Tag Archives: Wrong

FAO: Don Philip, the ghost hunter.

After my blog post yesterday about how some ghost hunters were behaving irrationally over the recent discovery of a buried cottage at Pendle Hill I thought it only right to let those I mentioned by name know I had done so. I think it’s good blogging etiquette to do so.

In response, Don Philip has posted on his Facebook wall that I am

“A young lady trying to make a name for herself”

I would like to point out that if there is anything I have made a name for myself through, it is being open minded in my approach to paranormal research. I am willing to point out when I am wrong, and I learn new things all the time and change my beliefs and opinions as new facts become available. My main aim with my paranormal research is, and always has been, to learn more about the reality behind these experiences. This is something I have continued to achieve year after year. I have just enrolled on two courses with the Open University, with whom I am working towards a BSc Psychology degree in the hope that I can learn even more about the way in which people think, believe and perceive.

I am simply curious, and this curiosity has led me to experience the strange world of paranormal research through the eyes of a naïve believer who grew and evolved into a fact seeking, lesson learning skeptical researcher. That’s why I am invited to speak at events all over the place. That could seem like an appeal to authority but it isn’t. Me speaking at events isn’t what makes me a good researcher – my constant research, fact checking and self questioning is what makes me a good researcher.

It’s also why I’m asked to contribute to research by others.

For example, I was once asked by Professor Chris French to review some footage that he’d been asked onto a UK television show to give a skeptical opinion on. He asked for my opinion because he isn’t a field based ex-ghost hunter. The footage was from an investigation conducted by a paranormal team called G.S.I – their founder, Don Philip.

The footage in question, as shown below, shows Don taking temperature readings in a room and asking a ghost to make the reading change. Over time it does. This is attributed to a spirit/ghost.

Watch from the 3 minute mark.

I was able to explain to Chris that the reason the temperature was changing is not because a ghost is present, but because Don was using the equipment incorrectly, or without knowing what the readings the thermometer takes mean. The model he uses is a laser thermometer that measures surface temperature. Don is waving it all around the room meaning that the device cannot measure on specific point as it is designed to do so.

I am able to offer such advice and spot such mistakes because I am open minded and I have learnt – and continue to learn, from those around me who conduct rational research into paranormal phenomena. It’s easy and lazy to apply a paranormal cause to something that looks a bit odd, especially when it only looks a bit odd because you simply haven’t bothered to work out how to use the device in question.

Dons accusation that I am trying to make a name by criticising him is wrong, it smacks of a diversion tactic because he doesn’t have an answer regarding the things I spoke of in the original blog post about illogical ghost chasing based on nothing but folklore stories. Prove me wrong though, Don. Defend your decisions and your methods… if you can.

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Posted in: Paranormal / Tagged: , , , , , ,

Criticisms of Project Barnum

Today the ‘Strange Quarks’ podcast released an episode in which Project Barnum was discussed and criticised. I wanted to address the points raised in the podcast.

1 – Simon Singh doesn’t lead Project Barnum as claimed in the podcast by Martin Robbins. I do.

Simon helped to form the idea of the petition, but everything else has been me with the help of people like Tannice Pendegrass, Keir Lidde, Simon Clare and a few others. That is all over the Project Barnum website and isn’t hard to find…

2 – Deobrah Hyde split Project Barnum (PB) into two ‘halves’. One half being where PB aims to spread information and inform people on how one might be tricked and how con artists use certain tricks to appear psychic which helps people make their own choices. The other half being where we “try and influence theatre overheads to a degree where they would not put on shows” which she thinks is aiming at “the distribution of a certain world view.”

The petition was a small part of what PB is about and not ‘half’ of what we do. The petition was asking theatres to reconsider hosting shows that are, by their very nature, misleading and upsetting to many. It wasn’t trying to censor people, it was simply asking “is this appropriate?”

The petition led to us being able to understand the extent to which theatres use ‘entertainment only’ disclaimers which, after a little research on our part, we have been able to advise people don’t mean very much at all (e.g. just because a psychic claims to be for entertainment purposes only doesn’t mean you can’t ask for your money back if you think you’ve been misled by them – learn more here.)

No psychic shows were cancelled, and we didn’t think they would be, we were really using that petition to demonstrate how strongly people felt about the subject, and also to discover the extent to which theatres hide behind useless, misleading ‘entertainment purposes’ disclaimers.

3 – Martin Robbins says he has a problem with the way in which the term “fraud” has been banded around. I don’t know if this was in regard to PB, or whether it was a general observation – but I will just point out that PB has always clearly stated on the website and elsewhere that we’re not interested in accusing people of fraud or cheating -we’re interested in helping people work out for themselves if they’re being misled or not.

PB has never used the term ‘fraud’ in relation to anyone. We list some examples on the site of mediums and psychics who have been documented as cheating in certain examples (with evidence to back those examples up), or accused of cheating in case of Sally Morgan.

It is concerning that basic information about Project Barnum, that is easily accessible, was not researched before the episode was aired.

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Posted in: Musings / Tagged: , , , , , ,

Misleading the misled

Sometimes, when it comes to the world of ghosts and haunted houses and claims of paranormal phenomena, things are not as clear cut as they initially seem. Sometimes wrong and right aren’t options one can choose at ease and as a skeptic and a humanist, I sometimes find myself resisting the urge to head-butt my desk and over and over at the moral dilemmas I find myself facing.

I know of a man who lives in a building that is said to be one of the most haunted places in the entire world. I’m not going to name him or his home for reasons that will become apparent, but in the ghost hunter culture that has evolved after shows like LivingTV’s ‘Most Haunted’ hit the airwaves, the building in which this man lives has become infamous and hundreds of people have flocked to it to try to find proof of the ghosts that are said to live there alongside the living. The truth is a bit more different because all of the ghost stories attached to the building are made up, or at least, wholly over exaggerated. As many will know, it is easy for folklore stories to get changed over time, and for what was wild speculation and fictional to suddenly become fact when it is passed on a few generations or so.

The man who lives in the haunted house knows that the ghosts aren’t there with him and has shared this fact with some skeptical ghost researchers who live locally to him who have bought him a beer or two when they’ve visited. The man who lives in the haunted house also knows that where there are ghosts there will be people willing to part with their money to sit in the haunted house, and so for that reason he charges teams of ghost hunters to sit in his building looking for the ghosts.

He knows there are no ghosts, but they don’t know that and they experience very strange things there, but this is because the man makes the things happen when they’re not looking. For example, one of the ghosts knocks at the front door and, when the door is opened in response, the ghost is nowhere to be seen. That is, a ghost in the form of a big knotted rope that is lowered out of an upper window that happens to sit right above the door in question… a window through which the owner of the building leans out to use the rope to knock the door before pulling it back up inside.

When I first heard of this occurring I was outraged that somebody who owned a property that was alleged to be haunted would act in this manner and would trick people into thinking they were experiencing paranormal phenomena. I felt I should share what I knew with everybody straight away due to my past experiences with people who faked paranormal activity to try to fool me in a similar manner.

Then I thought about it and decided not to.

You see, I realised that although the man in question was knowingly misleading the people who were visiting his home because they thought it was haunted, the people who were visiting his home were actually taking advantage of the man who lives in a building that is slowly falling down around him because, although it is a listed building, it doesn’t get any funding to help with its upkeep.

The man lives in a small part of the building and the rest of it is filled with a clutter of random, but interesting memorabilia, and various artefacts that hint at the place being haunted. The man is getting old and, the last I heard, had no proper heating and a leaky roof that he can’t fix due to a lack of funds and graded building restrictions.

He asks paranormal teams for anywhere between £50 to £200 to visit his house to hunt for the ghosts and that money goes towards being able to live in a house that isn’t really suitable for him to live in, but a house that is the only home he knows.

Would it be right for me to reveal his tricks and take away a source of money that is, quite literally, keeping the roof above his head? I don’t think it would.

If it wasn’t him misleading the misled, it would be somebody else – or perhaps even them misleading themselves. There are so many places around the globe that cash in on the fact that they’re supposed to be haunted that exposing one seems futile. Especially when the tricks that are being pulled on unsuspecting Most Haunted wannabe’s are helping a man to eat.

Sometimes haunted houses are homes and sometimes there’s more than greed behind ghost stories. It’s important to remember that.

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Posted in: Paranormal / Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Skeptic Fail?

I dislike the term ‘skeptic fail’ immensely because it quite clearly suggests a skeptic has failed to be skeptical, and although that is possible not every mistake a skeptical person mistakes is ‘skeptic fail’.

I hadn’t heard the phrase used much prior to the other day on twitter when I saw the tweet below that was talking about the QED homeopathic vodka video.

I wasn’t annoyed by the fact that the criticism was invalid because Michael Marshall and Mike Hall who feature in the video actually touched upon the very point of QED Vodka sobering you up in the video, but that the term ‘skeptic fail’ had been used to describe this possible oversight on their part.

Today I read this article from Brian Dunning about criticism he has seen online regarding the Skeptoid episode about DDT insecticide and how he hadn’t actually received the points made by these people in an email or more personal format. Again, I’m not interested in going into the specifics of each case here – that can be left up to other forums of discussion, but what I wanted to focus on was the strange way in which may seem to take great pleasure from pointing out the mistakes of others while actually not doing anything in any way to spread rational thinking.

Another example that has just come to mind is the blog I linked to in my previous post ‘The hidden dangers of Charity Fatigue’ in which the author pointed out what people were doing wrong, but not how they could correct themselves.

This is something we discuss in great detail on Ep. 77 of Righteous Indignation that will be released next Monday (Dec 13th), however I just wanted to briefly write a post to point out that it is so easy to tell other people when they are wrong but, as skeptics, isn’t it better for us to point out how and why they are wrong, and how they can correct their viewpoint and understanding of something?

Being open-minded is all about being willing to change your understanding of something when more information comes along that shows a different conclusion to the one you currently hold (as long as the information stands up to skeptical scrutiny of course…)

Perhaps I’m alone in thinking that trying to help others see the logic in a situation is more important and productive that pointing out they’ve failed.

Whenever someone makes a logical fallacy or uses flawed thinking in a discussion with me, or in an article or similar I cast my mind back to the days in which most of my time was taken up by using pseudoscience to show that ghosts existed in supposed haunted buildings. I was fooling nobody but myself but I didn’t know that and although people told me I was wrong I just took that to be their opinion, one they were entitled to.

The things I was doing were indeed typically ‘skeptic fail’ even though I didn’t identify as a skeptic back then, but it wasn’t until someone actually showed me how I was wrong and how I could stop being wrong that I began to realise that there were flaws in my logic.

I guess, what I’m trying to say is that it’s easy to tell someone they’re wrong, but why not just take an extra second to show them how to get on the right track? Sure, you can’t force somebody to change their mind and if they refuse to see the logic in what you are saying then it really is their problem, but at least you’ve tried.

Or is it really that satisfying to try and publically humiliate somebody for a mistake they seem to have made? Do people actually achieve something other than an ego boost when they do that? And did I miss out on the memo that said actually there ARE people who don’t make ever mistakes?

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Posted in: Skepticism / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,