Truth, not emotion

The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not thepath to knowledge, it has no place in the endeavour of science." Carl Sagan. `Cosmos' 1980I am bemused by the confrontational nature of some people involved in paranormal research. Onewould think that truth was simply a matter of who shouted the loudest, or that falsehood is provedby showing that those who disagree with us are fools. But facts are quite separate from claims,accusations, insults or impassioned testimonies. Truth is no friend of rabid believers, hard-nosedsceptics or open-minded agnostics.Politics and religion are full of those who think they already know the truth and want to `spread theword'. But all too often revelation of what they sincerely believe is truth takes second place to thedemolition of opposing ideas. This is propaganda; the art of deliberately misinterpreting andbelittling opposing views. This is why, in politics and religion, supporters of a particular belief-system will always stress the most absurd and superficial policies or dogma, the biggest mistakes,scandals and logistic and moral shortcomings of opposing belief systems.But those searching for truth, be they scientists, philosophers, mathematicians, detectives orpsychical researchers, are not defending a position. They must approach what they feel is the mostabsurd and ridiculous ideas with complete impartiality. But more than this, they must seek out thestrongest possible evidence of a phenomena - even if it seems very silly and illogical. Because onlyby confronting the strongest evidence can we truly say we have earned the right to reject it or evento talk about truth at all.An example from psychical research is reincarnation. The most impressive scientific evidence todate is the work of Professor Ian Stevenson. Whether or not his findings in favour of thereincarnation hypothesis turn out to be valid it is precisely this material sceptics of reincarnationshould focus on. Yet most sceptical articles, books and television documentaries on the subject haveignored Stevenson's research in favour of anecdotal `memories' of people either claiming to havebeen famous people in history or who have undergone hypnotic regression.People responsible for this type of sensationalist lowbrow approach are acting like politicians andreligious zelots by focusing on the easily solved, the silly and ridiculous in order to make their ownbeliefs look more attractive.