I’ve been aware of this experiment for quite some time now and I don’t understand why ghost hunters don’t refer to it. It would seem to be great evidence for the existence of a human soul. That is, until it’s revealed that the original experiment suffered from serious technical problems with the instruments being used to weight the body of the patient/corpse.
Work and other responsibilities have been nuts lately. I have some interesting posts coming up soon. In the meantime, enjoy this reminder of what it means to do science:
Listen to this awesome podcast (embedded at the end of this post) from the guys at HowStuffWorks discussing ghost hunter equipment in a real life, I-actually-understand-electronics-and-science way. Oooooh, this made me sooooo freakin’ happy.
I was listening to The Conspiracy Skeptic Podcast today. The host was talking about Moon Landing deniers and made the point that they are so blinded by their own misconceptions that they refuse to accept any evidence that doesn’t fit their own narrow world view. The basic question is “What would convince you to change your mind?”. The host then went on to list a few things that he would consider evidence enough for him to believe that the moon landing was a hoax. You can listen to the episode mp3 here in which he picks apart some claims made in the Phil Plait/Joe Rogan debate on the moon landing.
This is a good post by Bryan Farha on the Smoke and Mirrors blog about ghosts and ghost phenomenon that I wanted to pass along. I’ll excerpt a few good parts below:
Why some murder victims would stick around for eternity to haunt a place while others seem to evaporate is one of the great mysteries of the spirit world.
Scientists who have investigated haunted places account for both the temperature changes and the sounds by finding physical sources of the drafts, such as empty spaces behind walls or currents set in motion by low frequency sound waves produced by such mundane objects as extraction fans.
Commissioners vote down request to search cemetery for paranormal
By STAN MADDUX Tribune Correspondent
BUCHANAN — Officials in Buchanan have turned down a man who asked permission to go into Oak Ridge Cemetery and hunt ghosts.
Some of the city commissioners were open to the idea but voted this week to oppose the request.
One fear was any findings of a haunted graveyard would not be good for the city’s image and draw people to the cemetery for seances and other paranormal related activities.
More of Buchanan, Indiana is my new favorite town. inside. Read the full post
I just came across the very neat blog Bad Ghosts. The blog has a very good post carefully investigating a ghost photo sent in by a civil engineer who is highly impressed by it. The ghost photo in question is over here on the left.
It still blows my mind that anyone would think the photo shows a ghost. It takes about 10 seconds of looking at it closely to figure out what is going on. The guy who submitted the photo refers to himself constantly as a civil engineer, which apparently is supposed to show that he’s smarter than your average cameraphone user.
I came across this interesting article called, “Creating a Monster” on the randi.org page. It briefly discusses the fact that different cultures view common supernatural beings or myths in different ways. The example given is that the traditional Japanese style of ghost has no legs. In the Western world, we have traditionally depicted ghosts with legs. These cultural norms then shape our perceptions. So if someone has an event occur in which they assume they have seen a ghost, they are most likely to report the look of the ghost to match their cultural expectations.
Work and personal projects have kept me away. I hope to update more soon. In the meantime, check out this article on the famous “21 grams” experiment.
