Heisenberg
Well-Known Member
I realize I am preaching to the choir, but this was an early question of mine when I discovered skepticism. At first I was fascinated by paranormal claims. I was an avid fan of sightings and any sort of weirdness I could read about. I then had the fortune to work with a guy for several years who was the absolute authority on all things fringe. He spent most days filling me in on all sorts of things I had never heard of: Illuminati, known alien species, mysterious creatures, JFK, alternative medicine, you name it. I used to be impressed because he amassed all this knowledge without ever having used the internet. Now I realize he simply listened to Art Bell once a week. At some point I started to realize that although I was fascinated by all these things, none of them really convinced me to the point of belief. Most of it seemed untrue, which had a lot to do with the sort of wacky people it came from. But still, there were serious researches and what not dedicated to finding answers. So my fascination then became, why do people believe there is something to answer?
Much of the paranormal world is in no way confined to mental illness. Take ghosts for example. Ghostly experiences are something that transcend culture, geographic location, era, and upbringing. From Inuits to native Americans to ghost hunters of today, all are describing similar experiences. If ghosts are not real, then why do so many different people from different backgrounds see them? Why do so many people report seeing Bigfoot when we have no definitive evidence that they are out there? Why do so many people feel they have psychic powers and even demonstrate them to a degree if there is nothing to it? Why does science deny UFO sightings when they are worldwide and evidenced by hundreds of videos?
The answers to those questions are both complicated and, to most people, mundane. As I have said many times, it can mostly be boiled down to certain mistakes that are inherit to the human experience. Mistakes of perception, logic and memory all play a part, as well as hoax and deceit. Also pointed out, these mistakes take educational training, vigilance, and practice to spot.
In the case of Bigfoot and Nessie we certainly have many hoaxes and mistakes of perception, but perhaps the most driving motivation is a mistake of logic known as the appeal to ignorance. For some reason humans are really impressed by what we do not know, and twist that impression into support for a belief. Because water is concealing and we have vast oceans largely unexplored, it's easy to believe that anything could be down there. Forests used to be unknown territory that could be hiding anything. Couple that inclination with a report of a creature, and that report automatically seems to have credence. Once that report gets into the public consciousness, it gets duplicated more and more often. Our brains tell us that the more people confirm something, the more true it becomes. This isn't necessarily wrong. What we get wrong is what the reports are actually confirming, which is mistakes of perception and gullibility for hoaxes. Add to this the idea of modern science and some people who do not understand how to properly follow the scientific method, and we get Bigfoot and ghost hunters. This is then made worse by those who forget a basic rule of science; extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
I never tire of examining why people believe weird things but it can be a dry subject for most people. Which is unfortunate because the subject dictates the very fabric that makes up their personal experience of reality.
