Scientists Are the Real Prophets

Prophets, psychics, mediums, soothsayers, those who claim to channel aliens or angels, all claim to predict future events or to bring important messages from “other dimensions”.

Often it appears these messages are more designed to give authority to these people rather than bringing anything of value. Some religions claim to have successions of prophets who run their organisations bringing new and updated information as humanity progresses, such as the Church of Latter Day Saints or the Baha’i Faith.

What is significant is the uninspiring and retrospective nature of these messages. They often claim to validate the supposed message carrier by making tenuous links with writing in existing books like the bible or Qur'an. They bring generalised statements about love and peace and no useful information about the existence of an afterlife. They claim to predict current events or scientific discoveries but only after they have occurred (see the video edits of TB Joshua removing inconvenient information, or the fabrication or invention of historical events in the New Testament, for example Luke's census of Quirinius designed to place the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem in an attempt to make Jesus fulfil Old Testament prophecy). In short, nothing they say brings any real or useful knowledge but consists of statements any of us could deduce or make up.

So what might one expect a god, goddess, spirit, angel, ghost or advanced alien to tell us? Surely, they might direct us to the solution to a scientific or mathematical problem if they didn't think we were ready just to be given a solution or real knowledge? Perhaps they might want to use unambiguous language so there was no doubt what they were referring to in advance of an event. Instead we are offered vague comments by believers, sometimes gibberish, that has to be interpreted, or given claims that cannot be verified. Not very impressive.

This motley group has produced nothing of value that has taken our species forward. That job has been left to science which has made astonishing discoveries, extended our life span and come up with explanations that have been capable of predicting new information that can be unambiguously observed . Science leads and the supernaturalists follow, adapting their beliefs and messages to what is already known. Until they produce something as genuinely useful as that produced by the sciences, we can safely ignore these people, eager to be validated and so sure of their value to the rest of us.

The methods of science create real “prophecy” not the supernatural mumblings of self-deluded individuals no matter how well meaning they are. Theories in science allow educated and testable statements forecasting what will happen under specific conditions, for example eclipses. If the prediction is proved false, the scientific explanation that produced it will be questioned.

This is the opposite to predictions based on supernatural ideas. If a prediction or prophecy is proved false (and, for the believer, they never are because they always find ways of excusing the failure) the foundational belief is never questioned and discarded. This was evidenced in the failures and resulting self-justifications of dowsers in the UK (experiments by Professor Chris French shown on Channel Four's The Enemies of Reason Part 1) and an astrologist (Neil Spencer) who claimed that the mere testing of his beliefs was in itself “mischievous” and would therefore not bring positive results.

So while some spend their time attempting to make any sense of passages from Nostradamus and sections from the Old Testament to prove their beliefs are true, we prefer to apply reason, logic and the scientific method which is freely available for all, does not require one believes in it, and has a proven track record of producing results.

The predictions made in science indicate true "prophecy" is in the methods of falsifiability and testability capable of being made by all, not in vague, ambiguous statements made by a privileged few.

Further information

Prophecies for Dummies
http://www.skepticreport.com/sr/?p=449

Covering up a discredited Baha'i Prophecy
http://dalehusband.com/2010/08/03/covering-up-a-discredited-bahai-prophecy

Sylvia Browne fraud montage - world's worst psychic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKyzBe0CA2Q

Graham Knight
grahamk61@gmail.com