After the Internet explosion, I was delighted to discover many organizations out there of people who, like myself, are skeptical of most paranormal claims.

I consider that science is the best method derived thus far for discovering the truth.  Critics charge it is not perfect.  But then what is?  No other mode of thought has enjoyed the success or the progress of science.  We've tried magic.  It doesn't work.  The evidence that science does work surrounds each of us.

Yet we are also surrounded by unscientific beliefs in things like UFO's, psi-powers, and "alternative medicine".  They all have two things in common: There's not one good scrap of evidence for any of them, and when you ask for it, you get the excuse.  For the UFO "researcher", it's the massive government cover-up.  For the parapsychologist, it's the "skeptic effect".  For the quack, it's the conspiracy of the pharmaceutical industry.  Anything which is real produces results, not excuses.

Skeptics are sometimes asked, "Why spend so much time opposing people just because they have beliefs which are silly?  Isn't everyone entitled to their own opinion?" Certainly we all have a right to believe the way we choose, but there are many social ills associated with belief in the paranormal:

• All of the energy, effort, brainpower, and emotional intensity expended on any belief system which has nothing to do with reality can certainly said to be wasted.  In an era of pressing global problems, we need the brains of each and every human being engaged in finding solutions to those problems.  That so much mental effort is frittered away on nonsense is a crime against humanity.
  
  
• The most common ill associated with irrational belief systems is that the unscrupulous use them to make money off the credulous.  Quacks sell cures which do no good, or are actually harmful, astrologers and psychics take money for services they cannot truly render, and TV evangelists pull in millions simply by asking for it because they have convinced followers they can perform supernatural healings.  The financial drain on believers can be devastating.
  
  
• People have died as a result of irrational beliefs.  The sick have ignored medical help, seeking "psychic surgery" or some similar cure.  Parents have withheld medical treatment from small children, who die waiting for a miracle from God.  And how many cults have ended with mass killings and suicides because of their belief system?
  

So there's the full spectrum.  The kindest thing you can say about belief in the paranormal is that it's a colossal waste of time.  Most frequently, it's a rip-off.  And at worst, it can kill you stone-dead.  There's no good in any of this.  Surely reason enough to oppose the irrational.

• My Newsgroup postings
• My Writings
• The Writings of Others
• Have a look at documentation confirming the presence of one million dollars in prize money for the James Randi Psychic Challenge
• Check out this humorous cartoon by Norman Dog illustrating the day-to-day frustrations of being a skeptic in a world of true believers
• Here's a picture, and a comment from Carl Sagan.  The comment was actually in regard to the Canals of Mars, which many people seriously believed in at one time.  But the picture reminds us that the more things change, the more they remain the same, and that seekers of fantastic phenomena will never want for it, as they can always invent more.
• Related Links