Paranormal
From RationalWiki
This topic is a pseudoscience, and is not accepted by the scientific community as a valid discipline.
Although it may use scientific terminology, it does not use scientific methodology.
Remember: just because it sounds right doesn't mean it's actually right.
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Paranormal is an general term used used to describe various unexplained phenomena, such as spontaneous human combustion. More often than not, paranormal activities invoke supernatural rather than naturalistic explanations - although a few sub-fields of paranormal investigation such as cryptozoology do claim "natualistic" explantions, but these are mostly bullshit.
[edit] General pseudoscience
In general, paranormal phenomena are outside of what one would normally expect to observe in the real world. Furthermore the phenomena are generally not reproducible under controlled conditions and it is therefore not possible to investigate them using the scientific method. For this reason they are classed as pseudoscience.
However, many of the legitimate scientific investigations that have been made into paranormal activity have turned up intresting results, although most, if not all, turn out with naturalistic explanations. Ghosts for instance, can be explained by minor hallucinations that have been replicated in labs. The "spooky" or "sickly" feeling of walking into a haunted house has been replicated by using very low frequency soundwaves. Acts such as fortune telling or talking to the dead can easily be replicated in controlled conditions by people, such as Derran Brown, utilising the techniques that mediums and fortune-tellers are suspected of using to dupe otherwise innocent customers.
