Sam Harris

"There also seems to be a body of data attesting to the reality of psychic phenomena, much of which has been ignored by mainstream science." (The End of Faith, p. 41.)

I was, I dunno, somewhat taken aback by Mr Harris's ostensible deviation from a strict-rationality diet. There seems to be a body of data attesting to the reality of stigmata and weeping icons too. It's just that none of the data is any good once you drag it into the daylight. Anybody else find this surprising, maybe inapposite?

In just about every other respect, I'm wholly in agreement with Letter to a Christian Nation and The End of Faith.

[quote author=“MrParallel”]“There also seems to be a body of data attesting to the reality of psychic phenomena, much of which has been ignored by mainstream science.” (The End of Faith, p. 41.)

It seems to me that Sam was attempting to show that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs,” but just because the claims are extraordinary doesn’t mean they should be written off unstudied. As he says, “scientific skepticism is compatible with a fundamental openness of mind.”

I don’t, think, in other words, that he was claiming that psychic phenomena are true as reported, just that until real study is done, it isn’t good science to pooh-pooh them.