Once again, critical thinkers near and far have a great opportunity to examine here a slippery argument and find the fallacies hidden therein. Get out your Moore and Parker all ye skeptics and get down to work!

Zak writes:You're making a distinction here between gravity and psychic phenomena. I would suggest that gravity is every bit as mysterious as telepathy, precognition or any other psychic phenomenon

Zak's argument is that since gravity and psychic phenomenon are alike(they are both "mysterious"), they therefore deserve the same deference.

There are several ways I see to approach this argument and I'm not sure which one works best. Where is Kerrin when you need her? First let's try Complex Question (Tying): unrelated points are treated as if they should be accepted or rejected together. In fact, each point should be accepted or rejected on its own merits. The fact is of course that gravity and psychic phenomenon are wholly different phenomenon and their existence or non-existence should be evaluated, not by fast talking, but by proper and public tests.

Then there is Extended Analogy:the claim that two things, both analogous to a third thing, are therefore analogous to each other. Zak's argument is an interesting blend of fallacies that includes the fallacy of extended analogy. It is true that the exegesis of both gravity and psychic phenomenon references metaphysical entities. Force, strings and Rhiemann topography can all be said to be as "mysterious" as psi. But to claim that since gravity and pp are analogous to other things that require reference to metaphysical entities for their explanation they are therefore analogous to each other is a gross error and is an example of the fallacy of the extended analogy. Fact is, pp is not a special case of gravity and therefore is not analogous to it. Something which is repeatable and predictively measured under control situations is not analogous to something that isn't. 

Furthermore, existence claims for categorical entities should not be confused with ontological claims for the existence of essences comprising those entities. That in science we commonly reify our terms, pre-analytically, in our everyday inferences to the best explanation is no justification for the existence of pp. Realism about entities is a linguistic short-cut that does not exempt the claimant from the demand for empirical testing. 

So what you're really arguing is that gravity is more commonplace than phenomena that would normally be categorized as "psychic" or "paranormal".

Here we have a nice example to the Straw Man Fallacy:attributing an argument to one's opponent which the opponent did not make. Of course, Josh never introduced :commonplaceness" as a criteria of distinction between pp and gravity, rather Zak did. What makes Zak's fallacy all the more egregious is that even though Josh made it quite clear what his distinctions were (reliably detected, and quantified), Zak chose to ignore these and raise an entire red herring, "commonplaceness", in their stead. The ploy of the Straw Man Fallacy is to pick an argument which is easy to tear apart, attribute it to the opponent, then go to work on it while never addressing the actual argument raised.
 

tommy