The supernatural has always caught the interest of Americans, it is seen in the reality TV circuit constantly. The supernatural and science can often directly conflict, but can the supernatural be proven in an unbiased way? How does science fit into the supernatural? Personally, I think this discussion can be really interesting because a lot of the appealing aspects of the supernatural is the ambiguity, and the point of science is to conduct investigations in an unbiased way in order to clearly prove something.
The supernatural can be defined as an event or manifestation that is attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or established laws of nature. Oftentimes, science used in an attempt to justify that the event was abnormal. So how can science be used to try to understand something that is beyond that level of understanding?
Well, if you’ve ever seen Ghost Hunters or other paranormal shows, you know they all say that they are “skeptical”, even though we know that they have a biased opinion. They also often claim that they are “scientific” because they often utilize equipment like electromagnetic fields or infrared cameras. They often will be in psychics or other natural ways of sensing activity, which forgoes the scientific value. This use of pseudoscience in order to gather data is not how real data should be collected, and personally I believe that the ends do not justify the means.
The point of science is to use a clear methodology in an unbiased way to get results that are able to be reproduced. Some of the results of these tv show visits are unable to be recreated, lowering or even negating the value of what was recorded. Good science does not know a result and work backwards from it. Good science uses clear methodology to get a consistent result, regardless of what the result is. How can something considered to be undefined by science now able to be quantified? The data collected should not be able to be called “scientific” just because certain equipment was used by investigators. Case in point, pseudoscience that is done in paranormal investigations are not the equivalent of true science conducted in the scientific community.