This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 05 Aug 2012, by Todd Suomela.
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05 Aug 12
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A study of 1,000 websites shows how amateur groups use technical jargon and equipment as symbols of what is “scientific” while actually promoting the paranormal and not adhering to any real scientific principles of investigation.
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Also in the first decade of the twenty-first century, amateur research and investigation groups (ARIGs) sprang up in communities across the United States. Many represented their activities as scientific. Interested in seeing how ARIG ideas about being scientific compared to those of the scientific community, I conducted a review of 1,000 websites representing ARIGs in the United States (Hill 2010). How many are there and in what manner do these groups use science to promote themselves and fulfill their mission?
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Specialized skills and high standards characterize scientific work. However, hardly any ARIG lists formal scientific training as a desired qualification of its members. ARIG members generally do what appear to be respectable, convincing, and “sciencey” things. The public mostly relies on heuristics, looking for cues that suggest a source of information is knowledgeable and sophisticated. Because much of the public has little understanding of the rigor and practices of science, it is easy for nonscientists to adopt a hollow likeness of science that misrepresents it. The average observer would not have the background knowledge to determine that ARIG portrayal of a “high-tech” paranormal investigation is ineffectual and without a sound foundation in scientific principals. ARIGs deliver sham inquiry—a process that gives the impression of scientific inquiry but lacks substance and rigor.
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