WOW! I really would love to do this post-graduate degree course!

[Interesting Ian]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4753861.stm


Students are to investigate the existence of ghosts as part of a degree course looking at people's experience of the paranormal.

Coventry University is offering the chance to look into haunted houses, extra-sensory perception and "the survival of bodily death".

. . . .

[MichelQC]

I do wish they publish their findings. Should make for er.. entertaining reading!

I am not very familar with Britain's university but are they a reputable institution? I'll check them out on the web to see what the rest of their curriculum is like.

[hellaeon]

what will they think of next... bible studies???

[Zep]

Every skeptic in Britain should enrol! Then publish their course notes and findings in The Times. I suspect that would put the course off the agenda permanently.

[tkingdoll]

"No one has bothered to look, so people's view of the world has been divided into two components: the secular and humanist, and the religious.



No-one has bothered to look??!!!!

I feel a sharp email coming on to this chap.

[Mojo]

The BBC seems to have given a more sensationalist interpretation of this than the earlier report I saw of the same story: http://iccoventry.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/tm_objectid=16986325&method=full&siteid=50003&headline=ghostbusting-makes-tony-feel-good-name_page.html

Tony Lawrence, senior lecturer at Coventry University, is setting up a masters degree in the psychology of exceptional human experiences which starts at the university in September.

As a teenager, psychologist Dr Lawrence saw the film Ghostbusters and liked it so much decided he wanted to become a ghost investigator.

But 20 years later the senior lecturer at Coventry University isn't exactly copying the gung-ho antics of the 1984 cult film's team of ghost hunters.

Instead he is a psychologist applying academic rigour to reports of apparitions, visions and other supernatural and spiritual experiences.

During the two-year part-time course, students will study parapsychology including mediums, ghosts and extra sensory perception.

They will also study transpersonal psychology looking at spiritual experiences such as prayer and meditation. And they will learn about how drugs contribute to spiritual experiences.This looks as if its more to do with why people believe in the paranormal than whether the paranormal exists.

[rjh01]

Wonder what sort of jobs they could get after graduating?

[rats]

Student (sic) will use yoga and meditation "to extend or enhance their personal development"
And this is a Master of Science course? I'm in the wrong line of work!

[JMA]

This looks as if its more to do with why people believe in the paranormal than whether the paranormal exists.

Tony Lawrence organised this year a we in a haunted house somewhere in Great-Britain. I wanted to go so I asked to him a few things by e-mail. My goal was to know if he was more a skeptic or more a believer. Seems to me he's not a woo, his course should be about unusual experience, like the one taught by Chris French or Richard Wiseman.

I think also that the BBC webpage is a little bit too sensationalistic.

[Mojo]

Meanwhile, elsewhere (http://education.guardian.co.uk/further/diary/story/0,,1775238,00.html) in education news: Ministers are particularly chuffed that colleges are no longer getting funded for classes on tarot card reading. A number of these have been run around the country and they had been getting public subsidy. One minister expresses scant sympathy for any that have had to close. "They should have seen it coming," he quips.

[Lothian]

I am not very familar with Britain's university but are they a reputable institution? Yes. Used to be Lanchester polytechnic before polys all became universities.

[Interesting Ian]

The BBC seems to have given a more sensationalist interpretation of this than the earlier report I saw of the same story: http://iccoventry.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/tm_objectid=16986325&method=full&siteid=50003&headline=ghostbusting-makes-tony-feel-good-name_page.html

This looks as if its more to do with why people believe in the paranormal than whether the paranormal exists.

It doesn't look like that to me. It's just saying precisely what the BBC said. No more, no less.

Of course it is interesting to look at why people believe in such things. It is also interesting to look at why people disbelieve. But that's psychology, not parapsychology.

[CFLarsen]

It doesn't look like that to me. It's just saying precisely what the BBC said. No more, no less.

Of course it is interesting to look at why people believe in such things. It is also interesting to look at why people disbelieve. But that's psychology, not parapsychology.
Okie doke.

What real paranormal phenomenon would you like to discuss?

[Mojo]

Of course it is interesting to look at why people believe in such things. It is also interesting to look at why people disbelieve. But that's psychology, not parapsychology.Exactly.Tony Lawrence, senior lecturer at Coventry University, is setting up a masters degree in the psychology of exceptional human experiences which starts at the university in September.

[Interesting Ian]

Tony Lawrence organised this year a we in a haunted house somewhere in Great-Britain. I wanted to go so I asked to him a few things by e-mail. My goal was to know if he was more a skeptic or more a believer.



Why? Why? Why? Why?? Why can't we learn to think for ourselves and come to our own conclusions?

So long as the course is conducted with scientific rigour, that is all that is important.





Seems to me he's not a woo, his course should be about unusual experience, like the one taught by Chris French or Richard Wiseman.



Richard Wiseman is an idiot so I sincerely hope that he's more intelligent than that guy.

I said it's not important as to Tony Lawrence's ultimate conclusions regarding this phenomena. But I really think it would be counter-productive to be a skeptic in the way this word is currently used. It requires at least a token gesture at an impartial look at all the evidence.

His course is about unusual experiences, namely the subset of unusual experiences called exceptional human experiences. Now obviously the course will address the origin of such experiences. The physical processes happening in the brain which facilitate these experiences, and whether these experiences correspond to anything external to the mind (and of course simply because various regions of the brain show activity when one is undergoing such experiences constitutes no reason to suppose that these experiences are wholly are fabrication of the brain. Otherwise we would have to suppose that all experiences whatsoever are wholly a fabrication of the brain).


I think also that the BBC webpage is a little bit too sensationalistic.

It's not clear to me why it is. It's saying precisely the same thing as Mojo linked to.

[Interesting Ian]

Exactly.

If we were to study the psychology of experiencing seeing a tree, would the question of whether the tree is wholly a fabrication of the brain/mind, or whether the putative tree constitutes some sort of external reality, not arise?

[Zep]

If we were to study the psychology of experiencing seeing a tree, would the question of whether the tree is wholly a fabrication of the brain/mind, or whether the putative tree constitutes some sort of external reality, not arise?Probably.

Or perhaps probably not.

I'll go make some tea while I decide.

Or coffee.

[CFLarsen]

Richard Wiseman is an idiot

What do you base that on?

[Mojo]

He isn't Ian. ;)

[politas]

Student (sic) will use yoga and meditation "to extend or enhance their personal development"And this is a Master of Science course? I'm in the wrong line of work!
At least they aren't using yoga and meditation for professional or academic development.

[Interesting Ian]

What do you base that on?

Well, for a kick off he gave this ridiculous argument against reincarnation before.

[Mojo]

Well, for a kick off he gave this ridiculous argument against reincarnation before.What was the argument? In what way was it ridiculous?

[Interesting Ian]

What was the argument?

Can't remember now. It was very forgettable.

[CFLarsen]

Can't remember now. It was very forgettable.
So, you think Richard Wiseman is an idiot because he made an argument against reincarnation that you can't remember?

Who is the idiot here, Ian?

[Interesting Ian]

So, you think Richard Wiseman is an idiot because he made an argument against reincarnation that you can't remember?

Who is the idiot here, Ian?

Although I cannot remember the argument itself, I do remember thinking at the time that it was utterly ludicrous and clearly fallacious.

[JMA]

I'd like to come back to the subject at hand and I just wanna say that me too: "I really would love to do this post-graduate degree course!" :p