I see that the excellent Skeptoid Podcast has a new episode taking a look at Ghost Hunters, the popular show on the Sci-Fi network that looks at sites said to be haunted. I haven't listened to the podcast yet, but Ghost Hunters is starting a new season, so here are my thoughts.
The good: superficially, it seems scientific. Data is collected and reviewed, observations are noted, and some attempt to account for bias is occasionally put forth. So, it is kind of an improvement over many other paranormal shows on TV that merely present anecdotal evidence as fact. And, the bottom line is that lots of people seem to find it entertaining.
The bad: it's not science. There's no systematic effort to remove bias. There's no serious attempt to disprove their hypotheses, to try their hardest to falsify all the evidence, until whatever is left stands on its own, as a measurement of reality, which is what real scientists do. No outsiders have access to the data to review it.
The worst: their use of recording equipment is laughable. In one episode, they're very excited by a spike in IR (hilariously lampooned on SNL with Hugh Laurie). They interpret this as a positive result (proof of a spirit). Any electronic equipment is susceptible to noise. They seem to have no idea of how to calibrate their equipment, of finding ways of subtracting noise from signal, or even realizing that noise is a possibility. Worst of all is their audio recording ("Electronic Voice Phenomena"), where they're eager to interpret any sound as spoken or whispered words, which of course takes only a little imagination. EVP is their biggest source of what they consider to be "evidence" and, by no coincidence, it's the area where they show no rigor whatsoever.
So the Ghost Hunters are entertainers and not scientists. So what? I think it does a disservice both to skeptics and to believers in the paranormal. If you really believe in ghosts, wouldn't you want the best effort made to find proof? A good skeptic wants the same. That's the difference between skeptics and debunkers. We (the former) are "open to anything, skeptical of everything." Debunkers have a pre-defined conclusion that something is impossible, and only look for evidence of that conclusion. In one episode, they say that they are debunkers, by which they meant to say they are skeptics. I.e. they don't even know what the words mean.
