It may not seem that way, but this post does have something to do with the paranormal — or at least with skeptics thereof. But it will take a while to get there.
Recently an article appeared on the Autoblog, describing an experiment carried out at a Burger King restaurant. A speed bump was installed in the drive-through lane. New technology developed by company called MotionPower captured some of the energy from cars that passed over this speed bump and converted it to electricity. The article clearly stated that the experiment produced very little power and was intended only as "an initial durability test."
Despite these caveats, the article attracted a host of negative comments from people anxious to display their superior knowledge of physics. The political blog Ace of Spades, which linked to the article, described the experiment as an "epic fail."
Why was it such a failure, and a laughable one at that? Here's a sample of the commentary from Autoblog readers:
Huh? It's not FREE energy. Energy just doesn't appear out of nowhere. They are STEALING energy from the customers. The customers have to use gas to power their car over the speed bump. So whatever energy that is produced for BK from this speed bump, the customer would have have to use more to get over it, since some energy would most likely be lost in the transfer process.
This is what humanity is up against. Can you imagine that a corporation this big doesn't contain one person that understands the laws of physics. If they just added a 1/10 cent surcharge to each customer they would achieve more for both of us.
They understand the laws of physics, but they don't care. In their world, it is more important to appear green than to actually be green.
Or the people who understand this all too often have no voice in the corporate world. After all, it's an uphill battle to go up against some eccentric executives with MBA.
Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has no grasp of physics.
"Epic fail," indeed. Or so it would appear on the basis of most of the comments that were posted.
Eventually, however, someone who actually bothered to read the article carefully and think about its implications joins the discussion. This person, whose screen name is Joeviocoe, points out that the math supplied in some earlier commentary is wrong:
I think your calculations are WAY off.
Apply common sense. Would BK be interested if it could save only $5 per year? No!
Hybrid cars (like the Prius) use regen braking (the energy recaptured from slowing down from a certain speed)!
If you perform 100,000 braking cycles per year, does it not save you more than $5 in fuel costs?
Now you math freaks, lets have a bit of fun…
Joe goes on to carry out some new calculations that lead to a more sensible result — namely, that the system might generate a little more than $1000 a year, rather than the five dollars a year estimated by an earlier commenter.
But of course, the Burger King test was not done to make money. It was done to demonstrate the basic feasibility of the system and to show that the technology would hold up under the weight of a succession of vehicles. It was "an initial durability test."
What about the objection that the car's energy is being "stolen" by the device? This would be true if the car didn't have to stop anyway. But in situations where the car is already required to stop, the energy is not stolen. It is simply redirected. (In the case of hybrids that use brake energy to recharge the battery, a case could be made that the energy is being stolen. But most cars are not hybrids.)
It should be obvious that the drive-through lane of a fast food restaurant is not the ideal environment in which to carry out this test. A better choice would be, say, the offramp of a freeway, where vehicles are required to rapidly decelerate. Placing a series of rumble strips on an offramp would allow some of the car's energy, which would otherwise be expended in braking, to be captured and used for some other purpose — perhaps for lighting electric signs. In a high-traffic area, where vehicles are losing a great deal of energy as they decelerate, the energy captured could be significant.
As Joe sensibly observes: "My idea (perhaps thought of already by others) would be a set of rumble strips that would take away approximately 20 mph from the average car."
So why not test the system on a freeway offramp, or a stop sign? The simple answer is that it would be logistically more difficult to carry out such a test. There would be more bureaucratic hurdles to overcome; the freeway offramp or public street would have to be closed temporarily while the system was installed; etc. Most likely it was just easier to run the test at a Burger King.
Now, why am I bothering to post about this at all? What interests me is not the technology itself — though it does seem to be feasible under the right circumstances — but the attitudes conveyed by the skeptical comments.
According to the skeptics, the scientists who thought up the experiment don't understand the most elementary scientific principles. Or, if they do understand, their corporate chiefs don't care. The bottom line is that none of the people involved in this experiment had the slightest idea what they were doing, or if they did have some idea, they were willing to mislead the public for some nefarious purpose.
In other words, the mindset of the scoffers is a mixture of intellectual superiority, moral superiority, and unvarnished cynicism, and their responses are based on only the most cursory and superficial reading of the article in question. They don't have to read the material carefully or employ any common sense in evaluating it. They already know that they are smarter and better than everybody else. It's a foregone conclusion that anyone who's come up with something they themselves didn't think of must be wrong. After all, most people are idiots or deluded "eccentrics" or cynical manipulators playing a public relations game.
How easy it must be to approach life from this perspective! There are no questions, only ready answers. There are no doubts, only certainty. There is no need to grasp someone else's point of view, since everybody else is obviously wrong. And there is, of course, no possibility that we ourselves could be wrong … ever.
As Colin Wilson quipped after reading Martin Gardner's best-selling book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science: "I wish I could be as sure of anything as Martin Gardner is of everything."
And here, naturally, is where skepticism of the paranormal comes in. A great many skeptics — though not, I emphasize, all of them — seem to share the perspective of the scoffers quoted above. How many of the nonprofessional skeptics have actually looked, in detail and in depth, at the evidence for the paranormal phenomena they disparage? Most of the more casual skeptics have probably read, at most, a couple of skeptical books on the subject — books that already reinforce and confirm their own outlook.
On the basis of this cursory and one-sided examination of the subject, they are quick to rule all paranormal phenomena out of bounds and to dismiss all the evidence collected over more than a century of research by hundreds of investigators on several continents.
And why not? They already know that none of these investigators had the slightest idea what they were doing, or if they did have some idea, they were willing to mislead the public for some nefarious purpose. The researchers in question don't understand the most elementary scientific principles. Or, if they do understand, they don't care. There is no need to examine the evidence, since all of it is obviously wrong. After all, most of the investigators — like people in general — are idiots or deluded "eccentrics, or cynical manipulators playing a public relations game.
"This is what humanity is up against," they lament, positioning themselves as enlightened saviors of the benighted multitude. "Anyone who thinks there is evidence for the paranormal has no grasp of science," they say, positioning themselves as the only ones who understand – who really understand – science. Any experiment that produces evidence for any paranormal phenomenon simply must be an "epic fail."
It's sometimes said that belief in the paranormal is predicated on certain psychological factors, and in some cases this is doubtless true. What is less widely understood is that instinctive, knee-jerk skepticism may also be predicated on psychological factors.
None of us can be totally immune to the influence of our temperament and mindset. It might be best, then, to become aware of our prejudices, parse our words carefully, and think before we speak.
And when we find ourselves speeding a little too recklessly toward a conclusion — hit the brakes.