Other popular ideas of our time that have little to no scientific support include dowsing, the Bermuda Triangle, poltergeists, biorhythms, creationism, levitation, psychokinesis, astrology, ghosts, psychic detectives, UFOs, remote viewing, Kirlian auras, emotions in plants, life after death, monsters, graphology, crypto-zoology, clairvoyance, mediums, pyramid power, faith healing, Big Foot, psychic prospecting, haunted houses, perpetual motion machines, antigravity locations, and, amusingly, astrological birth control. Belief in these phenomena is not limited to a quirky handful on the lunatic fringe. It is more pervasive than most of us like to think, and this is curious considering how far science has come since the Middle Ages. Shouldn't we know by now that ghosts cannot exist unless the laws of science are faulty or incomplete? (p.27. Emphasis in blue added).
It is very interesting and "amusing" that Shermer includes astrology among the "ideas" that little to no scientific support, since that Shermer's own scientific test of an astrologer provided positive empirical evidence for the astrologer's claim (kicking Shermer's butt in the process and making look him like a fool):
Exactly which scientific laws (assumed by Shermer to be perfect and complete) exclude the existence of ghosts?
Shermer says "Do ghosts exist? Do scientific laws exist? Is there no difference between ghosts and scientific laws? Of course there is, and most scientists believe in scientific laws but not ghosts... Ghosts can be considered nonfactual because they have never been confirmed to any extent.... Ghosts never exist apart from their description by believers." (p. 58. Emphasis in blue added)
The above is an excellent example of atheistic-skeptical stupidity, imbecility and lack of logical thinking.
How the hell the premise (assumed for the argument's sake) that ghosts' existence "have never been confirmed to any extent" implies the conclusion that they "can be considered nonfactual"? Do the lack of scientific confirmation of any entity implies the entity's nonfactuality?
Just consider microbes. Before the creation of microscopes, microbes's existence wasn't scientifically confirmed. Do that imply that microbes were "nonfactual" before the creation of microscopes and their scientific confirmation? Obviously not.
Shermer's basic fallacy is to conflate an epistemological matter (scientific confirmation of the existence of an entity X) with an ontological one (the actual existence or non-existence of some entity X).
In fact, Shemer's argument seems to be "If an entity's existence is confirmed, then it exists. Hence, if it is not confirmed, then it doesn't exist". Even the most inept and incompetent student of logic would know that such an argument is actually a formal fallacy (the fallacy of denying the antecedent).
Another way to see Shermer's intellectual incompetence is realizing that he's conflating "scientific laws" with "scientific confirmation of facts". The latter doesn't imply the former.
For example, most parapsychologists consider that "psi" is a scientific fact. But they don't know exactly which are the "scientific laws of psi". The latter is still an open and controversial question.
Shermer assumes that, since ghosts have not been scientifically confirmed (in their existence), then ghosts are incompatible with currently known scientific laws. This is why he says: "Shouldn't we know by now that ghosts cannot exist unless the laws of science are faulty or incomplete?"
This is an obvious non-sequitur.
Finally, Shermer's argument rest on the very doubtul assumption that currently known scientific laws are perfect and complete. But as any student of philosophy and history of science would know, scientific theories (in which scientific laws are understood) are not perfect nor complete. Our grasping of reality is argueably fallible and progressive, not perfect and definitive (if it were the case, science couldn't progress anymore, which is false and this is conceded, inconsistently, by Shermer himself).
Shermer's amazingly strong and uncritical credulity regarding the perfection and completeness of currenty scientific theories and laws is astonishing. Is this the proper position of a true reasonable skeptic? Clearly not. Shermer (like most pseudoskeptics) is the paradigmatic anti-thesis of a true skeptic; he's a fine example of a hard-core ideologue: a scientific dogmatist and mainstream fundamentalist.
So far, we have assumed (just for the sake of the argument) that Shermer's assumption that ghosts haven't been scientifically confirmed is true. Personally, I think Shermer's assumption is false. There is evidence, anecdotal and scientific, that ghosts and other putative afterlife manifestations DO exist (see, just for mention one example, David Fontana's balanced and nuanced treatment of the topic in his book Is there an afterlife?")
In any case, even if ghosts don't exist, Shermer's arguments provide not justification at all to think they don't.
Shermer's arguments are of the worst kind that I've read in the pseudoskeptical literature. He's a good example of an intellectual lightweight who based on a very limited understand of science and philosophy, and a strongly prejudiced ideological position against parapsychology and other spiritual matters, has been strongly influential among pseudoskeptics and "educated scientific readers".
Only hard-core atheistic pseudoskeptics accept Shermer's arguments. And they deserve a "thinker" like that.
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