Spirits and the Round Earth

I recently attended a gathering at work where the conversation turned to paranormal activity and the existence of spirits, ghosts, and gods.  I very much dislike conversations of this sort as it troubles me that belief in such things is so utterly common and pervasive.  It also troubles me that the people who do openly discuss such things often have a completely absurd understanding of logic and scientific process.

Like anything simple, mystic or religious, it is far easier to believe than to not believe.  To the common populace, believing in and spouting off about spirits and ghosts requires no justification or proof.  In fact, they seem to think quite the opposite.  If you put up an argument, they may even ask you to prove that spirits don't exists!  This is, of course, a logical fallacy known as the Negative Proof.  "What is a logical fallacy?" they say.  Sigh...

Further into the conversation, I suddenly found that attention had been directed towards me.  I fell back on a feeble attempt to explain the million dollar prize that has been offered by the James Randi Foundation for the past X amount of years to anybody who can exhibit provable paranormal activity.  In an average conversation amongst average people, this is an easy way to dismiss the existence of paranormal claims.  I like to tell them, "Well, if it's real then you should go claim your million dollars."  Of course, nobody ever does, because whatever they are talking about is not real.

This time it was different.  After my feeble argument, somebody exclaimed something to this effect

"People offered prize money to those who could claim the Earth was round, and that wasn't claimed for hundreds of years."

And... no surprise... that seemed to satisfy the mystic-believers in the room.  And that was the end of that.  Painful.

Okay, setting aside that this "fact" was made off-the-cuff and isn't in any way factual as far as I know... I understand the essence of the remark.  The speaker was claiming that maybe we just don't currently have the technology to prove paranormal activity.  Fair enough.  But that doesn't mean you can go around believing it as if it were fact.  Allowing yourself to do so would be an expression of the Negative Proof.

All good scientists will admit that ghosts and spirits are a possibility.  There is always a possibility of anything.  At any moment, we may discover that we've been wrong about anything for all this time.  Science is not absolute, nor does it claim to be.  It deals with proving things beyond a reasonable doubt.  Scientific proof results in an argument that can withstand repeated attempts refute it.  And the proof is never locked away beyond reach.  It is always available for attack throughout history.  In fact, this is what science demands!  You've got a better idea of how something works?  Go ahead and attack the accepted proofs.  You are always free to do so.

Perhaps this is why some of us are annoyed by religious absolutes.  God exists.  End of story.  A scientist would say, "There's a possibility that God exists.  What kind proof have you got?  Let's see if it holds up to repeatable tests and situations."

So I come back to my desk and pull up some articles on Round Earth versus Flat Earth, etc.  After some quick reading I find that there's nothing here that bolsters the pro-mystic viewpoint!  In fact, it is quite the opposite!

Eratosthenes and Ptolemy proved the Earth was round way back in 200 B.C.!  But the ignorant masses chose not (or were not allowed) to believe them.  Fast forward to today.  Notice anything different?  Me neither.  The ignorant masses will always continue to be ignorant masses.  They choose to believe hearsay and common mythology rather than to investigate, learn, and understand.