Science’s greatest fear

The paranormal and science have an uneasy relationship. The occasional scientist is courageous enough to take the plunge into researching the paranormal, but in the main, the subject is anathema. This has led to what could be called a 'paranormal phobia' amongst those who claim to be rational. The world is explained through individualism, atheism, materialism and specialization. The paranormal doesn't fit into any of these, so forget it. : And science does a marvelous job at doing so. Indeed, many scientists become evangelical in their manic need to show that they are right, and paranormalists -well, mad. They've even recruited an army of groupies -non-scientific types who nonetheless have absolute belief in the wrongness of the paranormal. Forming sceptic societies the world over, they do a marvelous job of publicizing paranormalists, even being responsible for some careers. This manic need is interesting.: They doth protest too much, me thinks. And when someone exhibits this kind of fundamentalist mentality, we really must ask if the reason is not 'rationality' based, but an exhibition of fear. If we go into the history of science, it is clear that it grew out of mysticism and philosophy. Even just over 400 hundred years ago, many scientists were of a mystical bent. Think Keplar and Newton. Even in the 19th century, it was a monk -Mendel -who defined genetics. But somewhere along the way, science crossed the line. : It divorced itself from mysticism, and the absolute idea of inquiry it entailed. This seriously reduced the things it could study -namely, the definite physical world, if such a thing actually exists.

At first, they could be comfortable with this, for society was still religious enough to allow science a repository for things they could not explain. Some things could still be the preserve of God. But as god was banished from the universe, it had to change.: And the repository for awkward 'bits' was taken away. And once this occurred, science did something that was the exact opposite of the rational.