More Thoughts on the Paranormal
By Robert Shoemaker
As a general response to some of the entries and items in the last
issue, it continues to amaze me that so many Mensans, at least around
here, avow cosmological beliefs that are not merely of questionable
tenability, but are downright silly. A number of these Mensans apparently
maintain truly childlike beliefs in such superstitions and long-outmoded,
long-discarded (by the sagacious leaders of both Western and Eastern
thought) as 'angels', 'souls', 'afterlife', 'God', and all manner
of empty noises supposedly denoting actual entities, beings, forces,
etc. in the universe of what-is. Moreover, these people seem to
actually think that they are epistemologically 'free' to 'believe'
such nonsensical tripe, confusing 'having reasons for believing
something' with 'being politically allowed to say whatever they
choose', which, of course, are two entirely different matters.
There are indeed matters about which rational assessment has been
unable to come to a consensus, but these metaphysical bits of archaic
nonsense are not among them. One can hardly be said to 'believe'
what cannot even be clearly stated, much less that which a preponderance
of evidence and reason shows to be erroneous. Again, I would expect
this simple-mindedness from the 50% of the human population with
average or below mental ability, but it is no less than staggering
to find those in the top 2% of human intellectual acuity behaving
like children instead of taking on the responsibility of helping
those with less ability understand how the universe is. I suppose
it is a monument to the forces of intellectual inertia, tradition,
popular emotions, etc. And I suppose intellectual ability is not
to be equated with higher education. Still, it is a bit depressing.