The Paranormal....and Me

Perfect Blue is a semi active member of the Wikipedia-paranormal community who has experiences some strange and weird things in their time, and believes that there are huge areas that have yet to be rationalized with mainstream thinking that should be documented in a rational and logical manner, even if the areas themselves do not appear rational or logical.

However Perfect Blue is a natural born skeptic who has never:

• Experienced anything sufficiently spectral for it not to be the product of too much X-Files late at night, or too much coffee early in the morning.
• Seen any giant footprints in the snow that didn't look like half melted bear track.
• Seen anything in the sky that didn't look a flock of geese, a boring aircraft, or drunken frat boy who's tied helium balloons to their scrotum and jumped out of a window in dorm opposite while wearing nothing but an ET mask (EEEEEWWWWWWWWWW).
• Heard anything new age that didn't sound like it was thought up by somebody in possession of a water pipe and some particularly strong weed.

Core Tenets

When editing articles on the paranormal, Perfect Blue has several core beliefs that have, on occasion, brought them into conflict with other Wikipedians including that:

• An occurrence that cannot be fully rationalized using both science and conventional wisdom is still an occurrence - Albeit a disputed one with a possible alternative explanation (including that it didn't actually happen) – and should they should therefore be afforded the same editorial respect as an undisputed occurrence.

• Leading words like alleged, so-called and supposed should be avoided as they create prejudice in the reader. If they are included they should only be used the first time that an event is written about in an article, and not each time that it is mentioned.

• If something primarily exists in popular culture then science should be included as a B-Feature, not as the headline act. It's nice if you can include some science, but at the end of the day if a topic couldn't not survive based on scientific content alone then science should not be the primary focus of the entry. In short, balance should be determined by notability, not credibility.

• Because urban myths and beliefs based on bad premise can be a strong and influential force on people, it often as important to record evidence or links that exist solely in the minds of believers as it is to record actual empirical evidence. The same goes for pseudoscience, bad science, and crank hypothesis.

• It can be a fact that somebody has said something or believes something even if the contents of what they said is a factually inaccurate (Or a downright lie). It can also be a fact that what they say is influential in other people's thinking, even if it appears to be plainly evident that it is not true to you (see above).

• Every sections containing mainstream hypothesis about a paranormal occurrence should be accompanied by at least one section containing a fringe hypothesis, or a hypothesis that believes that the original hypothesis is wrong, if such hypothesis exist. And vice-versa.

• Main stream scientist are usually quite concerned about remaining in the mainstream and maintaining their credibility with other mainstream scientists so they will often either avoid certain issues, or avoid making any findings that stray too far from the conventionally accepted wisdom of that issue. Therefore, the lack of mainstream opinion on a topic does not necessarily reflect its notability or credibility, OR make mainstream findings any more scientifically valid than those of similarly qualified fringe groups.

• Equally, and especially in relation to the above, not everything is a conspiracy. Wacky stuff should be written so as to exclude the maximum amount of wackiness while maintaining the core of the account, and some types of opinions or account should be excluded in order to maintain quality standards of an article (if you must talk to a rednecks about Bigfoot, try to avoid the one holding shotgun and talking about how a Sasquatch ate his pappy back in 63).

Pet Hates

Perfect Blue has a number of pet hates (this is a user page, so NPOV isn't really an issue), some of which include:

• People who believe that all elements of belief in the paranormal should be treated equally, be it with equal respect or equal disdain. Scientific anomalies, myths and legends, beliefs that are not founded in science, even hoaxes and the ravings of madmen deserve studying based on their own merits. However, their merits do not all hold the same values and such topics should not all be approached in the same way. Trying to do so is akin to treating the works of a teenager playing with a chemistry set in his or her basement in the same manner as the works of a world famous physicists, or vise-versa.

• If there's one thing that Perfect Blue is skeptical about, it is the motives of skeptics. As such, Perfect Blue strongly disagrees with the type of person who professes to be a skeptic, or to be approaching the paranormal in a rational and logical way, but who is instead simply trying to deny it or (worse still) to bury it because it conflicts with their personally held beliefs.

• In relation to the above, Perfect Blue has an instant distrust of skeptics whom quote scientific orthodoxy as a protective mantra against stories of the paranormal but whom are not only unwilling to accept A) that the orthodoxy might be wrong, or B) that something new might exist which is perfectly explainable by science but which exists outside of the orthodoxy, but who are also unwilling to put their money where their mouth and preform the experiments necessary to prove that the orthodoxy is right.

For example, many skeptics dismiss so called "Cold Spots" as being naturally occurring temperature variations because this is what the orthodoxy says. I don't accept this. This isn't to say that I believe that they are caused by spooks (which I don't), but rather that I won't accept such an answer from anybody who isn't quoting from a temperature study of the location in question that plots air currents or show high/low pressure areas that would account for the cold spot. Frankly, if something apparently paranormal is explainable through science (and most, if not all, things are), then I want to see that scientific explanation properly researched and laid out before me. If you simply quote the orthodoxy, you're making a generalization based on the application of Ocam's razor and a textbook explanation of (and this is the important part) "other cases" which appear to be similar, you're not actually carrying out a scientific study of your own.

There are those who say that the burden of proof is on advocates of the paranormal, and they are constantly criticized for not being able to back up their pet stories and hypothesis with empirical evidence. Well, I'm asking nothing less from skeptics. In order to maintain the credibility of skeptical research something must be disprove through study and experimentation, else the skeptical researcher is just as bad as the believer.