Lauren and I have been watching those ghost huntin’ shows before going to sleep. It’s a pleasant enough diversion even though they tend to be a bit silly. Plenty of times the evidence these folks have of ghosts is nothing more than a misreading/misuse of their equipment, something entirely explainable by normal events, misperceptions of events, and the like.
Every now and then these shows will have something pretty wacky that isn’t easily explained. At the least, not easily explained by me, for what that’s worth.
Regardless, there are events that are being captured by these ghost hunter people. The events could be as simple as air pressure differences causing doors to open, windows acting as mirrors showing the cameraman as an "unexplained" thermal image, etc. In other words, something is happening. And sometimes that something isn’t easily explained.
Sceptics and debunkers, however, nearly always argue that this is all a bunch of hokum. They will offer up some reasonable explanations and some unreasonable ones. In my mind the sceptics are no better than the believers because neither approach these phenomenon objectively. Both tend to come from a sort of religious faith where their beliefs will not be challenged regardless of the evidence.
This has led me to a logical dilemma, and perhaps you would care to help solve it.
The Sunnyland Dilemma
Occasionally visitors to Sunnyland will tell the residents about lightning. Some stories are rather cosmic in nature, such as, "When the gods are very angry with us they will bring terrible storms and shoot brilliant fire down from the sky." Other stories are simpler. "Occasionally there will be a flash of bright light when there are lots of clouds."
The people of Sunnyland believe that lightning is hokum, and perhaps reasonably so. No one of credible authority has proven to them that lightning exists and is a real phenomenon.
Your job is to prove to the people of Sunnyland that lightning is a real phenomenon. How would you do it?
Bear the following in mind:
– Even now lightning is not fully understood and an explanation for the cause of lightning has not been agreed upon
– There are differening opinions currently on whether lightning bolts can be seen going "up" or "down"
– Would it be more dificult to explain if lightning happened 10x less often? 100x? 1000x?
So there ya go. I’ll try to respond with my perceptions of how Sunnyland would argue.
Yr fthfl bddy,
Mike
By the way, why do you spell it “sceptic?” Granted, it’s not technically wrong, but American Standard tends to favor the “skeptic” spelling of the word.
Because I read too many British car magazines and sometimes forget how to spell things correctly.
At least I don’t say colour. Sheesh.
Sadron suggested putting them all in boxcars and taking them out to where there’s lightning.
I’d probably spend a few years mastering the Dark Side lightening. They’d believe then!
Well.
The sizzling remains of their corpses would believe.
Build a Van der Graaf generator and demonstrate it to them.