes and no amount of scientific inquiry seems able to stem their tide.
What happened to critical thinking? It was around with Plato and Socrates, but it seems to vanish today when spooky stuff gets into the media. But what happened to the media's normal, healthy skepticism? When newspapers reprint stories like this as "truth" without any editing, it's no wonder we have a difficult time dispelling this sort of nonsense from our society.***
~~~~~
* The EB seems to have a soft spot for the paranormal. It has given considerable feature space to self-professed "psychics" and even a "pet psychic" in the last couple of years, with what strikes me as effusive praise or emotionally-laden adjectives that suggest an editorial bias towards those featured and their alleged powers - prejudicial and subjective opinion comments like "...one gifted reader...", "Blessed with "second sight...", "Chi Chi's own psychic ability began to shine at an early age..." and so on have appeared in their stories. A similar story about a self-professed "medium" ran in the EB's sister paper, the Barrie Examiner.
Worse perhaps was this article in the St. Catherines Standard, titled ,"Picking a psychic who's right for you." It opens with the astounding statement that, "If you've never dabbled in the spirit world, it turns out finding your first psychic isn't much different from picking a doctor, accountant or lawyer." This puts self-professed dabblers in bunkum on the same professional level as doctors and lawyers. The article is amusing for its portrayal of the wackier acts of alleged soul-reading: reading hair. The guy who does this claims, "...their thoughts are going to their hair to his hands..." After I stopped laughing - quite a while - I returned to my worry this was another newspaper lacking the critical analysis and skepticism that makes for credible media. The psychic that's right for you? None. Put your money into lottery tickets. At least you have a minute chance of getting something back.
** Coincidentally (I hope), it involved the original Enterprise-Bulletin building, but there was no "ghost", just unexplained noises and a mysteriously unlocked roof hatch. Hardly the stuff of legend.
*** Just how far this craziness can go is documented in this story. A school's EA who visited an alleged psychic was advised her that, "...a youngster whose name started with "V" was being sexually abused by a man between 23 and 26 years old." This led to the befuddled school board staff member accepting this grossly unwarranted charge, contacting the Children's Aid Society, and causing great distress to the family of an autistic child over the allegations. Had the staff person used any critical thinking about the credibility of self-professed psychics, this should not have happened. Fortunately for the family, evidence from the child's GPS records showed that the allegations were fatuous. Unfortunately, the story remains on the child's (and family's) file, as a monument to the harm so-called psychics can cause.
The claims of ghosts and hauntings in the article are never questioned, but rather are taken at face value. Apparently the concept of empirical proof is unnecessary to be able to get front page coverage.
"There are (sic) definitely a lot of hauntings in Collingwood," one of the investigators is quoted as saying. Definitely? In 20-plus years, I've only heard of one anecdote about a "haunting" and that tale is more than three decades old.** In fact, if you Google "hauntings in Collingwood" the vast majority of the references that appear in the first dozen pages relate to the quote from this very story!
People preying on the superstitions or gullibility of others isn't news, nor should it be treated on the front page to encourage others to get on the bandwagon. It's not as if any claims to the "paranormal" have any validity. I've written about the business of self-professed psychics, clairvoyants and mediums in the past (here and here).
So-called ghosts and haunted houses generally prove to be simple environmental effects, although others are easily chalked up to physiological artifacts. As it notes in Wikipedia, there is "...no credible scientific evidence that any location was inhabited by spirits of the dead. Limitations of human perception and ordinary physical explanations can account for ghost sightings; for example, air pressure changes in a home causing doors to slam, or lights from a passing car reflected through a window at night. Pareidolia, an innate tendency to recognize patterns in random perceptions, is what some skeptics believe causes people to believe that they have seen ghosts. Reports of ghosts "seen out of the corner of the eye" may be accounted for by the sensitivity of human peripheral vision... peripheral vision can easily mislead, especially late at night when the brain is tired and more likely to misinterpret sights and sounds."
The article goes on to state that "Some researchers... have speculated that changes in geomagnetic fields (created, e.g., by tectonic stresses in the Earth's crust or solar activity) could stimulate the brain's temporal lobes and produce many of the experiences associated with hauntings. Sound is thought to be another cause of supposed sightings... infrasound can cause humans to experience bizarre feelings in a room, such as anxiety, extreme sorrow, a feeling of being watched, or even the chills. Carbon monoxide poisoning, which can cause changes in perception of the visual and auditory systems, was speculated upon as a possible explanation for haunted houses as early as 1921."
That hasn't stopped Hollywood - and the families that sold their claimed tales - from profiting handsomely from movies about alleged hauntings supposedly "based on a true story" or "based on real events." The Amityville story is among the most famous of these fictions, a long list which the recent film "Haunting in Connecticut" joins. Never, ever lose sight of the fact that this is a business. Scaring people makes money and the more you can scare, the more you make. Debunking them doesn't seem to deter believers, any more than science deters creationists.
As Witter Bynner wrote, "Everywhere, men yearn to be misled by magicians." But for the magicians, there's money in those waiting to be misled. A veritable gold mine of gullibility.
I caught one of the Discovery Channel's "mysterious" so-called investigation shows recently. Using techniques plagiarized from the low-budget horror flick, The Blair Witch Project, the TV actors run around in the dark, the setting's spookiness enhanced by the use of night vision and grainy, dark vistas. Huh? Why don't they work in day time, or turn on the lights? That would make sense, and even suggest they were serious about their "investigations." Which, of course they aren't: it's a scripted TV entertainment show, not a documentary, and it's about as real as "reality" TV or TV wrestling. It's all about selling advertising and making money.
The story in the EB doesn't originate from the EB staff, thankfully, but is rather a wire story from the Quebecor Media Inc. (QMI), an agency that distributes (sells?) fillers like this to all of its papers. The same story by the same author ran in the London Free Press, Barrie Examiner, Ottawa Sun and Toronto Sun. Unlike most of these papers, the EB doesn't identify this as QMI material, however.
The EB article notes the team in the TV show uses "everything from hammers and flashlights, ultrasonic meters, infrared video, motion sensors and even psychic abilities." The same story in the Toronto Sun has the editorial wisdom to called them "alleged psychic abilities." Much more appropriate, given that there are no proven "psychic abilities", merely wishful thinking and charlatans.
The Sun story also says, "On Paranormal Home Inspectors, McKay works with self-described psychic Nadine Mercey and certified home inspector Brian Daley to differentiate structural defects from so-called spiritual manifestations." That's much more appropriate language. Self-described and so-called suggests doubt. The EB's uncritical story suggests unabashed belief in this codswallop.
The Sun notes: "The Cold Spot team claims to have turned up evidence of ghosts in homes, including flickering lights, faucets turning on by themselves, doors slamming and locking on their own and voices being heard." But in the EB article, it says, "The Cold Spot team has turned up evidence of ghosts in homes, including flickering lights, faucets turning on by themselves, doors slamming and locking on their own and voices being heard." See the difference? In the EB article, their claims are presented as true, not simply as an allegation or self-promotion.
Besides, that's not evidence. It's rumour, it's allegation and it's anecdote at best. Flickering lights is hardly proof of anything more sinister or inexplicable than an overloaded circuit. It's another term that deserves a modifier like alleged or claimed.
Like the characters in the Ghostbusters films, many of these "investigators" exploit a variety of what seems to the outsider as serious scientific equipment. Electro-magnetic frequency senors, digital thermometers to detect "cold spots", lasers and motion detectors. But that's just to give the cake a pseudo-scientific icing. There's no reason to believe that, if supernatural activity was real, it would create EMF activity or a physical change in temperature. Bunk, just more bunk. The science in these shows is less credible than that in Dr. Who (although the hammer seems a practical tool).
Claims for hauntings are frequent - and tend to arise when some media attention is directed that way - although none withstand even the most basic scientific investigation and its subsequent peer reviews. Examinations of the recent looniness of EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) recording has shown that you end up with a lot of background noise and static, but if you listen hard enough and long enough, your mind will tell you there are voices in the noise. Just like staring a clouds or wallpaper will make you see shapes and faces.
People want to believe in the supernatural, so they do, even when it's counterproductive and silly. A lot of the illusions, delusions and tricks of self-described psychics have been exposed by investigators like Joe Nickell over the last few decades. But as quickly as he and his fellow skeptics debunk one tall tale, a dozen more pop up. It's like trying to stop computer viruses - there's always another batch on the horizon. And like computer viruses, psychic phenomena are invasive and highly contagious. They are dangerous memes and no amount of scientific inquiry seems able to stem their tide.
What happened to critical thinking? It was around with Plato and Socrates, but it seems to vanish today when spooky stuff gets into the media. But what happened to the media's normal, healthy skepticism? When newspapers reprint stories like this as "truth" without any editing, it's no wonder we have a difficult time dispelling this sort of nonsense from our society.***
~~~~~
* The EB seems to have a soft spot for the paranormal. It has given considerable feature space to self-professed "psychics" and even a "pet psychic" in the last couple of years, with what strikes me as effusive praise or emotionally-laden adjectives that suggest an editorial bias towards those featured and their alleged powers - prejudicial and subjective opinion comments like "...one gifted reader...", "Blessed with "second sight...", "Chi Chi's own psychic ability began to shine at an early age..." and so on have appeared in their stories. A similar story about a self-professed "medium" ran in the EB's sister paper, the Barrie Examiner.
Worse perhaps was this article in the St. Catherines Standard, titled ,"Picking a psychic who's right for you." It opens with the astounding statement that, "If you've never dabbled in the spirit world, it turns out finding your first psychic isn't much different from picking a doctor, accountant or lawyer." This puts self-professed dabblers in bunkum on the same professional level as doctors and lawyers. The article is amusing for its portrayal of the wackier acts of alleged soul-reading: reading hair. The guy who does this claims, "...their thoughts are going to their hair to his hands..." After I stopped laughing - quite a while - I returned to my worry this was another newspaper lacking the critical analysis and skepticism that makes for credible media. The psychic that's right for you? None. Put your money into lottery tickets. At least you have a minute chance of getting something back.
** Coincidentally (I hope), it involved the original Enterprise-Bulletin building, but there was no "ghost", just unexplained noises and a mysteriously unlocked roof hatch. Hardly the stuff of legend.
*** Just how far this craziness can go is documented in this story. A school's EA who visited an alleged psychic was advised her that, "...a youngster whose name started with "V" was being sexually abused by a man between 23 and 26 years old." This led to the befuddled school board staff member accepting this grossly unwarranted charge, contacting the Children's Aid Society, and causing great distress to the family of an autistic child over the allegations. Had the staff person used any critical thinking about the credibility of self-professed psychics, this should not have happened. Fortunately for the family, evidence from the child's GPS records showed that the allegations were fatuous. Unfortunately, the story remains on the child's (and family's) file, as a monument to the harm so-called psychics can cause.
