Sunday, June 29, 2008 . 6/29/2008

I've been thinking about how I used to believe in ghosts and such lately, especially how I used to absolutely love the show Ghost Hunters. I was kind of sciencey back then (less then than now, obviously) and I wanted to have my cake and eat it too when it came to science and the paranormal. Ghost Hunters claimed to include science with their "investigations" so I was thrilled. I bought into it all, hook, line, and sinker. They claimed to be more interested in debunking hauntings than proving them to be true and I believed it.

But there is a big problem (ok, there is more than just a single problem but this one is major) -

TAPS goes in already assuming that ghosts exist, which means if they can't debunk something to their satisfaction, they assume the place is haunted. This is not good science. I could just as easily go into these so-called haunted places assuming that invisible fairies exist, try to prove that invisible fairies were not the cause of all the ruckus, and when I can't, fall back into my original conclusion that it was invisible fairies. Never mind that there isn't any evidence ghosts exist in the first place, let alone invisible fairies: it's circular reasoning. It's a logical fallacy.

I really do wish ghosts existed though, don't get me wrong. In fact I cannot even begin to describe how much I want them to be real, and truth be told I kind of miss believing in them whilst happily ignoring more logical explanations. Unfortunately though, just wishing something existed does not poof said something into existence.

Labels: Personal