I don't know why I watch these kinds of shows; like a lot of Bigfoot programs, many ghost hunting shows seem to feature mainly men who do a lot of shouting and clanking around with equipment. In ghost hunting circles, the shouting has a term: "provoking." Intentionally calling out spirits who are causing problems and kicking their misty little asses.
Anyway. one of these shows is Ghost Adventures, on the Travel channel. The host, Zak Bagans, has another show called Paranormal Challenge, where teams of ghost hunters investigate the same haunted locale while Zak and a few judges watch them on cameras. Last night's episode had, as judges, non-skeptics, but also one skepti-bunkie: the one and only Michael Shermer!
I hate to say this, but Shermer was surprisingly low key, non-combative, and barely scoffed at all. At one point he acknowledged he had no explanation for how a light turned itself on (no power in the place, lights were dead. Gone. Black. Out.) and he was open about how objective the ghost hunters were being. He did do some skeptic stuff though; before the teams went out into the dark dank halls of the now abandoned Linda Vista hospital in East L.A., Shermer gave some "background" of the place to each team. He told one team there was a child spirit about and gave them her name. The other team was told there was the ghost of a man named George who liked to hit people. The reasons for this, Shermer explained (and unbeknownst to the teams) was to check for "confirmation bias" and "expectation." Makes some sense. On the other hand, what's to say a spirit, as spirits are wont to do, wouldn't just have a field day with that and play it for all it could get? I think that would have worked much better if mediums were involved.
2 comments:
Well, Shermer may not be the brightest bulb, but he's not a complete idiot, either. He realized that he needed to be on his best behavior. He can't show up on a show like that and say disrespectful things or he will draw the wrong kind of attention to his movement; yes, there is such a thing as bad publicity, especially when your movement is as corrupt as the pseudoskeptic movement. I understand the problems that you have with the ghost shows, but I think that the competition show might actually go beyond most of the ghost shows. Rather than just collecting evidence, they are trying to figure out how to be most effective at collecting evidence, which could at least give us some clues as to how the physics of these ghosts work.
I keep in mind that all those shows: UFOs, ghosts, Bigfoot, etc. are made by producers and the station airs them for one purpose: ratings. So a lot gets edited out, and you have to play the game. That's okay: in my dream world, where I get my own show, I expect to have to do the same. :)
I like those shows; I prefer Ghost Adventure over the other ghost shows, and, while I still have some issues with Paranormal State, it's grown on me. One thing I like about Ghost Adventure is the use of the camera that captures images in the spectrum -- very cool.
I'm not knocking use of equipment -- it's just that, sometimes, it seems a bit much. And, just my personal bias, I think mediums could be used more often.
My favorite Ghost Adventure so far has been the one in Colorado. That was very cool, and I liked the little interview Zak had with the young girl (she seemed to be 12, 11, maybe 10?) who a already a ghost busting medium!
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