Why don't debunkers ever...?

The answer is simple. People tend to give answers or opinions on things they are familiar with. Most questions open to debunking here are personal beliefs or practical. They are not technical. These are easily commented on by most debunkers because they require more common sense and understanding of general topics. As the topics increase in technical orientation and are more and more specific, the people who can answer these questions intelligently decreases. Many of the needed experts for these type of questions have other things to do.

For example, if someone says they heard bangings coming from the upstairs and wondered if it was a ghost, you would get debunkers from a large number of subsets:

1) those that see there is no substantial evidence that ghosts exists.

2) those that are familiar with architecture and now about things like thermal expansion, common house settling noises, etc.

3) those that are familiar with animals nesting in attics and so forth.

If that sampe questioner asked instead, that in the evening hours of 8:30 PM to 9:45PM, there is a pounding sound that resonates from infrasound to 1200Hz, does this match poltergeist phenomenon based on the agent interaction model, you get far less people that can give a debunking stance. You need someone that understands the various types of phenomenon technically, has audio expertise, and probably a familiarity with homes in that area at that time for environmental concerns.

This does not just go for debunkers, but believers as well. The examples you gave had low response rates altogether regardless of stance. Thus, I woul say it is not a stance response issue, but a technical response issue.

I've made a similar observation. It's interesting to see the questions they gravitate to. I've personally asked a few questions they avoided like the plague. TR usually answers the legit science questions though and I think he ends up coming up with the best possible answer a skeptic could hope for on these questions, so many of them don't bother to add more.

The one thing that separates a real skeptic from a psuedoskeptic is whether or not they are skeptical of their OWN belief system. Rarely do I see evidence of that. Nor do I see evidence that they have truly investigated the "skeptics" in the media whom they parrot.

True skeptics are skeptical of the current reductionist scientific paradigm in addition to all that stuff out there on the fringe which they dismiss as "woo woo". I've noticed a couple times when they seem to not want to approach the weirdness that is quantum physics or else they try to refute what their precious version of "science" has already demonstrated.

http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aj...

The avoidance in Gary Y's answer says it all!

And the questions you gave as examples are interesting. You know a lot about these subjects and they don't. Nuff said.

I didn't see any of those questions you posted. I surely would have jumped in on the Turing test question, having a degree in computer science.

If I ignore a tough science question, its for one of 3 reasons.

1) Someone has already given an answer which is more thorough than I planned to give.

2) I am not familiar enough with the particular subject to give a confident answer.

3) From the context of the question, I feel that the answerer is just going to ignore my answer for a paranormal explanation.

Other than that. I tend to answer here, because I am interested in the paranormal and YA! is pretty much something I do when I get bored, and then I browse the rest of the science section. Early on, I focused on the Math section, but it seemed like just kids asking people to do thier homework.

Anyway, the last add-on about science never proves anything. I would venture to say that there is significantly more controversy in the field of faith than in science. If you don't think spirits and ghosts and psychic abilities have changed over time, then you need to google for some old photos of gypsies pulling cheese cloth out of their noses. When was the last time you saw that?

The first question I never saw. If I did I would have been more curious as to what Eri and TR had to say. Probably I would not have answered.

The second, never saw this one either. Not interested in the subject, it's procedural. I'm no scientist, just a guy who doesn't believe everything he hears.

The third, It seems like a computer question. I make no secret of my ignorance on that subject

The fourth, I find remote viewing an obnoxious claim. If anyone could do it. We wouldn't have to ask about it here. Deenie is a friend, I saw no reason to repeat my opinions on Internet boasters in answer to her question.

Good question Tunsa. There are quite a few questions I would have liked to see you answer.

I know I am going to get blasted back to the Stone Age for posting this but.... Despite all the "out there" things I've posted and written about, I have spent years reading quantum theory and other scientific journals, as well as countless religious commentary, ad nauseum. I consider myself to be an open minded skeptic. There are books that document scientifically arranged experiments to substantiate psi phenomenon, one of which is Conscious Acts of Creation, which details a scientific attempt to document the ability to program a space with an intention. I am not so stiff in my approach to my own beliefs that I do not question things, ideas, philosophies, and my journey is ever evolving and changing. Having said that, the beauty of reaching a mature age is the realization that you can believe what you want to believe and practice whatever philosophy you choose as long as you are not harming someone else in the process. Debunkers of the paranormal annoy me because their minds are so closed, and it is so obvious that they are so rooted in the physical aspects of themselves that they can't see past their own nose. It makes me sad to see a person so in love with the mundane. I don't try to convert a non-believer. Why should a non-believer impress upon me his or her own beliefs. I am free to do as I choose. The debunker is free to do as he or she chooses, as well. But to spend energy posting futile remarks is so...immature. Their time could be better spent. Go help the homeless. Do something constructive instead of destructive. This is the difference between people who believe in a soul, or spirit, and people who do not. Why not think of things in possibilities? Sorry to say, but scientific theory is not always accurate. Think about our history here, folks. Lots of foregoing minds were wrong about the size, shape, and position of our earth, for example, until someone came along and proved the size and shape of our earth. It is the same with quantum theory, astrophysics. A theory is proposed, the math is scribbled out, the great minds come together and dissect it until a space probe passes the planet in question, maps it, and sends the data back, and the scientists are at once excited and befuddled because they were WRONG, but they discovered something new, which set their minds happily whirring off in a whole new direction again. Science is no more static than anything else in this life.

I understand what your saying, but people don't answer every single question in this topic. I, myself just answer the questions that look to be interesting.

As for people saying, "that doesn't exist", they are not always taking a scientific approach to the questions. Or, they really don't know how to explain it.

What purpose could it (this conspiracy) have served? No, jet gasoline does not burn metallic, yet metallic loses it incredibly is tinsle power at around 850 tiers, below what jet gasoline burns at, plus you're finding at over one hundred,000lbs of gasoline burning over quite a few flooring. As for the "secondary explosions", ought to they have been transformers blowing up, or domicile windows blowing out? back to the metallic "burning", remember the tanker full of disel gasoline that wrecked, caught fireplace and led to the overpass to break down because of the fact the metallic beams grew to become weakened? If a street overpass can crumple whilst 40,000 lbs of diesel gasoline burns, why is it so no longer common to have faith that development columns and bypass beams does no longer be weakened to the element of colapse whilst over one hundred,000 lbs of jet gasoline burns in a development?

the accepted rule in science is:

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof"

If there is a contradiction to a well established and recognized idea than the burden of proof is on the person making the new claim.

Yes there a a few serious well respected scientists who investigate the "paranormal" the military and NASA have studied telepathy. Nobody has ever proven anything

Nobody has to "disprove" the new claim.

Don't you realize that because I keep snapping my fingers every night before I go to sleep, I am scaring away the demons who are coming to eat the world while you sleep". Do you dare ask me to stop? the world may end!

I'm not sure what a "debunker" is, but as a skeptic I love scientific questions. I think most skeptics do, as shown by their participation here. In regards to "Why don't debunkers ever...", ever what? If they never do something, what is it they never do?

Truth be told, I recognize only the latest of the 4 questions you linked to, and unfortunately did not get to it fast enough before the asker chose a best answer. The rest got past me, as probably 50% of the questions here do. Also, only a couple of those questions I'd call "scientific".

Also, it appears as if the tiny sample of questions provided in the links were each carefully selected to support the premise of the question (i.e., not having answers from "debunkers") instead of being randomly sampled from the archive of resolved questions.

EDIT: So you recognized your premise was poorly supported by a selection of questions that were plainly biased, and you asked for evidence that you were wrong? I couldn't imagine a better example of the fallacy of shifting the burden of proof. You should know better than that by now. A scientist (or one simply trying to think scientifically) would start with data that is as unbiased as practically possible and then hypothesize from there.

I can also see that when the question, "What's 2 + 2?" gets asked over and over again, the answer "4" does become a tired response. However, I won't change my answer to "5" just to conform to the whimsical biases of the paranormal crowd and their dogmas of choice. I hope my analogy here is clear. Note, I don't find fault in your answers or other believers' answer just because you repeat the same things over and over again, which you plainly do. The fault lies in the content, not in the fact that it is expressed more than once.

Esoteric questions are often avoided no matter what section you're in. I don't answer technical scientific questions because I don't have two weeks to spend researching a question here on Y!A. I don't post for points, so if I have nothing to add or am unqualified to answer then I don't bother answering.