Suspending disbelief

I was listening to an old episode of the SETI institute's podcast Are We Alone, in which they talked to a CSICOP (or whatever it is they call themselves these days) investigator. He described how he approached claims of the paranormal: he was neutral, and he “suspended disbelief” while he investigated the claim. He is not the only person to state that they “suspend disbelief” when looking at wacky claims. But he is wrong. He described his methodology in greater detail, and with case studies. What he is actually doing is following the stereotype ("type workflow"?) of the scientific method. In science, we make new hypotheses -- wacky or tame -- about how the world works, but it is assumed that the null hypothesis is true until we have evidence to suggest otherwise.

When reading a good novel, or watching a good film, we suspend disbelief. Not necessarily consciously -- we just slip away from the physical world into the story without thinking about it, and can instantly adjust back to the real world when we pull out of the tale. That's not the sort of belief suspension that is going on when we investigate claims of the paranormal. When investigating anything one has to keep one's wits about one. If Sherlock Holmes suspended disbelief and just listened to the tales of witnesses he would never solve a case. Holmes' greatness comes from his careful analysis of every minute detail that he is given, his sharpness at spotting the questions that need asking, and his refusal to take the word of others for granted -- to poke around for the weak spots in what he is told.

If you are suspending disbelief when considering truth-claims, you're doing it wrong. Truth-claims should be the subject of skepticism. Skepticism is a good thing. It is not close-mindedness. It is not cynicism. Skepticism is staying alert and active in the investigation. Skepticism is the doorman of your mind, checking who is coming in, and ejecting the riff-raff. The doorman doesn't bar everybody, he just asks a few basic questions to keep out the fakes, mistakes, and frauds. Skepticism is processing the information coming into your mind. Without it, you can't solve a case, answer a question, discover the truth.

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As Derren Brown notes, there are some situations where we know what is and what is not. Sometimes we know when a claim can be dismissed as laughable. Some claims are so clearly illogical, irrational, or impossible, that their falseness is instantly recognisable. When a hippy makes a baseless proposal that contradicts what we know about the way the world works, keeping an open mind or opening an inquiry is not a productive use of your time and skills. We are allowed then and there to make a judgment on the hippy's absurd ideas, without denying that all knowledge has an element of provisionality . Saying that one is "keeping an open mind", suspending judgment, and investigating the possibility that the claim is true is meaningless posing.

And yet so many intelligent people adopt this pose with god.