Skip Channel4 main Navigation
Astrology | Paranormal | The past | Prejudice in schools
| Wikipedia
| Medicine
The paranormal
Half the British population now claim to believe in paranormal phenomena. Psychics are cluttering our TV schedules, flogging readings on the net and, increasingly, blossoming on our high streets. After garnering tips on psychics' entirely earthly trade secrets from the illusionist Derren Brown, Richard attends a s?ance and confronts the medium, Craig Hamilton-Parker, on the psychological damage his unproven claims may have on bereaved people who desperately want to believe what feels good.Time and again, the interviewees that Richard Dawkins encounters appeal to personal revelation or second-hand anecdote to justify their belief. Richard Dawkins now explains why this cannot be the basis for rational knowledge. He compares how science unravelled the mystery of echo location in bats in the 1940s through rigorous experiment and mutually supporting results to a paranormal phenomenon such as water divining. Psychic detection of water through dowsing isn't inherently implausible – but, as Richard discovers when he attends a double blind trial supervised by the paranormal investigator Professor Chris French, it never works when a rigorous experiment is conducted.
The evidence for the spirit world or psychic phenomena is simply not robust and repeatable. Rather, it's Will-o'-the-wisp. The more science looks at it, the weaker it becomes.
 |
