AIDAN KESTIGIAN Aidan Kes1igiw1 is a PhD .wulc111 i11 lhe Dt:/1'lrlmclll of Philo.wphy ,11 C,m,egie Md/rm U11frersi1y. Her 1'C.rel1rd1 mu/ lt•(lc/1i11g illlerc.Hs i11cl11dc democratic theory, resee1rcl1 cth* ics, mu/ mti11g theory. E-mail: akcstigicm@c11111.e,/11 Tcad1i11g Philo.mpl,y 40: 2, J1111c 20 I 7 DOI: I0.5840/teacl,pl,i/201771869 Reasoning, Science, and The Ghost Hunt W. JOHN KOOLAGE Ea,wcm Michig,111 Unil-crsity TIMOTHY HANSEL Edgewood Colle1fe Alwmct: This paperdelails how ghosl hunling. as a se1 of learning activities. can he used to enhance critical thinking and philo�ophy of science classes. We describe in some delail our own work with ghost hunting, and reflect on both intended and uninlcnded consequences of lhis pedagogical choice. This choice was partly molivatcd by s1uden1s* lack of familiarity with science and philo�ophic questions ahout it. We offer reflections on our lhree different implcmenlalions of the ghosl hunting activities. In addition. we discuss the practical nuances of implementing these activities, as well the relation of ghost hunting lo our course content. including informal fallacies and some models for scientilic inference. We conclude that employing ghost hunting along-side tmdilional activities and contcnl of critical lhinking and philosophy of science offers a number of henelits, including being fun, increasing studenl altendance, enhancing sludent leaming, and providing a platform for campus wide dialogues about philosophy. Introduction In pursuit of deep learning, it is helpful to ask what sludents can do, in order to get a better handle on sometimes foreign and abstract ideas. We asked students to go hunting, ghost hunting in this case, to supplement the usual lislening, writing, reading, renecting, and note taking that regularly occurs in philosophy classrooms. Most students laking philosophy classes at our institutions have little contact with science beyond the K-12 level, and, in our experience, many of these students feel quite uncomfortable with scientific concepts beyond the rudiments of scientific inquiry. Additionally, as students engage with the idea of correct thinking, it is helpful to provide concrete and inter- esting examples. We connect ghost hunting to ideas critical to correct OTmd1i1111 l'hifo.w1•h1*. 2017 All nght� reserved. 0145,;'i?NII 1'1'* 201 229 202 W. JOHN KOOLAGE AND TIMOTHY I-IANSEL reasoning in general, and scientific reasoning in parlicular. in order lo illuminate those ideas and understand the nature of (good) scientific practice and reasoning. After a number of short, collaborative discussions, we built, indepen- dently. a set of learning activities aimed at enhancing student learning regarding some concepts relevant to critical thinking or philosophy of science classes, including evidence, rational belief formation. critical reasoning, and scientific methodology. The ghost hunting activities arc logically consistent with traditional accounls of these concepts, even if these traditional accounts often reveal the philosophically problcmalic nature of most current ghost hunting practices. We implemented various ghost hunting activities, including an experiential one, in the fall of 20 I 5. The primary goal in Hansel's case, was to apply various crilical thinking course content, including methods. to something intcrcsling lhat they had done. The primary goal in Koolagc's case was lo provide students with an experience in which students would integrate various ways of understanding basic philosophical views on the workings of science to an experience that is standardly considerc<l to be (.11 best) pscu<loscicntific. These experiences also provided a platform for ex- ploring some of the more abstract philosophic discussions of science. without requiring students to have a backgroun<l in the sciences. In this paper, we present the various ghost hunting activities we designed for our students. The paper also contains a number of obser- vations regarding these activities in terms of some surprising successes and failures. As such, it is primarily a process paper. with observations about our own learning activities; we do not lrnvc assessment data to share or to support evaluative claims beyond our experience of the utility of the activities. In fact. and perhaps not surprisingly, our experi- ence indicates it would be good to develop a clearer and more precise set of learning outcomes and redesign future hunting activities in line with our reflections and said assessment. More spccilically. in this paper we detail how we connected a ghost hunting activity, treated as a set of learning activities, lo philosophy in two distinct areas (critical thinking and philosophy of science) using lhrcc distinct approaches: (I) as an extracurricular activity connected to an existing course. (2) as a stand-alone course with ghost hunting as the primary focus, and (3) as a unit within a course. The material in this paper is divided into three sections. The first section explores some of the most compelling reasons for incorpo- rating ghost hunting into philosophy courses. The second section is devoted to exploring ghost hunting at Edgewood College, where it was incorporated as an extracurricular activity for an already existing course; it describes how ghost hunting was used lo connect in-class material with investigations outside of class. This inclu<les a practical ,1� .i,�� REASONING. SCIENCE, AND THE GHOST HUNT 203 discussion of planning and implementing such learning activities, aswell as an in-depth look at how dif f erent pieces of traditional criticalthinking course content can be connected to various aspects of ghosthunting. The third section is devoted to exploring ghost hunting atEastern Michigan University, where it was used as stand-alone courseand as a unit within a philosophy of science course. It also <lcscribcsthe practical nuances of implementing ghost hunting activities anddetails how content from a philosophy of science course can be con-nected to ghost hunting. Wl,y Use Glws1 Hunting in a Philosophy Class? There arc number of reasons lo he excited about the prospect of in-corporating ghos1 hunting into one's philosophy classes. The firsl. andmost import�ull, is that ghost hunting connects lo the material we tc.1chin a variety of different ways. We devote the majority of this paper tolinking ghost hunting to deep and difficult topics in the philosophyof science and, al a more intermediate level, lo lhe practice of criticalthinking. Jn this section, we will hriclly <liscuss two .1dditional reasonsin favor nf using ghost hunting in the classroom. Ghost Hunting is Fun Ghost hunting is interesting to many of our students. Ghosts and ghnslhun1ing pcrv.1dc popular culture, mid belief in the supernatural is rela-tively high in the United Slates. According to a 2009 Pew ResearchPoll. 18 percent of American adults claim to have seen a ghost, while29 percent believe that they have had contact with a dead person. 1 Furthermore, the proliferation of ghost hunting in television shows(Ghost Hunter.\*, Ghost Adve11t11re.\', etc.). 11lms (Glwstlmsters), andother areas of popular culture is such that even if a student docs notbelieve in ghosts, she is aware of lhc phenomenon. Additionally, taking students on ghost-hunting investigations can beentertaining as well as educaliona/. A typical investigation is done in the dark. in an environment that. while probably not haunted, is imbuedwith a spooky ambiance. There is an atmosphere of adventure allachcdto walking into an empty church sanctuary, in late October, with thelights off, and in the middle of the night. It is 1101 often that one findsphilosophical investigation and adventure linked. It is rewarding to beable to give our studenls an interesting and enjoyable experience, along-side our challenging and oflen highly ahslract philosophical material. 204 W. JOHN KOOLAGE AND TIMOTHY HANSEL Ghost Hunting Gets Us Out of the Classroom Having a unit on ghost hunting provided philosophy (or, al least, a ,philosophy department) with some good press on campus. As ghost hunting is exciting and a bit weird, word of mouth has spread excite- ment among the undergraduate population. After one semester of incorporating ghost hunting into his critical thinking class, about half of Hansel's incoming critical thinking students were already aware of the ghost-hunting section and investigations. Students arc not the only individuals taking note. The ghost hunti,ng investigations at Edgewood College have Ileen met with appreciation and (some) excitement from other departments. Notahly, it is the sci- ence departments that have shown the most inlcrcsl, especially after Tim explained lhat he was using ghosl hunting as an example of bcul reasoning and pseudoscience. This connection lo other departments presents an opportunity to introduce philosophy to those who may not be familiar with what we teach or study. This also affords us a valuable opportunity to clear up possible misconceptions about the material as well. The critical think- ing, epistemology, and philosophy of science material that we teach our students is often compatible with what is being taught by the sciences. This sometimes comes. as a surprise to our colleagues from the sciences, as some assume that philosophical and scientific methodologies arc at odds. These investigations demonstrate that, in many ways, science and philosophy arc compatible. With these considerations in mind, we decided to incorporate ghost hunting into our teaching at Edgewood college (Tim Hansel) and Eastern Michigan University (John Koolagc). Ghost Hunting at Edgewood College At Edgewood, all students arc required (usually during their first or second semester) to take a critical thinking course. I decided that the best way to incorporate ghost hunting into my teaching would be to augment the sections of critical thinking that I already teach. I had two goals in mind as I went forward: First, I wanted to afford students an opportunity to apply critical thinking material to real-world scenarios (ghost hunting is a thing that happens, even if there arc no ghosts). 2 Second, I wanted to introduce students to the more in-depth philosophy of science material in a manner that was accessible to predominantly first-year students. So, I augmented my critical thinking course by focusing (a bit) on ghosts and the supernatural inside the classroom, and I set up an cxtracurrtcular ghost hunting group to meet, discuss, and investigate. B�low, I describe these clements in some detail. REASONING, SCIENCE, AND THE GHOST HUNT 205 Connecting Ghost Hunting to a Pre-Existing Course My use of ghost hunting in the classroom began in the Fall Semester of 2015. I made no changes to the basic structure of the course itself. As critical thinking is about the evaluation of belief (both ordinary and extraordinary), the material regarding how to think critically about beliefs remained basically the same. What was diff crent for my class, was the focus on supernatural beliefs and evidence we may (or may not) have for them. For example, when we discussed the reliability (and unreliability) of personal experience, I would focus on purported first-hand supcrnaturnl experiences. If we were discussing explanations, we would look at ghostly and other supernatural explanations and ask whether we had any reason to believe them over more mundane explanations. Much of what we did regarding paranormal beliefs and ghost hunting occurred outside of class. This was deliberate. As [ was not substantially revising my slandard critical thinking course, it would be inappropriale to do too much in the classroom beyond applying the standard material, from time to time, to the question of the supernatu- ral. Furthermore, students had no reason to expect a class with such a focus, and the topic can make some students uncomfortable.] Finally, as the critical thinking course is meant to be introductory, I wanted to make the more high-level philosophy of science material optional. Also, our activities outside of class were often used as examples and discussion topics inside of class. Additionally, I occasionally shared anecdotes and pieces of evidence from our investigations and onlinc discussions with the class when relevant. As this was all extracurricular, I needed to consider the time com- mitment that such a project would require. My goal was to offer four to five meetings, investigations, and other events per semester. The events typically last about two hours, so I planned for approximately ten hours of work outside of the class with students, along with another ten hours for the planning and organization of these events. Obviously, more or less time could be devoted to such a project if one wanted to offer a different number of events. In order lo gauge student interest in the topic, I first set up a Face- book group devoted to ghost hunting at Edgewood. We named the group the Edgewood Center for Thaumaturgic Observation (ECTO). About half of my twenty critical thinking students signed up for the group, along with others who had heard about the group. We ended up with nineteen student members in the group in the first semester. On the group page, I posted the more in-depth philosophy of science readings for later discussion.� We also* used the page to plan investigations and discuss any evidence from those invesligations (and elsewhere). 206 W. JOHN KOOLAGE AND TIMOTHY HANSEL Investigations In the fall of 20 I 5, we performed two investigations in the manner of those performed on television programs like Ghost Ad11e11111res. 5 The first was on campus during daylight hours. We met in a wooded area on campus to investigate rumors that the campus's effigy mounds were haunted. Eleven (out of a possible twenty) students came to this inves- tigation. As it was our first go at such a thing, we spent most of our time familiarizing ourselves with the typical ghost-hunting gear (cam- eras, voice-recorders, EM field detectors, and Infrared thermometers). The second investigation took place at an older church chapel (also rumored to be haunted) wi1hin walking dis1ancc of campus. The church gave us permission to stay the entire night on the premises and gave us complete acces,,; to the sanctuary and fellowship areas. During this investigation. we did experience some initially very spooky phenomena that required explanation. The most interesting was an image captured by one of the cameras that appeared to show a figure in the choir loft. The studenls decided that ii was not supernatural. In fact. they con- cluded that it was merely reflected light from the flash of the camera. One key clement to the .<;ucccss of these investigations as a learn- ing activity was facilitating discussions regarding the connection of the hunts to relevant readings and class topics. Before and after the investigations. we would have conversations about what we had been reading regarding the nature of scientific investigation. and whether what we were doing would constitute legitimate scientific inquiry (sec Koolagc's two questions in his section. "Ghost Hunting at Eastern Michigan University," below). We would also examine any data that had been collected or submitted. Through our conversations, we noted that one of the biggest challenges facing ghost hunting was how to come up with a testable hypothesis. Students were interested in the notions of falsiliability and testability (sec the next section), but had difficulty coming up with hypotheses that had any predictive content that could be tested during our investigations. The other major theme of our discussions related to spooky phenomena caught on tape and camera. Conversations inevitably lead to questions about competing hypotheses. We had numerous discussions focused on inference to the best explanation and likelihoods (sec below for more detail) to try to sort out what explanations (hypotheses) were most likely to be true. Other discussion and meetings occurred that were not directly relat- ed to ghost hunting, but continued the theme of the supernatural. In the fall of 2016, the ECTO grou*p held an on campus event where students and faculty were encouraged to share their own ghost stories. We then discussed the reliability of such testimony and whether such stories could ever provide sufficient justification for supernatural beliefs. In REASONING, SCIENCE. AND THE GHOST HUNT 207 the appeal to authority/testimony section below, we provide more detail on the issue of the reliability of ghost stories and supernaiural reports. Connecting Ghost Hunting to Critical Thinking Content At Edgewood, part of the purpose of having the extracurricular ghosthunting events outside of class was to allow students to lind greaterdepth within the philosophy of science. However, much of what hap-pened (inside and outside of the classroom) connected to the basicmethodological clements that one finds in a standard critical thinkingcourse. At thb level, greater focus is given to understanding conceptsand less to genuine philosophical debates. For instance, although criticalthinking lextbooks almost universally cover inductive reasoning, veryfew mention the problem of induction. For my class. we use LewisVaughn *s, Tlte Poll'er r�f Criticlll Tlti11ki11,:.'' In this section, we willbriefly discuss how variow, clements of a standard critical thinkingcourse fit with ghost hunting. In the next section. we will discuss inmuch greater detail how the phenomena fits with various topics in thephilosophy of science. l,!fere11ce to the Best £\71/a11mio11 In Tim Hansel's critical thinking courses, a third of the semester fo-cuses on inductive reasoning with an emph.1sis on inference to the bestexplanation (IBE), scientific methodology, and cpistcmology.7 The useof ghosts and ghost hunting (in and out of class) allows us to applyall of the techniques for evaluating inductive inferences regarding �up-posed supernatural phenomena. Inference to the best explanation is the inductive inference that hasthe most relevant connection to ghost hunting.� Herc is the inferenceto the best explanation argument as found in Vaughn's The Power ofCritical Thi11ki11g: I. Phenomenon Q. 2. E provides the hcst explanation for Q. 3. Therefore. it is probable lhat E is true In teaching IBE, most of the work comes from trying to unpackwhat it means for one explanation to be belier than another. At an in-troductory level, this comes down to which explanation best emhodicscertain explanatory virtues. These virtues typically include simplicity,conservatism, con,;istency, testability, and the like. When ghoc;t hunting and during discussions in and outside of class.we consider competing explan.,tions for the various ghostly phenomenathat we have experienced throughout the semester. Some of it occursduring inveMigations. and some of it comes from other sources. Wethen, through discussion and writing assignments, try to apply our 208 W. JOHN KOOLAGE AND TIMOTHY HANSEL evaluative tools to making an inference to the best explanation (if possible). Herc's an example: during the Spring 2016 semester, a student posted pictures of an 'orb' on the ECTO Faccbook page. After secur- ing the student's permission to discuss the evidence in class, I used these photographs to talk about the best explanation for the reddish ball that was visible in a photograph of some artwork in the lounge of one of the on-campus residence halls. The student claimed that it was a visual manifestation of a spirit. Furthermore, according to the student. the redness of the orb indicated that it was a "protector" spirit. During this discussion, we noted that several more mundane expla- nations (renected light, camera glitch. dust on lens) did just as well, if not better than the supernatural one from the standpoint of the ex- planatory virtues. For instance, the mundane examples were all superior to the supernatural explanation in that they were more conservative and simple. They were conservative in that they described phenomena that fit well with what is already well-established (e.g .• we know how light renections interact with camera lenses). Furthermore, mundane examples arc simpler, as they do not need to posit extra ontological baggage to explain what we observe. Though as a group we were un- able lo settle on one "best" explanation, we were all relatively sure that the supernatural explanation was unlikely lo be true, given the adequacy of competing mundane explanations. Fallacies Most critical thinking courses include some discussion of informal and formal fallacies. In the critical thinking courses at Edgewood, when I discuss informal fallacies, I often note their appearance in arguments and beliefs about ghosts and other supernatural phenomena. Below are five common fallacies as they relate lo supernatural beliefs. This list is not exhaustive, it merely provides some examples of how the conversations look when connected to the material. One fallacy that is often committed when reasoning about super- natural entities and phenomena is the appeal to ignorance fallacy. This fallacy occurs when someone mistakes the lack of negative evidence for positive evidence. In class, I had a student who believed in ghosts tell me, referring to some supposed piece of evidence of the supernatural, to prove that it wasn't caused by a ghost. Such a classic appc<;1l to the ignorance fallacy afforded a great teachable moment. A second fallacy that often comes up in discussions of ghost hunt- ing is the appeal to authority or testimony. Arc the people on Gho st Adve11111res (or any of the other TV shows) experts? How about the author of Tire Evayt/iing Glwst H11111ing Book'!' What should we say about anyone who has claimed to have seen a ghost? The appea l to REASONING, SCIENCE, AND THE GHOST HUNT 209 authority fallacy occurs when someone imparts an unreasonable amount of credibility to the testimony of individuals. Whether ghost hunters' (or others') testimony is reliable is an extremely fruitful conversation. When discussing testimony in a critical thinking course, we go into some detail about whether we have reason to believe that the testifier is in a position to know the information they arc claiming, and whether the testifier is being sincere. With accounts of supernatural events, these issues can come into stark relief. When we hear a ghost story from a ghost hunter. student, or any other source, we immediately ask several questions. Did the testifier truly sec what she said she saw? For example, was it a human figure in the doorway or the mind playing tricks? Docs she have any reason to fabricate or embellish her account? Even if there were no mistakes or embellishments. does that mean a more mundane explanation is ruled out? Given the shortcomings of testimonial accounts of supernatural phenomena, we can cmpha.c;ize the need for more direct (and adequate) evidence for the supernatural. Formal fallacies make an appearance as well. A third common fallacy is that of a false dilemma or f alsc choice, which occurs when we present a number options as though they exhaust the possibilities when, in facl, they do not. Again, this kind of thinking occurs often when discussing the supernatural. Herc is the thinking: we have ruled out one possible mundane explanation; therefore, ghosts! Clearly, this is fallacious reasoning. A fourth, is an appeal to emotion or wishful thinking. All critical thinking courses warn against emotion. That is to say, that our emo- tions can, at times, interfere with our ability to think rationally. One of my favorite examples of this fallacy is wi.r;hful thinking. I tell my students that I want ghosts to be real. Growing up in the I 980's, all I wanted in the world was to be a ghostbustcr (I still kind of do), but wanting something lo be true is irrelevant to something being true. We must be careful that we do not believe things simply because it makes the world a more interesting place. The fifth fallacy that easily connects to supernatural belief is cog- nitive biases. Cognitive biases arc those psychological impediments that can sometimes misrepresent the world and evidence to us. Being aware of these biases, like being aware of errors in reasoning, will (hopefully) allow us lo minimize error. One of the more interesting of the biases to cover in a critical thinking class is pareidolia. Pare- idolia occurs when we experience patterns and structure from random stimulation. Purported evidence for ghosts and the supernatural arc considered classic examples of parcidolia. Seeing faces in the grain of a photograph or hearing voices in the noise of a recording (known as Electronic Voice Phenomenon or EVP) may just be our mind playing this very specific kind of trick on us. 210 W. JOHN KOOLAGE AND TIMOTHY HANSEL Ghost Hunting at Eastern Michigan University Ghost Hunting as a Stand Alone Course In Winter 2015, our Introduction to University course added a one credit hour lab. taught by faculty. I proposed a lab that focused on the question 'what is science?' From a discussion of this proposal, the idea of a focus on the demarcation of science and pseudoscience emerged. I had previously taught sections of Pltilo.wr1hy of Science a11CI The Occ11lt as part of a philosophy of science course, and when ghost hunting appeared to be exciting to the Introduction lo University design group, I began preparing the lab.'° When I met with Tim in the summer of 2015. our collecti\'e interest in thinking about ghost hunt- ing in terms of philosophy of science and critical thinking scaled the deal. The ghost hunting lab for Introduction to University occurred in our Fall 2015 semester, and was completed in eight class sessions. or roughly twelve hours of class time. Ghost Hunting as a Unit within a Class The third model, where ghost hunting is used as a unit in a course, was instantiated in Winter 2016 in my Philosophy of Science class (a 400/500 level course). A typical issue that emerges in philosophy of science classes is that students arc surprisingly unfamiliar with the sciences and scientific practice. 11 I opted to scale down my Introduc- tion to University ghost hunting unit as a response lo this challenge. The unit took 4 weeks of class time, and was also connected to a unit on scientific realism. The two models differed in a number of ways, especially in terms of their student populations and the teaching and learning needs of students at very diff erenl levels. I will focus here on the commonalities, especially the experiential component. Both models included a ghost hunting experience, which will be described below. In both models, students were divided into groups of three to five. Both models also required students to give group presentations, wherein they reported on their methods and findings. In particular, students were asked to offer their own connection between the experiential component, the scientific inference patterns deployed, and whether ghost hunting is a science. Additionally, the groups were given a worksheet intended to facilitate making useful connections between ghost hunting (as prac- ticed) and course contcnt. 11 The ghost hunts required about two hours of additional preparation. At the time, Starkweather was the home of the Honors College and General Education. I contacted both groups lo be sure that my ghost hunters traipsing through wouldn't be a problem. In the second iteraw REASONING. SCIENCE. AND Tl-IE GI-IOST I-IUNT 21 ) lion, both groups had moved out of Starkweather, so 1 had a number of discussions with our physical plant regarding the u.c;c of, and access to, the building. Students were encouraged to get ghost hunting gadgetry, which (interestingly) is available at the local public libraries. Investigations For the experiential component or the unit, students were asked to proceed with a scientific inquiry into the possible haunting of East- crn's Starkweather Hall. The Hall is rumored to be haunted by Mary Starkwcather's ghost, and plenty of material regarding this haunting is available on the web. 11 I secured access to Starkweather Hall during our regular class time. After all, what scientist would operate under sub-optimal epistemic conditions, like darkness? Students were encour- aged lo get ghost hunting equipment, available at the Ann Arbor public libraries, and were required lo read The Et•et)'lhing Ghost H1111ti11g Book in prcparation. 14 Only two groups brought technical gear, but mosl students brought some sort of detection and recording devices (phones, cameras, and in one case an old school tape recorder). Honestly, the students took this endeavor pretty seriously, and it was fun to watch them proceed in a manner they thought a ghost hunter should. Connecting Ghost Hunting lo Philosophy of Science Content There is a host of traditional philosophy of science content that can be connected to ghost hunting, but my classes focused on questions of scientific epistemology-the patterns of inference involved in jus- tifying (undcrstom.l broadly) scientific claims (hypotheses). The pair of organizing questions [ used for my courses arc as follows: (I) if a ghost hunter were a scientist, how would she proceed? And, (2) how docs this scientist ghost hunter match actual ghost hunter practice'! In order to answer the lirst question, my class focused on these questions: what arc some proposed hallmark forms of scientific rea- soning, how well can we translate these to dealing with ghost hunting, and what do these translations reveal about our understanding (or lack thereof) of the hallmark forms of reasoning? In order to answer the second question, we read about and went ghost hunting. Overall, the experiential component of my ghost hunting activities was well received by students. Many of them took the hunt very seri- ously, and had a good deal of fun weaving through the creepy basement of Starkweather. Every group did the legwork lo understand the nature of the possible haunting of Starkweather. All the groups did an excellent job of using the handout associated with the ghost hunt. The students also bonded, which certainly made discussions and group work after the ghost hunt itself notably more casual and trusting. It w.1s a lot of 212 W. JOHN KOOLAGE AND TIMOTHY HANSEL fun to sec them making use of various ghost hunting paraphernalia and some entertaining preconceptions about ghost hunting. Additionally, the ghost hunting class sessions had I 00 percent attendance, which is not the case for the more typical lecture/discussion sessions. The greatest failure of this experiment is that I did not directly connect the key (content based) learning outcomes to the activity for the students. I had assumed that they would come lo this on their own, but it did not really happen. I had expected that students would use the various tools at their dii-;posal (the models of scientific inference offered below) to discover the main problem for ghost hunting: the standard observations associated with the presence of ghosts arc not linked to hypotheses about ghosts in a way that would be considered scientific by any of the philosophers of science we discussed in the lecture/discussion clements of the course. I presented them with a number of accounts regarding the connection between observations and hypotheses, and the nature of hypotheses, and I was really hoping that students would make this connection on their own. In retrospect, that was a missed opportunity. Students would have moved more deeply and more quickly into the material if this outcome had been made explicit. When I do this again, I will simply tell students that a central philosophic puzzle here is to find a relation between the models of scientific reasoning and the process of ghost hunting (and, if one can't be found so much the worse for one or the other). That is, ghost hunting can only be a science if its primary reasoning patterns are scientific, or, conversely, we can learn about the nature of scientific inference where standard models fail to capture ghost hunting. Of course, most student realized that they were to critique ghost hunting as a science using the inference patterns (models) presented, but it is clear from my teaching experience that the connection of the hunt and the models of science would have been more useful to the overall course if this connection were made for them. In short, greater transparent alignment is required in this area. Are Ghosts the Kind of Thing that Is Excluded from Scientific Evaluation a priori? It is very common to think that science requires Naturalism, or even Physicalism. I am extremely skeptical that science requires either of these. It is also very common to think that science is identified by the objects studied, namely natural objects. Since it could easily he argued that ghosts conform to none of these three common views of science, ghost hunting is a priori out of bounds as scientific investigation, and in turn not possibly a science. While this section appears first, I taught this section last; students, unlike professional philosophers, are REASONING, SCIENCE, AND THE GHOST HUNT 213 not particularly concerned that ghosts might be outside of scientific boundaries, especially if they are learning about ghosts and philosophy of science in a classroom. Additionally, the readings for discussion arc high level and use some of the language and ideas presented in the reasoning pattern sections. Naturalism The concept I have in mind here is the one that suggests that science must eliminate or avoid supernatural objects in its theories. If this is correct, then it is extremely difficult to sec how ghost hunting could be a science. Naturalism (of this sort) docs appear to be a part of the recent history and practice of science, but a priori rules placed on admission to the scientific endeavor arc notoriously difficult to justify and have a mixed track record. The three readings I used to generate some discussion on this topic were (I) Elliott Sober's Philosophy r�f /Jiolo;:y, chapter 2, (2) Saber's "Evolution without Naturalism," and (3) Kristin Andrews's Tlie Animal Mind, chapter 2. 15 Andrews's chapter provides two discussion items relevant 10 this topic. She considers, in a careful and accessible manner, Morgan's Canon. u, The Canon has been a central principle in animal ethology for some time, and it suggests we should never explain animal behavior by appeal to higher order cognitive processes (e.g., the manipulation of beliefs) when they can be explained using perceptual systems and processes (e.g .• affordances, which arc characterized by a harmony between perceptual mechanisms and the world itselO. The Canon has been treated as an a priori principle in animal ethology, and Andrews argues that it is not a justified principle. In this discussion, she also considers behaviorism, another tradition with an a priori prohibition on certain kinds of hypotheses. 17 Both discussions provide ample op- portunity to discuss the idea that scientific hypotheses are judged on the basis of evidence, not a priori prohibitions. Andrcws's chapter also provides an appeal to a certain level of expertise in framing observa- tions about unfamiliar phenomena. She suggests that avoiding epistemic errors, such as anthropomorphizing animal behavior, do not require a priori prohibitions, they simply require a level of familiarity and careful observation of the phenomena in question. In my experience, this conversation docs not have any particular end game in terms of ghost hunting, but it opens students' eyes to the role of philosophers in thinking about good scientific reasoning. Elliott Sobcr's article, "Evolution without Naturalism," is more straightforwardly relevant to the discussion. 18 In this article, Sober provides some tools for talking about various kinds of Naturalism, but more importantly he demonstrates why particular religious beliefs. 214 W. JOHN KOOLAGE AND TIMOTHY HANSEL such as the existence or God, are simply nol al odds with the evidence (and justification) for evolutionary theory. Sober deploys the Bayes- ian framework and the likelihood theory or evidence to show that the existence or non-existence or God is simply not al issue in the testing of evolutionary theory. Additionally, he provides a nice discussion about the role of mathematical objects in science, and further claims that numbers arc similarly not being tested when evolutionary models arc being tested. The relevance lo the ghost hunting questions is that Naturalism is not a requirement of, nor is it a justified principle for doing. good science. Chapter 2 or Sober's Philosophy of Biology, which by now I would have taught in an earlier section of the class, marks an important return to earlier learning.•� In this section, I focus on how he is not ruling oul Creationism with some principle; he is arguing that Creationism is either (a) a failed science, (b) not proceeding in a scientific manner (generating testable auxiliaries), or (c) at best a degenerative research program (no new hypotheses or predictions). In all, the suggestion that Naturalbm provides us with a reason to dismiss ghost hunting a priori is not a promising line or reasoning. and seems to miss some important features of scientific inquiry. This section also provides a nice avenue for talking with students about some of the limits of scientific inquiry and placing science nicely in a community of knowledge disciplines, rather than leaving science as a monolith of human inquiry. 20 PhysicaUsm Many philosophers find physicalism extremely plausible, and many people take physicalism or an assumption of physicalism to put ghost hunting out of the runnii:ig as a science. This view can be (roughly) summarized as follows: all that really exists arc the objects described by a correct physics. Most students do not ascribe to this view, but it is worth mentioning in the discussion of Ghost Hunting. Antony Flcw's essay "Parapsychology: Science or Pseudoscience?" argues that most parapsychology, which, broadly construed, would include ghost hunting, rest� on an outmoded Cartesian assumption of Dualism.21 While I did not address this in my offerings of lhe ghost hunting unit, I imagine many would find this an interesting and helpful discussion. If physicalism (or some sort of eliminative materialism) is correct, then it is impossible that ghost hunters arc hunting anything that would resemble a commonsense notion of ghosts. An obvious response to this worry is that biologists do not investi- gate particles, forces, and the void, and yet biology is clearly a science. There arc two problems with this line of defense for ghosl hunting, though: (I) biology may supervene on the physical, and (2) biology is REASONING, SCIENCE, AND THE GHOST HUNT 2] 5 at, the very least, not logically incompatible with physicalism. There is much to say here, but for students being introduced to the philosophy of science, I took three lines on this discussion. First, the idea that physicalism places a constraint on what counts as science has all the same navor of the a priori rule found in the discussion of Naturalism. Second, I did nol address the notion of supcrvcnicnce. Additionally, the question of supervening is largely a metaphysical point, rather than an epistemic one. That said, this issue can be addressed (roughly) in a discussion of this question: do all sciences, ultimately. need to be reducible to physics'! I directed students to an idea I have been calling 'Theoretic Actualism.' The idea here is that we arc only able to believe theories we do have, since it is ridiculous to ask current knowers to believe theories they have never heard (or may never hear). Currently, there is no reduction between concepts found in sciences, such as biol- ogy, to concepts in physics. For example, we cannot translate the study of predation to the study of Schrodingcr's equation; so, for now, we ought to accept that the two sciences, biology and physics in this case, offer us predictively successful (and possibly truth tracking) accounts of the world, and that the relation between the two sciences is largely unknown. Third, biology and physics arc compatible in their current form because they (mostly) do not have overlapping domains. This is not so for ghost hunting and physics. It seems that gho,st hunting (at least) requires us to accept that there arc other things than what phys- ics names as the most f undamcntal elements of our world. Ir there are spirit things thal have impacts on physical things, we have a puzzle. Docs physics tell us about the world at the rock bottom, or do we need other "sciences" to tell us about that? Again there is much to say on this matter, but I focused lhe discussion on this set of points: ( 1) Physicalism seems to ask us to admit that physics trumps other potential or actual sciences; so, if two theories arc incompatible, phys- ics (or those compatible with physics) always wins. (2) It is actually not obvious (for reasons we will discuss in subsequent sections) that ghost hunting is incompatible with physics. An example l have found useful in this discussion is Alfred Wcgencr's theory of continental drift. Wegener was the first to offer a sustained defense of the movement of the Earth's crust, but he faced serious opposition from the physicists of his time.21 The physicists argued that there could be no Earthly force strong enough lo move the hlock of earth making up England through the block of earth making up the scanoor in the opposite direction of Greenland. Given the sciences of the time, lhc physicists seemed completely in the right, though Wcgcncr's data suggested the physicists had to be wrong. Should data or theory settle this question'! History demonstrates that Wcgcner's ideas were pursued, dc�pite the conllict 216 W. JOHN KOOLAGE AND TIMOTHY HANSEL with physics, and eventually became mainstr eam science. though in the form of a newer theory, plate tectonics. The Objects of Science Obviously "ghost" is not a theoretical term i n any standard science. We have terms such as orbit, force, virtual pa rticle, cognition, post- traumatic stress disorder, ecosystem, adaptation , planet, and so on, but not ghost. Some arc inclined to think that the s ciences arc determined by what the science studies-its objects. If t hat is so, then ghosts arc not the kind of thing about which there is a science. This line of thought can be displayed by tracking the Fac ebook mcmc 'I fucking love science,' wherein cool natural objects (cri tters, events, and places) arc celebrated under the name 'science.' I find a discussion of Larry Laudan's Pessim istic Mela-Induction helpful in a number of ways, so most of my s tudents hear about this set of ideas at one point or anothcr.21 In both m odels of my leaching of ghost hunting, 1 had already taught this, but I will describe it here, as it addresses the exclusion of ghosts from sc ience on the grounds that they arc not current theoretical posits of any science. Science cannot be defined (in any sense) by t he objects it investi- gates. In Laudan's article, "A Confutation of Co nvergent Realism," he lays out a number of examples that nicely dem onstrate that the objects of science change, often quite dramatically, o ver time. 24 I often pick an example or two depending on the interests of the class, but some examples include electromagnetic ether, phlo giston, Aristotle's cle- ments, clan vital, the Hippocratic humors, and so on. Of course, it is equally interesting to demonstrate that new objec ts arc also being added to the scientific corpus on a regular basis, for e xample gravitons, mir- ror neurons/systems, and nomad planets. This discussion is typically fairly quick; however, it introduces students to the idea that sciences do not produce a set of fixed facts, and direct s them to a much more important idea-science is more likely to be i dentified ("defined") by its methods, not the set of objects it current ly investigates using its current set of concepts. Abduction The term 'abduction' is ambiguous. In this sect ion of my ghost hunting unit, I talk about abduction in terms of hypoth eses, rather than explana- tions or probabilistic inference. Henry Frankf urt's article, "Peirce's No- tion of Abduction," provides a basis for disc ussion.25 Frankfurt argues that Peirce's account of abduction provides tw o, mutually incompatible, conceptualizations. On the one hand, his vie w is that abduction fun- damentally involves some sort of flash of in sight-a creative process that admits of no parlicular rules and invoke s an imaginative process. REASONING, SCIENCE, AND THE GHOST HUNT 217 On the other hand, Peirce conceives abduction as a specific sort of inference pattern. On this way of thinking, Pierce provides us with an inference of the following form: I. The surprising fact C is observed. 2. If A were true, C would be a matter of course. 3. Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true. Frankfurt emphasizes this point: an inference admits of rules and in- cludes all of the concepts required lo evaluate it. As a result, this way of thinking about abduction is, thus, doubly at odds with the flash of insight account. Frankfurt concludes that this second way of thinking about abduction is most useful and faces the fewest problematic chal- lenges. Furthermore, he takes the proper analysis of this conception of abduction to be as follows: abduction is the logic by which we recog- nize a proposition to be a hypothesis. Pul another way, it provides a baseline for scientific reasoning. If science is "defined" by the lcsting of hypotheses. we must have a way of recognizing what constitutes a hypothesis. On Frankfurt's analysis the inference reads as follows: I. The surprising fact C is observed. 2. If A were true, C would be a matter of course. 3. Hence, we recognize that A is a hypothesis about C. I have found it useful to point out that abduction is a fairly weak in- ference; as a result. it cannot be the only sort of scientific inference. A successful abduction gives us no more reason to believe its conclu- sion than some competitor that also makes an observation a matter of course. Using historical examples, it is easy to demonstrate these issues. Consider any of the ancient Greek explanations for natural phe- nomena, which would make various observations a matter of course. This also opens the opportunity for a discussion of what 'a matter of course' might designate. Docs it analyze as a form of least surprise? Or something more complicated, such as predictive success? As far as the discussion of ghost hunting is concerned, I have found that abduction, in this second conceptualization, is absolutely critical. If the ideal ghost hunter were a scientist, how would she proceed'? She would most assuredly want to formulate hypotheses that make standard ghostly phenomena a mailer of course if there arc ghosts. If left to their own devices, students puzzle over how to go about ghost hunting and simply try whatever strikes them as the usual methods or whatever bizarre notions TV shows and the internet offer. This represents a fail- ure to understand the lesson of abduction. To have a science of ghost hunting, one must start with hypotheses. A good hypothesis would tell us how the existence of ghosts makes the appearance of "orbs" in photographs, gooscbump inducing sounds, the presence of "chatter" on a tape recorder, or lhc presence of "ectoplasm" a matter of course! I am 218 W. JOHN KOOLAGE AND TIMOTHY HANSEL not skeptical that a clever ghost hunter could resolve such a problem, since the abductive inference is not particularly strong. Thal said, this is not standard procedure for ghost hunters. To demonstrate this, one can return to what is said about ghost hunting in popular texts, such as The Everything Ghost H11111i11g Book by Melissa Martin Ellis.u, Of particular concern in this discussion is what makes something a matter of course. I asked students to generate some potential prin- ciples for this idea. Students generated suggestions that came close to the following three ideas: (I) minimization of surprise or meeting or expectations, (2) fit with data, or (3) fruitfulness. Connecting this to the ghost hunting activity is reasonably straightforward. The postula- tion of ghosts must make some set of observations (creepy sounds, the appearance of "orbs" in photos, and so on) either (I) expected or unsurprising, (2) highly probable, or (3) useful for the generation of additional questions and further inquiry. The ensuing discussion focused on the nature of these ideas. The first is at least a psychological prin- ciple, the second is epistemic (and I return to it below), and the third is pragmatic. My classes f ocuscd on the second criterion, since it is central to the discussion of Likelihoodism. To repeat an earlier lesson from my use of the ghost hunting activity, it would be helpful to have students explore the idea that there must be some sort of connection (preferably epistemic) between the data one has (or will have) and the hypothesis that there arc ghosts. In this way, students can begin to sec that there arc some serious problems with the possibility that currently practiced ghost hunting is a science, while simultaneously addressing the idea that the inf ercnces of science arc part of what makes it an important, and philosophically interesting, mode of inquiry. This discussion also provides a nice introduction to thinking about stronger inference patterns: exactly how arc hypotheses and data con- nected such that the latter epistemically supports the former. The first pass at some principles of connection provides students with some insight into a key puzzle in the philosophy of science. Falsi ficalionism The weakness of abduction leads nicely to a discussion of Popper's Falsificationism. The desire lo rule out hypotheses that capture various phenomena (make them a matter of course), but are bizarre or unhelpful, appears o.bvious after students grasp the basics of abduction. The fact that Hades's anger would make volcanic eruptions a matter of course is usually sufficient to convince students of the need for a stronger inference in (most) scientific inquiry. Popper's piece, "Science: Conjectures and Refutation," serves as a good way to introduce the standard reading of Popper's Falsification- ism. n This piece also provides an opportunity to look at some views REASONING, SCIENCE, AND THE GHOST HUNT 219 that remain popular, including Marxism and Freudianism; Popper critiques these as unscientific on the grounds that they do not have falsifiable content. Popper's falsification follows a familiar format, Modus Tollens: I. If H (hypothesis) is true, then O (observation) is true. 2. 0 is false. 3. Therefore, H is false. Hypotheses arc linked to a set of observations. This set is sometimes known as the hypothesis's empirical consequence class. Popper cap- tures Peircc*s notion of making the observation 'a matter of course' with material implication. Thal is, if the hypothesis is true, then we will observe clements of the hypothesis's empirical consequence class. In this way, hypotheses arc falsifiable. If we observe the negation of clements of the hypothesis's empirical consequence class, then the hypothesis is false. If there arc no empirical consequences that could render the hypothesis false, it is unfalsifiable and not scientific ac- cording lo Popper. ll is easy enough to demonstrate why sciences arc engaged in fal- sification, rather than proof, when material implication does the work. Consider the 'proof' argument: I. If 1-1 is true, then O is true. 2. 0 is true. 3. Therefore, H is true. This is an instance of affirming the consequent-a logical fallacy. In my class, I introduce two problems for Falsificationism. First, corroboration (what happens when we do an experiment and we don't get the result that O is false) docs not capture our intuitions about good hypotheses. Corroboration never tells us if the hypothesis is true, or even approximately true; it merely tells us that the hypothesis is not false. This result clashes with our intuition that a highly corroborated hypothesis is much better than one that has only been put to task a few times. This 'much better' notion cannot be measured in terms of truth. So, we arc left with a puzzle-can this normative term ('much better') be cashed out in meaningful epistemic terms (that do not have to do with truth), and if not, what docs it mean to engage in scientific inquiry? I have left this as a puzzle for students to explore, though, so far, none have taken it up in final papers. Second, I introduce Quine- Duhem undcrdetcrmination as a problem for Popper's Falsilicationism, which is detailed below. Clever students often notice that material implication is not particu- larly impressive as a means of linking observations and hypotheses. Consider the ghost hunting example. If there arc ghosts, then humans will observe spooky sounds in spooky places. Is this material implica220 W. JOHN KOOLAGE AND TIMOTHY HANSEL lion true? How would we know? The connection betwe en hypothesis and observation needs more detail. In traditional sci ences, we can sometimes deduce the implication from a theory. Consid er something simple, such the distance an object will travel in a fixed pe riod of time. In classical mechanics this sort or problem is resolved u sing one of Newton's motion equations: e.g .• d = vl + 1⁄2 al 2 • With this equation, derived from the definition of acceleration in Newton's th eory, we can generate falsifiable hypotheses. If Newton's motion eq uation (1-1) is true, then we will observe, for example, that an object t hat begins at rest and is accelerated at one meter per minute for one m inute will be displaced by half a meter (0). Such deductions arc not s o obvious in most cases, or even most sciences. To make matters wors e, Quine (and Duhcm) note that such deductions require auxiliary ass umptions. For example, the motion equations require the assumption t hat accelera- tion is constant. Worse, lo record the initial conditions and resulting displacement accurately, we need the assumption that ligh t travels in a straight line. We need to understand how "seeing" works . And, so on. In order to lest a hypothesis on the Falsificationisl acco unt, we need a host of auxiliary assumptions (the constancy of accel eration during the experiment, facts about optics. facts about our visua l capacities, and so on). This is a serious problem for Falsification. Consider the form of the argument: I. If (1-1 & A 1 & A2 ... & A.) is true, then O is true. 2. 0 is false. 3. Therefore, al least one member of the set ( H, ...• A )� is false. We cannot falsify 1-1, since it could always be one of the auxiliary as- sumptions lhal is false. In this way, a falsifying observation does not determine whether or nol H is false-hence, this problem is known as Quine-Duhem Underdeterminalion. For our would-be ghost hunters, three puzzles emerge. First, can we formulate material implications linking hypotheses about ghosts to observations that arc sufficiently robust for a properly folsif ying, modus tollens? Second, are.sciences really required to offer sufficiently detailed theories such that we can deduce hypotheses and linked (by material implication) observations? And, finally, is the inference pat- tern laid out by Falsilicalionism really a fruitful account of scientific inference in light of Quine-Duhem Underdetermination'! Most students found the ideas in Popper's work helpful to think about in relation to the ghost hunting experience, but very few pur- sued these ideas in final papers. The idea that the distinction between science and non-science should be cashed oul in terms of testability (falsifiability), and the pervasiveness of the idea that scientists try REASONING, SCIENCE. AND THE GHOST HUNT 22] lo show their theories arc false, make Popperian Falsification worth grappling with. Additionally, the basics of Popper's view help students understand the idea that the observations that contribute to our belief or disbelief in scientific hypolheses must be linked lo said hypotheses by more than "common sense" or idiosyncratic experience. It is safe to say that material implication is probably not the right link, but it is far belier than what contemporary ghost hunter.,; have lo offer. Another, in hindsight, missed opportunity was to provide a greater discussion of Popper's work on ad hocery. In Popper's later work, he spent some time addressing the idea llrnl the rationale for preserving a hypothesis (and blaming an auxiliary) in light of 'falsifying' obser- vations, or a modification to a hypothesis, was critical lo its status as scientific or unscientific. This would be of value in evaluating ghost hunting as it currently occurs, since 'ghost hunters' offer all sorts of ad hoc response to failed hunts, including psychologizing the ghost, failure lo properly place equipment, other background 'noise,' and so on. 28 Likelihoodism Thinking of the scientific enterprise as comprised of testing hypotheses by way of observations offers several possibilities, beyond Popper's, for the testing relation. Bayesians suggest that testing consists in updating our confidence in a hypothesis on lhc basis of its degree of fit with observations. While I do go on to teach Bayesian Epistemology in my philosophy of science classes, a full discussion of such an epistemol- ogy is not necessary to make some interesting points about the nature of science and its relation to ghost hunting. In this section, I focus on Likelihoodism, a somewhat narrower epistemology than Bayesian- ism, and one that will serve to augment some of the more promising concepts from the previous section. Likelihoods arc a way of expressing the fit with data relation that is used to judge many scientific hypotheses. Likelihoods *are specific form of conditional probability, and arc expressed mathematically as follows: Pr(OIH). This mathematical expression is read as follows: the probability of an observalion, 0, given that the hypothesis, H, is true. I will say a bil more about this shortly, but Likelihoods have been used to express the concept of evidence, and this is a key concept for our ghost hunting unit. Ian Hacking's Law of Likelihood provides a way of comparing hypotheses using Likelihoods: The ohservation O favors the hypothesis HI over the hypothesis H2 if and only if: Pr(OIH I)» Pr(OIH2)2Q The favoring relation described in the Law of Likelihood is often taken lo capture the idea that the observation, 0, provides evidence for HI 222 W. JOHN KOOLAGE AND TIMOTHY HANSEL relative to H2. So, on this account, testing is f undamcntally contras tive: we test one hypothesis relative to another. This idea is at the heart o f most of the statistical methods used by contemporary scientists. An example tends to illuminate the ideas of evidence as fit with data, fun- damentally contrastive, and, ultimately, its role in testing hypothe ses. Rossi and Vassella conducted a pediatric study of headaches and tumors. 30 By carefully parsing symptoms, they were able to determ ine that a cluster of symptoms were more telling in the identilication of tumor over migraine. One symptom in particular serves to high light this point: nocturnal headache with vomiting was present in ele ven of sixty-seven children with brain tumors and only two of 600 with migraine. This observation can be analyzed using the Law of Lik eli- hood: the observation of nocturnal headache with vomiting favors the brain tumor hypothesis over the migrnine hypothesis, since the prob - ability of the observation of nocturnal headache with vomiting g iven the subject has a brain tumor is much higher than the probabi lity of the observation of nocturnal headache with vomiting given the sub ject has migraines. So, the observation of nocturnal headache with vomiti ng is evidence for brain tumors. rather than migraines. In fact, at a rat io of about 55 to I, this symptom is pretty telling in favor of tum ors. The evidence provided by this particular symptom, while strong, d oes not tell us whether or not a parlicular patient has a tumor, rather than migraine. We can only answer this question, about our degree of c er- tainty in the tumor hypothesis, if we know the probability a rand om patient has a tumor in the first place. The reason for this is ev ident in a fuller discussion or Bayesianism, but for our purposes il is suf- ficient to note lhat evidence alone docs not tell us which hypothes is to believe. Evidence, however, is the most basic concept in the test ing of hypotheses. and we can sec how that might work here. Likclihood ism, thus, uses the fit with data relation, captured by the Likelihoo d, and the observation in question, instead of material implication to des cribe the basic machinery for judging hypolheses. The inf erencc pattern Likelihoodism suggests for science is as follows: I. Law of Likelihood 2. 0 3. Pr(OIH l )'s mathematical relation to Pr(OIH2) 4. Therefore, HI or H2 (depending on the relation found in 3) is favored over lhe other. (We have evidence for either HI or H2 relative to the other.) Having described the ideas ahovc, I lhen had the students read chapter 2 of Ellioll Sober's Philosof1h)' of Biology. 11 l focused on sections 1, 2, and 7, but the entire chapter is worthwhile as it spends some tim� REASONING. SCIENCE. AND THE GHOST HUNT 223 cashing out Sober's notion of testability and addresses some of the Quinean points. One advantage of a probabilistic account, such as Bayesianism or Likelihoodism, has over Falsificationism is that it can provide the tools for demonstrating that science is not devastatingly limited (at best) by Quinc-Duhem Underdetermination. Sober offers a simple, but compelling example: I draw a card at random from a standard deck of cards wi1hout looking at it. The probability that it is the seven of hearts is 1/52. You then inform me that the card is red. This information confirms the hypothesis lhat lhc c;1rd is the seven of hearts, not in lhe sense of insuring that the hypothesis is true. hut in the sense of making the hypolhcsis more plausible than ii was before; the probability that I have the seven of hearts has just increased 10 1/26. However, this infonnation docs not confinn that the hypolhcsis that the card I hold is a seven; the probability that I have a seven remains what it was. namely l/13.J2 It is the hypothesis that the card is a heart that is doing all the confirma- tory work . The chance that you have a heart, based on the observation that the card is red, doubled (from 1/4 to 1⁄2). So, using conditional prob- abilities in our scientific epistemology demonstrates a way around the Quine-Duhem challenge. This example also served to help my students get a handle on the probability math involved in Likelihood reasoning. How then would a ghost hunter proceed, if she were a scientist? If Likelihoodism is correct. the core process would be to determine a connection between the observations lhat would provide evidence for the hypothesis there is a ghost, rnther than some salient alternate hypothesis . In order to do this, there must be some way to fit the data to the ghosl hypotheses. In the tumor example above, this ic; done by fitting some observation (nocturnal headache with vomiting) to known cases of tumor, and a salient contrast, migraine, and determining the frequencies. The other common means of linking observations to hy- potheses is by deducing them from theory, just as in the Popperian case. For example, Mendelian Genetics tells us that the probability of observing an offspring with dry earwax from a pair of heterozygote, human parents is 0.25.H As a result, our scientist ghost hunter would develop or seek a theory that provides probabilistic connections be- tween ghostly obscn*ations and gho�ts, or to find cases of ghosts and determine the frequency of various observations. Additional Notes The sections above constitute the core of my discussion of ghost hunt- ing in relation to teaching some basic scientific epbtemology. That said, I have taught Harman's "Inference lo lhe Best Explanation," excerpts from van Franssen 's The Scic11t({ic Image, Snhcr's "Contrastive Empiri224 W. JOHN KOOLAGE AND TIMOTHY HANSEL cism," Forster and Sober's "How to Tell When Simpler, More Unified, or Less Ad Hoc Theories Will Provide More Accurate Predictions," and Mayo's "Novel Evidence and Severe Tests." I also think it would be interesting to teach Sobcr's "Tesrnbility," Leonelli's "What Counts as Scientific Data'! A Relational Framework." Longino's Science as Social Knowledxe: Values and Objectivity in Scient(fic Inquiry. excerpts from Whewell's Theory cl Scientific Method, Little's ''Rencctive Equilibrium and Justification," and Glymour's "Explanations, Tests, Unity and Ne- cessity," in conjunction with a ghost hunting experience. Undoubtedly there arc many other options that could be connected. It is also worth noting that none of the students in either of my classes seemed to have been taken by the 'backfire effect' suggested by Schmaltz and Lilienfcld. and spelled out in Lewandowsky cl al. 34 The 'backfire effect' occurs when someone comes to assign unwar- ranted credulity to a position when it is presented in conjunction with warranted positions. Either way. we agree with Schmaltz and Lilienfeld that it is critical lo separate the good reasoning from the ghost hunting itself, and that continued framing of the good reasoning being taught is not a property of ghost hunting as it is done today (or maybe ever). Co11c/usio11 Ghost hunting can be a fun and worthwhile addition to any course, we have used contemporary ghost hunting as a way of teaching reason- ing in three different ways, in three different classes. We taught it as a unit, an extracurricular activity linked to a class, and as class in its own right. To our minds, the benefits have been obvious-student en- gagement. an expanded campus profile for our work. and a novel way to help students engage with science and scientific reasoning, without advanced knowledge of any particular science. Obviously. there are a few drawbacks, but most have to do with planning for students to do something outside of the classroom and in groups. In this paper, we have provided a detailed set of notes and thoughts regarding a solid introduction of ghost hunting to any class on reasoning, including scienti fie reasoning. REASONING, SCIENCE, AND THE GHOST HUNT 225 Appendix: Koo/age's Ghost Hut11i11g Sca.ffolding Ghost H11111i11g Preparation Sheet Nature of the Haunting (Quick History) • Gather and record details regarding the haunting, ghost, or site of search Background Theory and Supplemental Research • Gather sources regarding the nature of ghosts, hauntings, etc. • Research other possihlc attempts to hunt the ghost in question • Interview witnesses Hypothesis Generation • Formulate a number of testable hypotheses combining what you know from your work regarding the Nature of the Haunting and your Background Theory and Supple- mental Research • Be sure to identify observable consequences of your hypotheses • Consider some possible techniques to confirm your hy- potheses in light of the observable consequences you have identifiell • Note that hypotheses may best be described in terms of your best account of the nature of science. E.g., If X were true, C would be a matter of course, where C is something surprising we observe, and X is a hypothesis (Pierce's Ab- duction); If X, then Y, where X is your hypothesis and Y is an observational consequence (Popper's Falsification); or Pr(O I H), where O is an observation made probable by the truth of H, a hypothesis (The Likelihood Principle) Experimental Tools • Make a list or equipment you might need to gather the observations that will allow you to check your hypotheses • Collect your required equipment well before the day of your hunt 226 W. JOHN KOOLAGE AND TJMOTI-IY HANSEL Prepare lo Record and Report • Prepare, in advance, a way of recording and keeping the data and evidence you gather • Record your work above in a clear and presentable manner • Calibrate all Experimental Tools prior to your hunt, and record the manner they were calibrated • Organize your data and evidence upon return from your hunt Report • Prepare a presentation of your Ghost Hunt (5-10 minutes in length) • Be sure to highlight your scientific reasoning in the presentation • Be sure to present your best or most impressive evidence Notes Thanks to Danielle Clevenger for her attention to, and comments on, several versions of this paper. Also, thanks to Tracy Sontag, Chris Foreman, Amelia Pamis, and Chris Dea- cons. for their thoughts on ,i preliminary version of the ghost hunting unit. Also, thanks to Fred Harrington for feedback on an initial draft of this paper. I. "Eastern New Age Beliefs Widespread: Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths." Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 2009. 2. Edgewood College encourages its instructors lo get students more involved with the local community, as "community" is one of the institution's core values along with truth, justice. compassion, and partnership. :l I had one student who needed to be excused on the day I showed some clips from Ghost A,fre11111res. She told me later that the idea of ghosts "freaked lhcrJ out too much." 4. Karl Popper, "Science: Conjectures and Refutations": Gilbert Hamtan, "The Inference 10 the Best Explanation": Ellioll Sober. "Creationism," 27. 5. This is an important point. We purposely incorporated clements that make objec- tive evidence collection more difficult. For inslancc, we went ahead and turned olT lights making visual observation more difficult and prune to error. 6. I've been using Lewis Vaughn. The Pm1*erc,fCritirn/Thi11ki11g: J:.1fectil'e Reaso11i11g almlfl Orditwry mul £tlraordi11my Claims. 7. I do treat inference to the best explanation us an induction. 1l1cre is dispute about this, hut for my classes, inductive inferences arc just those that arc not deductive. My position is that an inductive inference is any inference where the premises do not guarantee the truth of the conclusion. 8. It should be ml(cd that this material would find a home in standard critical thinking courses as well as philosophy of science courses. Herc we will deal with inference to the REASONING, SCIENCE. AND THE GHOST HUNT 227 best explanation as it would be found in :m introductory textbook. For a more in depth look at this kind of inference, sec the section on abduction below. 9. Melissa Martin Ellis. Tlw £1•ery*thi11g Glum l/11111i11g Book: Tips, Tools, mu/ Tecli11it111es for Etp/oring the S11pemat11ml m*,rfcl. 10. Pal rick Grim. l'hilosophr of Science 11111/ 1/w Occ11/J. 11. Gary Hardcastle and Mallhcw H. Slater. "A Novel Exerci�c for Teaching the Philosophy of Sciem:e." 11,i� method is an interesting response to this challenge. 12. Sec the Appendix for the worksheet. 13. Herc arc a couple of examples: http://www.ca�ternccho.com/indcx.php/ articlc/2(Kl9/I 0/starkwcathcr_halt surrnundcd_hy _lmunlcd_history and hllps://www. cmich.edu/honnrs/documents/starkwcathcrhistol")'.pdf. 14. Ellis, Tht' £1w-y1hi11g Glw.,*1 ll11111i11g Book. 15. Elliott Sober, "Creationism," 27; Sober. "E\•olution willmut Natumlism"; Kristin Andrews. "ll1c Science of Other Minds," 23. 16. Andrews, "The Science of Other Minds," 31. 17. Ibid .. 44. 18. Sober, "Evolution without Naturnlism," 187. 19. Sober, "Creationism." 27. 20. An anonymous reviewer provides a serious concern regarding this section's discus- s[on, which I nag here for the reader. Tins section outlines the material that I did pur�ue with his students. hut is far from an even handed discu\sion of Naturalism. My intention w:1s to be as charitable as possible to !he idea that ghost hunting could he a science. That said. sec, for example, Martin Maimer, "1l1c Role of Metaphysical Naturalism in Science," for a disscnling view to the one I offer here. 21. Antony Flew "Parapsychology: Science or Pscucloscicncc*!." 214. 22. Alfred Wegener, Tlw OriRiII (,f Cm11i11e111s mu/ Oct'c/11.f. 23. Larry Laudan. "A Confutation of Convergent Realism." 24. Ibid. 25. Harry Frankfurt, "Peirce's Notion of Ahduclion." 26. Ellis, Tire Ei*ery1hi11R G/10:,;1 H11111illR /Jook. 27. Popper, "Science." 28. llmnks lo an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this line of exploration. Inter- ested readers may wish to start with Maartcn Boudry and Johan Brncckman's "Immunizing Strategics and Epistemic Defense Mechanisms." 29. Jan Hacking. UJgic of Swti.uiml /,ifen•11ce. 30. Livia Rossi and Franco Vassclla, "l-lc:1dachc in Children with Brain Tumors." 31. Sober, "Creationism." 32. Ibid, 246. 228 W. JOHN KOOLAGE ANO TIMOTHY HANSEL 33. This math is for a trait determined at a single gene locus with only two alleles that follow Memlcl's Law of Dominance. A more familinr example would be blue eyes, but it turns out that eye color is not a single allele trait 34. Rodney Schmallz and Scott Lilienfcld. "Hauntings. Homeopathy, and lhe 1-lopkins- villc Goblins: Using Pseudoscience to Teach Scientific Thinking"; Stephan Lewndowsky ct al.. "Misinfnnnation and Its Correction Continued lnnuencc :1ml Successful Debi:1sing." Bibliography Andrews. Kristin. "The Science of Other Minds." in The A11i111al Mimi. Routlcdgc. 2015. Boudry. Maartcn. and Johan Bracckman. "Immunizing Strategics and Epistemic Defense Mechanisms." Phi/o.wpl1it1 39( I) (2011 ): 145-61. https://doi.org/ I 0.1 ()()7/s 11406-0 I 0-9254-9 Ellis, Melissa Martin. The El'l:rythi11,: Gluw l/11111i11,: /look: Tip.r, Tools. 1111</ 1ec/111it111es for £.\'p/ori11,: the S11per11111t1ml m,rld. New York: Adams Media, 2014. Flew. Antony. "Parapsychology: Science or Pseut.losciencc'!.'' in l'l1i/o.m11l1_,. of Scie11ce mul the Occ-11/r. ed. Patrick Grim. 214-JI. Albany: Stale University of New York Press, 1982. Forster, Malcolm, and Elliott Sober. "How to Tell when Snuplcr. More Unified, or Less ad hoc Theories Will Provide More Accurate Predictions." The British Jmmwl for the Phi/o.mp/ 1y of Science 45( I) ( 1994): 1-35. http�://doi.org/ l0. I093/bjps/45.1.l Frankfurt. Harry. "Peirce's Notion of Ahductmn." The Jmmwl of Philo.w{'hy 55(14) (1958): 593-97. https:l/do1.org/l0.2307/2021966 Glymour, Clark. "Explanations. Tests, Unity and Necessity." Nom ( 1980): 31-50. https://doi.org/ I0.2307/2214888 Grim. Patrick. l'l1i/o.w{'hy of Sdc11cc wul 11,e Occult. Albany: SUNY Pre�s. 1982. Hacking, Inn. Lo Kie of Stt1tis1irnl /11ferc11cc. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965. hllps://doi.org/1 O. IO 17/CBO97813 I 6534960 Hardcastle, Gary, and Mallhcw Slater. "A Novel Exercise for Teaching the Philosophy of Science." l'hi/o.w plty of Science 81(5) (2014): 1184-96. h1tps://doi.org/ I 0.1086/678240 Hannan, Gilbert. "The Inference to the Best Explanation." l'/1i/o.wpl,y Re1•icw 74 ( 1965): 88 95. hllps://doi.org/l0.2307/2183532 Laudan. Larry. "A Confutation of Convergent Realism." Philo.m11ln* of Science 48(1) (I 981): 19-49. hll ps://doi.org/ I 0. 1086/28897 5 Leonelli. Sabina. "What Counts m; Scientific Dat:t'! A Relational Framework." l'hilosophy of Science 82(5) (2015): 810-21. https://doi.org/10.1086/684083 Lewandowsky. Stephan, Ullrich Ecker. Colleen Seifert, Norbert Schwarl, and John Cook. "Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued lnnucncc and Successful Debiasing." l'syclwloKic:al Science i11 the /'11/,l,c /11tcresl 13(3) (2012): 106-31. h11ps://doi.org/ I 0.11 nt 1529100612451 O 18 Little, Daniel. "Rencctivc Equilibrium and Jus1lfica1ion." The S011 /wru Jmmwl of Pliilmop/1y 22(3) ( 1984): 373-87. hnps://doi.org/ l0. l I l l /j.2041-6962.l 984.th00354.x Longino, Helen E. Science (I.I' Social K11011'/ed,:e: Vt1l11es mu/ O1,jcctit•ity in Scie11tijic l11q11iry. Princeton. N.J.: Princeton University Press. 1990. Mahncr, Martin. "l11e Role of Metaphysical Naturali�m in Science." Science & Education 21( 10) (2012): 1437-59. https://doi.org/10. I007/s l 1191-011-9421-9 REASONING. SCIENCE, AND THE GHOST HUNT 229 Mayo. Dchornh. "Novel Evidence and Severe Tests." Pl1ilo.wphy ofScic11ce 58(4) ( 199 l ): 523-52. hllp�://doi.org/ l0.1086/289639 Pew Research Center fortlic People & the Press. "Eastern New Age Beliefs Widespread: Many Americans Mix Mult,plc Faith� ... 20()lJ. Popper. Karl. "Science: Conjectures and Rcfut.uions." in l'hilo.wpln• of Sde11(*c (I/It/ tire Occ11II. ed. Patnck Grim. 104-10. Alh:my: SUNY Pre,�. 1990. Rossi. Livia. and Franco Vassella, "Headache in Children with Br:iin Tumor�.-Chiltl's Nemms System 5(5) (1989): 307-09. http�://doi.org/l0.1007/BF00274519 Schmaltz, Rodney. and Scull 0. Lilienfeld. "Hauntings, Homeopathy. and the Hopkins- \'llle Goblins: Using Pseudoscience to Teach Scientific Thinking," in Pedagogical l's_rdwlogy: lkymul the 21st CL•11111ry*. ed. Gretchen M. Recvy and S1:mley N. Burstcn. Lausanne: Frontiers Media, 2015. Sober. Ell ion. "Contrastive Empiricism." Sdc1 1tijic T heories 14 ( 1990): 392-412. Sober. Ell iolt. "Cre:uionism:* in l'hilo.mpl"* of llio/ogy. Boulder. Colo.: We�tview Press. 2000. Soher. Elliott. "Evolution without Naturalism." O.eftml S11ulics i11 l'l,ilo.wplty of Reli,:io11 3 (201 I): 187-221. Sober, Ellinll. "Testability." l'mcec,li11gs mu/ A,ldre.ucs of the ,\111aict111 l'/1ilo.mphicul A.m,datim, 73(2) ( 1999): 47-76. hnps://doi.org/l0.2307/3131087 Van Fraasscn, Bas. 11,c Scimtijic Image. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1980. https://doi.org/ IO. HJCJ3/0I98244274.001.000 I Vaughn. Lewis. Tlw l'owcr of Cl'itirnl Thi11ki11g: Effcctfrc Rt•t1.wmi11g about Onlim1n* mul £ttrtUmli11ary ClaimJ. 0.eftml: Oxford University Press. 2015. Wegener. Alfred. Tl,c Ori,:i11 of Cm1ti11c11ts mid O,*ea11s. North Chelmsford. Mass.: Courier Corporation. 1966. \Vhewell, William, and Robert Buns. 17,cory of Sei,mtijic Method. Hacken Publishing, 1%8. W Joh11 Koo/age 1s <111 (l.m,ciatc pmfes.w,r ofphi/o.mpl,y mu/ t/1,• i111ai111 director of G1'11cml Etl11ct11im1 at E,wem Mic/1igm1 U11i1*e,-sil\: /-/Lr rc.recurhfocmes 011 the "flflliCt1tio11 of it/cm f mm ,:e11cra/ 1ihilomphy of .rcic11ce 10 other prc.rsi11,: mu/ e11rre111 qucstimts. i11cl1uli11K clim"te clum,:c wrd g1111 ccmtml. Ile is al.w 1*c1y illlerested i11 tl,c st mfr of teacl1i11g a111/ let1mi11g. E-m"il: wlwolage@c111icl1.t•tl11. Ti111tJ1l1_,. llm1.rel 1s a sc!llior h•,*11,ru "' Etl,:e11*1md CollcK<'. lliJ c111*rc11t rese,m:h i111crcs1x i11mfre is.mt'.\' thlll rexide at the i111ersectio11 of epistemoltJg_\: philo.wphr of .fcie11cc, etl,- ics. mid .mcit1/ 111ul ptJ/itical 1il1ilo.wphy. !fr ix rnrrc•111lyfocmed 0111he ctl,kr of p.l'e11tlo scir111ijic am/ scic•111ifirnlly tlcl11111ked medi,:al tre,11111c•11ts. E-mail: tha1t.\'cl@edge11*"od.et/11.