From Stephan A. Schwartz’s False Equivalencies and the Mediocrity of Nonlocal Consciousness Research Criticism
“Since [critics contend] there is no plausible mechanism within a materialist frame of reference to explain them, paranormal phenomena can’t possibly be valid. This is the same reasoning that the learned men of Galileo’s day used when they refused to look in the telescope. This attitude is nowhere more evident than in the number of scientists who are willing to volunteer as “expert” commentators on television programs about paranormal phenomena, astonishingly undeterred and unembarrassed by their complete lack of knowledge concerning the existing experimental data. These “experts” smile condescendingly as they explain that the phenomena under discussion can be explained by chance occurrence, brain abnormality, etc., depending on the topic at hand. Since the belief that causality can only be found in matter reigns supreme, there doesn’t seem to be any requirement that these “experts” support their claims with actual data. They need only introduce the possibility that the same outcome might have been achieved through some other means, to convince their naïve audience that it is all ‘hocus pocus.'”
“As the British Society for Psychical Research puts it, opposition to this area of research is “often against its implications and not the quality of its evidence.”
“It is long past time that we recognize that just as with climate change, and evolution denierism, the quality of the criticism aimed at nonlocal consciousness research is in false equivalency to the research itself.”