In his 1748 essay “Of Miracles,” philosopher David Hume advised, “A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.” That is, how certain we are about something we’re told should be directly correlated with how good the evidence is for that claim.

That is not only a basic premise of skepticism, but is also common sense. Yet when this self-evident principle is applied to paranormal topics, some people dismiss it out of hand. For example, in a new New Age book called "Amazing Grace: The Nine Principles of Living in Natural Magic," by David Wolfe and Nick Goode, the authors try to dismiss skepticism with the following argument: “The mere idea that every single ghost experience, Bigfoot sighting, UFO encounter, alien abduction, psychic occurrence of any kind, Loch Ness monster viewing, conspiracy theory, etc., is the product of a neurosis or hallucination is patently and completely ridiculous. The burden of proof is clearly on the doubter. The doubter must prove that every single paranormal experience out of thousands or even millions of such encounters in each category is a phony. That is impossible….If even one ghost story is true, then ghosts exist. If even one person can see into the future, then seeing into the future is possible. This is ‘Raw Logic’ and it instantly deconstructs and eliminates any fog of confusion surrounding paranormal phenomenon” (page 8-9).

There’s a lot fuzzy thinking and bad logic packed into this paragraph. First, the authors use a logical fallacy called the “straw man argument” when they suggest that skeptics (“doubters”) claim that every single paranormal experience “is the product of a neurosis or hallucination.” Of course such a suggestion is patently ridiculous; I don’t know of a single skeptic who claims that all such experiences are neuroses or hallucinations.

They also commit another logical error, a false-choice fallacy, when they claim that either 1) all reports of the paranormal are the products of neuroses or hallucinations; or 2) the phenomenon is “true” and actually occurred as claimed. In fact, there’s a third choice that Wolfe and Goode ignore, and it’s the correct one: most “unexplained phenomena” are the product of simple misunderstandings, misperceptions, or errors in memory.

The authors then claim that the burden of proof is on the doubter, as if it’s the skeptic’s job to somehow disprove a given paranormal claim. This is a common defense among those who are asked for evidence of their extraordinary claims, but that’s not how science works. That’s not how courts of law work (the burden of proof is not on the defendant to prove he is innocent, it is up to the court—the entity making the claim of guilt—to prove he is guilty). According to Wolfe and Goode, if a friend tells you that she has a tiny, fire-breathing dragon living in her purse, you should assume that whatever you’re being told is absolutely true, and the burden of proof is on you to disprove it!

That’s not “Raw Logic,” that’s Ill Logic. The authors are correct that if even one lake monster or ghost sighting is true (i.e., the person actually saw something unexplainable), then lake monsters and ghosts exist. But this is an obvious truism, circular logic offered up as profound insight that somehow dismisses or “deconstructs” any skeptical arguments. It does nothing of the sort, and if there is a “fog of confusion” surrounding paranormal phenomena, it is caused by fuzzy thinking, bad logic, and a lack of critical thinking. Sadly, it’s all too common.