Paranormal Studies 313: Course Introduction

Professor Grimes glanced up at the dingy clock that hung over the classroom door. That same analog clock had been there fifteen years ago when he had first started teaching. Back then he had been a history professor, teaching the lessons of the past to bored students who could barely stay awake. As time went by, years of gross mismanagement by the University’s leadership led to a serious financial crisis. Rather than spending their money more wisely, however, they chose to fire dozens of teachers – as if they had been the ones who decided to build a multi-million-dollar stadium for a football team that had not had a winning season since 1936. As a result the aging professor found himself teaching twice as many classes, with no corresponding increase in salary. However, since almost no one ever showed up for his lectures he found that his job had actually become much easier. It had been four years since he had last given any student an A. For a reason that was beyond his ability to comprehend, most students felt that they could skip every class and then rescue their grade by acing the final – despite the fact that the final only counted for 20% of their grade. He warned them in the course syllabus that if the students skipped their midterm exams and writing assignments they would be unable to pass no matter how well they did on the final, but it never made any difference.

The clock told him that it was six minutes until 10 o’clock in the morning. He had already taught two other classes that day. This was the one he had been looking forward to, as it would be the first time he had ever taught a course on this particular subject. The professor still could not figure out why a divinity school would want to offer a course on paranormal phenomena, but that decision was above his pay grade. These days he simply did as he was told. He had long ago stopped trying to reason with people who were apparently incapable of thinking rationally.

A quick glance around the classroom showed that eleven people were present. Sixty-four people had signed up for the class, despite the fact that the room only had thirty chairs. At one time that would have motivated the professor to find a bigger classroom, but he eventually learned that only about 10% of his students ever showed up. Despite double-booking his classes every single year he had never ran out of seats. That was one thing he could count on.

In fact, he was somewhat concerned about the eleven people who were already in class. That number seemed unusually high to him. Professor Grimes got up from his desk and walked around in front of it. “Excuse me, everyone, but this is Paranormal Studies 313. Please check to make sure that you are in the right room.”

One young man quickly looked up, confused. “Um, are you sure? This is room 239, isn’t it?”

Professor Grimes shook his head. “No, I am afraid not. This is room 4A, as it says right there on the door that you used to enter this room. You do realize that this is a one-story building, don’t you? There is no room 239 in the Whitaker building.”

“Oh,” the student replied.

“What class are you looking for?”

“I guess this one will work,” the young man said vaguely. “All I know is that I’m supposed to be attending class. This is a class, isn’t it?”

Professor Grimes sighed. He grabbed the class roster off of his desk and started flipping through it. “What is your name?”

“Dan,” he replied.

“Dan Cervantes?”

The young man nodded.

“You are indeed signed up for my class,” the professor said at last. “You are in the right place.”

“Um, ok. But what’s in room 239?”

Professor Grimes flipped through the sheaf of papers in his hand. “According to this, you are signed up for a music class that is held in room 239 of the Jenkins building. That class is on Mondays from 8am to noon.”

“Does that mean I’m late?” Dan asked.

“No, Dan, it does not. Monday was yesterday. Today is Tuesday.”

“What do you mean?” another student piped up. “I thought today was Friday!”

“We use the Gregorian calendar in this country,” Professor Grimes said crisply. “In that calendar Monday is always followed by Tuesday. Perhaps in some alternate dimension Monday is followed by Friday. That, however, does not happen on this planet.”

Professor Grimes dropped the student roster back onto his desk. “For the purposes of this class I will assume that all of you are supposed to be here and are signed up for this course. If you are supposed to be somewhere else then that is your problem. I will take no responsibility for your class attendance. For that matter, I do not take attendance at all.”

“Yes!” a voice in the back of the room called out. “Score!”

“I do not take attendance because it is not necessary,” Professor Grimes continued. “The grade is completely determined by your performance on written papers, midterm exams, and the final. If you can ace all of those without ever attending class then you obviously do not need to be here, and I congratulate you. However, in my fifteen years of teaching no one has ever done that. The only people who have ever passed my classes – and I assure you it is a short list – are those who have actually bothered to show up. It is a difficult chore, but that is how learning works. You cannot possibly learn what I have to tell you if you are not here to hear it.”

“Can’t we just read the books?” another voice asked.

“What is your name?” the professor asked.

“Lora,” the girl replied.

“Well, Lora, it is true that I expect you to complete the reading assignments that are listed in your syllabus. The course textbook that you were supposed to purchase was designed to help you. However, I am not going to stand here and read the textbook to you. If the textbook told you everything that you needed to know then there would be no point in even having class. What I am going to do is go beyond what the textbook says and give you additional information – information that, I might add, is critical to your passing this class. If you do not take notes then you will fail.”

“But I don’t have a pencil!” Lora complained.

“Then use a pen,” Professor Grimes replied. “Incidentally, let me remind everyone of my no-cell-phone policy. When you signed up for this course you signed a document that granted me permission to confiscate your cell phone and set it on fire if I believed that it was disrupting the class. With that in mind, I expect–”

“No way!” Dan shouted. “You’re crazy.”

Professor Grimes sighed and once again picked up the class roster from his desk. He leafed through it for a moment, then removed a piece of paper. He then walked over to Dan and laid it on his desk. “Is that not your signature?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Dan reluctantly admitted. “But I didn’t know that’s what I was signing!”

“This is a half-page document that is written in a 16-point font. Before my secretary would even allow you to sign it you had to tell her that you had read the document, you fully understood the document, and you had no questions about the document. If you lied to her then that is your problem, not mine. My conscience is clear.”

The professor then took the release form back to his desk and placed it into the student roster. “As I was saying, all cell phones must be off while I am teaching. If there is some dire emergency then you may have it on vibrate, but you must leave the room before you answer the phone or send a text message. Under no circumstances may you use your phone while this class is in session.”

At that moment the professor heard a beeping noise. He looked around and saw a student in the back row furiously typing out a text message on his cell phone. The professor walked up to the student, who was intent on what he was typing. “And just who are you?” the professor demanded.

“Tyler,” the student said without looking up.

“Tell me, Tyler. Did you hear anything that I just said?”

“Just a minute! I’m kind of busy now.”

“TYLER!” the professor shouted, in a voice that commanded authority. “This is your final warning. Do you see that fire pit over there?”

The student looked up, startled, and glanced in the direction that the professor was pointing. “Oh. Weird! Yeah, I see it.”

Dr. Grimes looked at Tyler coldly. “Last semester I burned eight cell phones in that pit. I will not hesitate to burn yours as well if you do not turn it off RIGHT NOW. Do I make myself clear?”

The young man signed. He flipped his phone closed and stuffed it back into his pocket. “You need to chill, man. You’re crazy! We’ve got lives too, you know. Not everything is about you.”

“I will make this very simple,” Dr. Grimes replied. “I am being paid to teach this course and that is exactly what I will do. If you try to interfere with my teaching then you will face my wrath. If you do not want to be here then you are free to leave. However, as long as you are in this room you will follow my rules.”

“I need these credits to graduate,” Tyler replied sourly. “But you seriously need to mellow out. You would be way more popular if you just let us do our thing.”

“And I am sure that if I gave an automatic A to all my students I would be the toast of the school. But I refuse to do that, young man. The world around us may have stopped caring about quality, but I have not. I still have standards and I will enforce them. If you want a passing grade then you will have to earn it.”

A chorus of groans sounded. Professor Grimes ignored it and walked back to his desk. “As I was saying earlier, this is Paranormal Studies 313. We are going to spend the semester studying the paranormal. This will include, but is not limited to, UFOs, ghosts, out-of-place artifacts, conspiracy theories, and so forth. We will expose these things to the hard light of science and see what we can learn.”

“But they’re all bogus!” Dan cried out.

“And how do you know that?”

“Well, they just are. Everyone knows it.”

“Is that so?” Professor Grimes replied. “Tell me, Dan. Have you examined every single UFO sighting?”

“Um, no,” Dan replied.

“Ok, then have you examined any UFO sightings?”

“No. But other people have. Like, the government. They say they’re all just weather balloons.”

“And how do you know that they are correct? Have you examined their methodology? Have you read their reports? Have you actually examined the raw data yourself?”

“Why would I do that? I mean, look, they’re the government! If they say that UFOs are a hoax then they’re a hoax. Why would they lie to us?”

Dr. Grimes stared at the student, surprised. “Are you serious? You can’t possibly be serious! Dan, the truth is that governments lie to us all the time. They lie about whether Social Security is solvent. They lie about global warming. They lie about the radiation that is released from nuclear disasters. Governments all over the world have a consistent habit of lying. Why on earth would you think that they are a credible source of information?”

“What are you talking about?” Dan asked.

“Take global warming, for instance. Despite what you may have been told, 96% of all so-called global warming emissions are caused by the oceans. Of the remaining 4%, 3.44% are caused by non-human activity. That means that humans only account for 0.56% of all global warming emissions. That’s one half of one percent! If we entirely eliminated all of our emissions it would not matter. Despite what governments all over the world have led you to believe, human-caused emissions are not warming the planet and destroying it. Our emissions are, in fact, incapable of doing so.”

“That’s crazy talk!” Lora exclaimed. “All scientists know that global warming is true. It’s settled science! All climate-change deniers are kooks.”

“It is a hoax,” Professor Grimes said firmly. “95% of the greenhouse effect is caused by water vapor. Carbon dioxide – the vast majority of which is released by nature, not man – accounts for a tiny percentage of any warming effect. On top of that, studies have shown that there is no statistical correlation between temperature change and carbon dioxide levels. None! Carbon dioxide is not a toxic poison; it is a requirement for life to even exist on this planet. What’s more, scientists know all of these things but still persist in lying about it.”

“But–” Lora said.

“There are no buts about it, young lady. If this was real science, these people wouldn’t be secretly talking about was to ‘hide the decline’ in temperatures. They wouldn’t be trying to destroy the careers of people who are exposing their hoax. They wouldn’t go out of their way to hide their raw data so that no one else can see what they’re doing. Real science is about being honest and open. Global warming is not science. It is a scam.”

“But scientists agree!” Lora replied. “They formed a consensus. It must be true.”

“That’s preposterous! Science isn’t done by consensus. You might as well say that truth is defined by a committee. People don’t get to decide what the truth is, nor do committees get to decide what is or is not reality. If you are forming a committee to decide what the fundamental laws of the universe are then you are doing it wrong. That is not how science works. Real science – unlike the fake science that you see so often today – is testable, repeatable, and falsifiable. It does not consist of outright lying, hiding your findings, and then smearing your opponents.”

“But smearing people is so effective,” Lora complained.

Professor Grimes nodded. “Oh yes, it’s quite effective. For example, in the 1840s Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis told his colleagues that if they simply washed their hands after delivering a baby they could dramatically cut the mortality rate. At the time, however, the idea that a medical doctor should be clean and sterile was greeted with ridicule. Washing your hands was seen as utterly preposterous. Despite taking pains to actually prove that washing hands really did save people’s lives, he was still ridiculed for his theory. In fact, he was hounded so much that he was eventually forced out of his position as a doctor. Dr. Semmelweis was absolutely right, but ‘consensus science’ made sure he lost his job for it, and cost countless women their lives. That is exactly what smearing people does.

“The reality is that the truth has never been popular. It does not matter if you can prove your results. It does not matter if you are right. It does not matter if you have evidence and logic on your side. Throughout the long centuries of history science has almost always been settled by consensus, and that has had terrible consequences. Dr. Semmelweis challenged this and was duly punished for it. Others have done the same thing and met similar results. Yes, perhaps eventually the consensus does change. But those who challenge the consensus are persecuted, reviled, and destroyed. It is how science works – not by seeking the truth, but by seeking ‘heretics’ and burning them at the stake. In the past it attacked those who dared to suggest that doctors should wash their hands. Today it attacks those who suggest that mankind’s 0.5% contribution to greenhouse gasses is not destroying the planet. Scientists can consistently be trusted to personally attack anyone who challenges them.”

“I object to that,” a student in the back of the room called out. “Just because it happened in one isolated case doesn’t mean anything.”

“But it’s not just one isolated case,” Professor Grimes replied. “For example, the 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry went to an Israeli scientist named Daniel Schechtman. He won the prize for his discovery of quasicrystals. Schechtman actually discovered them in 1982, but when he announced his findings he was met with great derision. In fact, he was actually kicked out of his research group in the United States. His brilliant discovery was not dispassionately analyzed by his peers. No, instead he was ridiculed and lost his job, despite the fact that he was right and had the facts on his side. It only took him thirty years to break through the ‘consensus’. This sort of thing happens all the time – in fact, don’t even get me started with what evolutionists have been doing.

“The sad truth is that we are living in a time when you simply cannot believe what you are told. Your local newspaper is not going to be honest with you. The newscaster on your local TV station is going to give you a slanted version of the news. Scientific studies are often badly distorted to give a result that is designed to please whoever funded the study, or whatever the ‘consensus’ has already decided. Even when people are not actually trying to be dishonest there are times when they are just flat-out wrong. Doctors once lauded the health benefits of smoking, and they once believed that the way to cure diseases was by draining your blood. In fact, that was one of the contributing factors to the death of George Washington.

“Honesty is a rare thing these days. When millions or billions of dollars are at stake, and when there are personal reputations on the line, you can usually expect the truth to suffer. It is a very rare man indeed who will sacrifice everything for the sake of honesty – especially in these days.

“What we are going to do, then, is take a hard look at a subject that few people ever bother to actually investigate. Since honesty is a rare commodity, we will investigate this ourselves and see what we can uncover. It may be that in some cases there is not enough evidence to support a conclusion, but at least we will have looked into the matter ourselves, instead of trusting a stranger who may have an agenda of his own.”

“You’re awfully cynical,” Lora said accusingly.

Professor Grimes looked her in the eye. “A person can only be lied to so many times before he begins to suspect that the truth is a rarity. Perhaps one day you’ll learn to look into things yourselves, instead of simply believing whatever you are told to believe.”

The professor sighed. “ Incidentally, class, be sure to read chapter 1 before Friday. You are dismissed.”