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Volume 19: Number 3: Article 3
A State of Belief Is a State of Being
Charles Eisenstein, Department of Science, Technology, and Society, Penn State University
When students in a university classroom are invited to share anomalous stories, the "skeptical" tactics used to debunk them seem reasonable at first, but eventually reveal a worldview that is cynical, arrogant, dogmatic, and unfalsifiable. Because any new evidence can, with sufficient effort, be made to fit a preexisting paradigm, belief is seen to come down to choice. Moreover, like most belief systems, the worldview of the Skeptic has an emotional component, long ago identified by Bertrand Russell and others as a meaninglessness or despair inherent in classical science. The choice of belief therefore extends beyond a mere intellectual decision, to encompass one's identity and relationship to the world. This approach conflicts with traditional
scientific objectivity, which enjoins that belief be detached from such considerations. The relationship between observation and belief is more subtle than the traditional scientific view that the latter must follow dispassionately from the former. Indeed, the "experimenter effect" in parapsychology, as well as the mounting problems with objectivity in mainstream science, suggest a need to reconceive science and the Scientific Method in light of the crumbling of the assumption of objectivity upon which it is based.
Keywords: objectivity, experimenter effect, skepticism, falsifiability, belief
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