I was perusing around among the usual suspects when I ran across this piece.
“The DOPler Effect
Do objects disappear around your home, then inexplicably reappear? You might be a victim of DOP, or Disappearing Object Phenomena. What could be the cause?
This is so obviously a parody. Its written in that strange pseudo- intellectual style, so appealing to the pseudo scientific community.
One passages really stood out at me.
We must remember that any paranormal investigation must first rule out the most likely, if pedestrian, explanations for what seems like an unexplainable event. Only then can we consider more unusual possibilities.
My inner jackass started braying the moment that I saw that, for a number of reasons.
It’s so completely foolish! FIRST rule out the most likely explanations? Only than can you conclude that a ghost misplaced your ball point pen or some other stupid thing? And yet this is exactly how many people think the paranormal should be approached.
In real science you never completely eliminate possibilities, you weight them in order of probability. Lost pen? I probably sat it down somewhere and forgot about it or a ghost took it from me. You can consider the ghost but that’s such a complex (thereby unlikely) explanation that it’s not seriously equated. At least most sane people would never give it a second thought.
Many believers seem weigh possibilities conversely proportional to their un-reasonability. Coupled with a general ignorance of how the physical world operated this can lead to amusing conclusions. “The pen flipped through another dimension. Aliens took it to examine.” Etc.
The third reason my inner jackass got a good belly laugh from this?
Well! I originally found this article posted on a certain page run by a fellow who apparently has no clue that the piece WAS a parody. He posted it as just an interesting news item.
Or perhaps he knows its a parody an he wanted to test his readers.
Or perhaps the piece is not a parody at all!.
BWAAAA HAAAHA HAAAAAA!!!!!