Testing and repetition of paranormal events.

iamhunted

why is it necessary to be able to repeat something? How does this make it any more genuine?

Zombrex

iamhunted wrote: »

why is it necessary to be able to repeat something?

Because it helps rules out unexpected interference from the environment of the actual test or the researchers carrying out the test.

You need other people in another place to confirm your experiment to rule out possibility that something unique to your experiment but not part of your theory is a factor in the results.

This isn't something that scientists force onto studies of the paranormal to be mean, it applies to all science. There have been plenty of theories that are based on results that can only be obtained in a certain lab or with a certain researcher. These are not given much credence in scientific circles

Say you think you have discovered a new particle. Your experiment seems to support this. You write up your experiment and others try and replicate it. None of them get the same result as you. This tells the scientist that there is something missing from what they think is happening in their experiment because no one else can get the same result doing the same experiment. The scientist goes back and looks at his experiment. Low and behold, the detection device is miss-calibrated. He sets it to how it should be according to the write up of his experiment and he stops detecting this "new" particle as well.

You have to understand all the important relevant factors of an experiment to be able to apply the results to the theory you are working on. Repeating the experiment allows you to check that you do actually understand all the factors of an experiment.

iamhunted

i understand that but i ask why the fixation?

Im sure Derren Brown could come along and do a fantastic version of a psychic till youre blue in the face, and you probably wouldnt be able to catch him out - but what does that prove? Nothing much in reality.

I think you have to get past the notion that just because you can repeat something, doesnt make it genuine and just because you cant, doesnt mean it isnt. Splitting the atom wasnt possible at one stage - though granted, if you can repeat something then you have the luxury of studing it ar will, but thats about it.

Oryx

iamhunted wrote: »

i understand that but i ask why the fixation?

Im sure Derren Brown could come along and do a fantastic version of a psychic till youre blue in the face, and you probably wouldnt be able to catch him out - but what does that prove? Nothing much in reality.

I think you have to get past the notion that just because you can repeat something, doesnt make it genuine and just because you cant, doesnt mean it isnt. Splitting the atom wasnt possible at one stage - though granted, if you can repeat something then you have the luxury of studing it ar will, but thats about it.

Yes but the repetition separates something from being a questionable anecdote to being a recognised happening. Say your evp. If you get these guys to go and sit in the same place with the same equipment, and they get the same sound, then you are getting somewhere. It gives you a springboard to investigate the sound further. Otherwise, even though noone is saying its fake, it must be simply left as a one off. It proves nothing.

For an entertaining laymans explanation of the need for a scientific method, Ben Goldacre's Bad Science (book) is brilliant.

iamhunted

granted, I see the advantage of repetition. I was just questioning why its usually assumed that unless it it repeatable, that it isnt genuine.

iamhunted

Oryx wrote: »

Say your evp. If you get these guys to go and sit in the same place with the same equipment, and they get the same sound, then you are getting somewhere.

If i was to get the same sound a second time, it would make it more likely to be a natural sound.

Oryx

iamhunted wrote: »

If i was to get the same sound a second time, it would make it more likely to be a natural sound.

It could of course. But if you are coming from this from a scientific research perspective, then you need to accept that you have to find a way to prove it is NOT natural, rather than requiring other listeners to prove that it is. You cannot simply conclude it is 'x' without ruling out 'y'. Which means more than one occurence is required to test it fully.

To bring this back to the topic in hand, if I say Im psychic, I need to be consistently psychic.:) One good reading that knocks the average is not enough. I need to be correct in a statistically significant way to satisfy science. Which is different from satisfying an individual sitter.

iamhunted

then you need to accept that you have to find a way to prove it is NOT natural

I think you'll find thats the angle most of us take - well, in trying to find out the natural cause and if we cant find one, then we just dont know. doesnt mean its paranormal though if you cant find a natural cause.

Overblood

iamhunted wrote: »

why is it necessary to be able to repeat something? How does this make it any more genuine?

After hawking on about how great you were as an investigator in the other thread, I can't believe you don't know the answer to that question. Shame on you!

iamhunted

Overblood wrote: »

After hawking on about how great you were as an investigator in the other thread, I can't believe you don't know the answer to that question. Shame on you!

what are you talking about? Show where I was "hawking on about how great you were as an investigator" or else apologise for talking crap.

I take it you dont like questions. nevermind that fact you;re basically admitting you think repeatabliity means something is genuine.

Zombrex

iamhunted wrote: »

i understand that but i ask why the fixation?

I'm not sure what you mean by "fixation"

You asked why is it necessary. That is why it is necessary. It is a very important part of science. Would you call that a fixation?

iamhunted wrote: »

Im sure Derren Brown could come along and do a fantastic version of a psychic till youre blue in the face, and you probably wouldnt be able to catch him out - but what does that prove? Nothing much in reality.

What does that have to do with anything?

iamhunted wrote: »

I think you have to get past the notion that just because you can repeat something, doesnt make it genuine

Whether an explanation is "genuine" and "fake" are some what of a different issue

What matters is whether a theory is accurate or inaccurate.

A theory being inaccurate due to malice (someone is lying about data) or some non-malicious reason (someone was mistaken), it doesn't really matter. The purpose of science is to learn what is happening with a particular phenomena, and if what is happening is someone is faking it then that is as much a valid thing to learn as anything else.

When exploring your theory you can not say anything beyond your theory. If you theory cannot successfully predict the results of experiment then it is inaccurate, but all that tells you is that your theory is inaccurate.

Say for example you have a theory that Joe Bloggs can see through walls. You devise an experiment to test that theory. Mr. Bloggs seems to be able to do this, so you record your experiment and your results and send them off to other scientists to try and replicate. None of them do.

At this point you know your theory that Joe Bloggs can see through walls is inaccurate. You are not saying anything about anything else apart from your theory. It predicted something that cannot be repeated in experiments.

You go back and look at your experiment and the experiments of the other scientists. Ah ha you say. There was something you didn't record. Your wall was painted yellow. This was not recorded in the details of the experiment so it is doubtful that the other scientists set their experiment up this way.

You repeat the experiment with Mr. Bloggs using a yellow wall and walls of other colours. He only sees through the wall painted yellow. You then record this in the details of your experiment and send it off to the other scientists. They repeat the experiment with the same details and sure enough they all have Mr. Bloggs apparently seeing through a wall.

Your original theory was inaccurate ("wrong" in laymans terms). Mr. Bloggs cannot see through walls. Your new theory is that Mr. Bloggs can see through yellow walls. This gives you a line of study to greater refine your theory to explain in more detail what is actually happening with Mr. Bloggs looks at a yellow wall. Lots more experiments are required.

The point of that is to highlight that when an experiment fails that is only a reflection on the specific theory it is testing.

A no point did the scientist conclude that Joe Bloggs is faking it. That is a totally different theory that is not being testing by that experiment. At the moment all the scientist is concerned with his is specific theory that he is testing at the moment.

If that theory turns out to be a complete dead end the scientist may start considering other theories, such as Mr. Bloggs is faking it. But that is a different line of scientific enquiry that requires a new set of tests to refine that theory.

And that theory may turn out to be a dead end. So the theory that he is seeing through walls appears inaccurate and the different theory that he is faking it appears inaccurate. So the scientist may move on to a different theory.

And so on and so on.

You can have competing theories trying to explain the same phenomena, and one of them could be that the person is lying, another could be that the person is experiencing an illusion, another could be that they are actually reading minds or seeing through walls.

All these are independent theories and require independent experiments and study. "He is faking it" is not a property of the theory "He is seeing through the wall". It is a separate theory that is trying to explain the same phenomena. They are two independent theories and you can assess how accurate each theory is.

If something cannot be repeatably replicated then all that demonstrates is that the theory you are exploring is inaccurate. Something is missing or wrong in the theory.

That is actually a good thing, science advances by disregarding bad inaccurate theories. In fact a theory must be falsifiable to be considered scientific. It must be possible, at least in theory, to demonstrate the theory is wrong through experiment. Otherwise you cannot test it properly.

iamhunted wrote: »

and just because you cant, doesnt mean it isnt.

When you say "it" what do you mean.

In science if you cannot replicate in repeated experiments a result predicted by your theory then it does mean your theory is inaccurate because your theory is predicting a result that is not being consistently reproduced.

Something is wrong with your theory. That is all you can say at that point.

It is the scientists responsibility to go back and look at the theory and the experiments to see what is going wrong. You cannot conclude anything other than your theory is inaccurate. But it may point you towards exploring a different theory does turn out to be more accurate.

The goal of science is to develop theories that can accurately predict experiment results.

iamhunted

In science if you cannot replicate a result it does mean your theory is inaccurate because your theory is predicting a result that is not being produced.

yeah, that would be fine if you want to know how good you are at predicting a theory. You seem to be saying that in science if you cant predict a result then that result does not exist, or cant exist. I say once more, stop hiding behind the word 'science' and start grasping what scientists do and think.

im sorry, but theres no way im getting involved in another one of these 'talk the talk' conversations that ultimately go nowhere. you make long posts, but which lack in actual information.

Oryx

I actually thought that wicknights post was really informative.

You seem to be saying that in science if you cant predict a result then that result does not exist, or cant exist.

It seems to me what was meant was your hypothesis is incorrect. So if you cant test what you believe and get the result you expect, then you have to change what you believe.

This has nothing to do with saying 'phenomenon a' does not exist, its saying that if the results are not what you expect from 'phenomenon a' then you need to reassess what 'phenomenon a' is.

This is getting wildly complicated and off topic and guys, I may attempt to break it from this thread, ok?

iamhunted

So if you cant test what you believe and get the result you expect, then you have to change what you believe.

Either you;re belief could be wrong, or you could just doing it wrong. You seem to have left out the 'you could be doing it wrong' bit.

Anyway - you're just reenforcing the idea that if you cant prove it in a lab then it doesnt exist.

iamhunted

Oryx wrote: »

This is getting wildly complicated and off topic and guys, I may attempt to break it from this thread, ok?

Im going to knock off replying, cus Im not really interested in pursuing a discussion on it.

Zombrex

iamhunted wrote: »

yeah, that would be fine if you want to know how good you are at predicting a theory.

Actually it is If you want to know how good a theory is at predicting a phenomena.

Which you do, that is what science is, determining the accuracy of theories (models) at explaining phenomena.

The better a theory is at predicting a phenomena the more accurate you can say your theory is and therefore the better of an idea you have as to what is happening with the phenomena. A theory is after all simply a model of what you think is happening in a phenomena, be it the Earth moving around the Sun or a strange light in a dark ruin.

The classic example of the refinement of theory based on them failing to predict phenomena accurately is Newton's theories of physics.

They accurately predicted things like motion, heat and gravity up until the late 19th century when experiments got more sophisticated and scientists could study phenomena in much closer detail.

Then we found that Newton's theories where actually inaccurate at a certain fine grained level. The theories were missing something. There was something happening in reality that was not being accurately modelled with the theories.

General relativity filled this gap of knowledge and can be considered sort of like a refinement of the earlier theories which while appearing accurate for a long time were in fact inaccurate.

iamhunted wrote: »

You seem to be saying that in science if you cant predict a result then that result does not exist, or cant exist.

No I've no idea how you got that from what I wrote.

If your theories predictions do not match the results of an experiment or observation then the theory is wrong. It is inaccurate in some way.

It could be greatly inaccurate or just a little bit inaccurate. But it is inaccurate in some way.

In fact all scientific theories are probably inaccurate in some way, science is a continuous process of producing theories who's predictions closer match experiment by refining and changing the theory based on experiment. And if a scientists ever does produce a 100% accurate model of some phenomena it is impossible to know they have done that since it is impossible to know before hand that there is not something you are missing. You only discover that you are missing something when you discover a part of the phenomena that is not modelled accurately by your theory.

For example general relativity, which improved upon Newton's theories, ran a-ground some what in mid-20th century because it does not accurately predict quantum physics. It does accurately predict the movement of large bodies but falls apart at the quantum level. We are missing something, the model we have is incomplete. And scientists have been working long and hard trying to come up with theories that both accurately model the big (gravity, planets, suns) and the small (atoms, quarks, electrons etc) in the same theory.

iamhunted wrote: »

I say once more, stop hiding behind the word 'science' and start grasping what scientists do and think.

That is what I'm doing. This is, to the best of my understanding, how scientists "do and think"

Perhaps it would be helpful if you explained what you believe scientists do and think. We could then perhaps clear up any confusion or differences.

iamhunted wrote: »

you make long posts, but which lack in actual information.

Ok, if there is some part of my posts that you feel I'm brushing over or not explaining properly just ask. I am more than happy to go into further detail.

So far my "long posts" have be answers to questions you have asked.

Zombrex

Oryx wrote: »

It seems to me what was meant was your hypothesis is incorrect. So if you cant test what you believe and get the result you expect, then you have to change what you believe.

Exactly, because part of the theory will be the prediction that if you do X then Y should happen. That is a prediction of the theory.

For example an old theory of gravity used to hold that objects fell to Earth at different speeds depending on their mass. This model of how gravity works can be used to form a prediction and that prediction can be tested with an experiment. Which Galileo did by dropping objects of different mass to see if they feel at different speeds. They didn't.

The theory was inaccurate and was replaced by a more accurate theory that had objects falling the same speed irrespective of their mass.

Oryx wrote: »

This has nothing to do with saying 'phenomenon a' does not exist, its saying that if the results are not what you expect from 'phenomenon a' then you need to reassess what 'phenomenon a' is.

Again exactly. The phenomenon is simply the observed "thing", for want of a better word. Things fall to Earth is an phenomenon. There is a bit bright thing in the sky is a phenomenon.

It makes no sense to say that it doesn't exist. The question is is what we think this is actually what it is.

In terms of the paranormal a phenomena might be a person sitting in a room claiming to see dead people.

"Ghosts" isn't the phenomena, "ghosts" is a possible explanation (a theory or hypothesis depending on how much support it has) for the phenomenon. And it may be accurate or inaccurate in explaining the phenomenon.

Oryx wrote: »

This is getting wildly complicated and off topic and guys, I may attempt to break it from this thread, ok?

Possibly a good idea, that would be an interesting thread.

Oryx

Thread split from I challenge any psychic thread.

Oryx

Now, thanks to Wicknights 'Scientific testing 101' I have grasped the way the theorising and testing should work. But how can this be practically applied to paranormal phenomena? Just for the sake of discussion, I'll give three specifics, in order to give an idea of the repeatability problem as I see it:

A 'haunted' house where apparitions have been seen
Someone who talks to dead people
Crop circles

Zombrex

iamhunted wrote: »

Either you;re belief could be wrong, or you could just doing it wrong. You seem to have left out the 'you could be doing it wrong' bit.

Because your belief is your theory and you "doing it" is an experiment based on your theory, if you don't get the results you expect then your theory is wrong. Simple as.

iamhunted wrote: »

Anyway - you're just reenforcing the idea that if you cant prove it in a lab then it doesnt exist.

A theory is a theoretical model, it doesn't "not exist".

It is either accurate or inaccurate.

Zombrex

Oryx wrote: »

But how can this be practically applied to paranormal phenomena?

That is the million dollar question. :pac:

Oryx wrote: »

Just for the sake of discussion, I'll give three specifics, in order to give an idea of the repeatability problem as I see it:

A 'haunted' house where apparitions have been seen
Someone who talks to dead people
Crop circles

The easiest of those to form controlled repeatable experiments around is the man who talks to dead people as it is possible to isolate him/her. Assuming they are up to it you can then experiment at length with them

Crop circles would be more difficult as in most cases it is only the after effects of the phenomena that are observed not the actual formations themselves (unless you are the one faking it of course :pac:)

The best way to approach them is probably the way they have been approached, by people trying to replicate them as close as possible. This method of replication is essentially your "theory" and the matching of prediction is matching the type of crop circle you can make using your method with the evidence of real world crop circles.

The haunted house is trickery still because of lack of control over the environment. Again a possible line of scientific enquiry would be to try and replicate the pheneomena using known laws of physics. At the very least this will narrow down exactly the unexplained bits in the unexplained phenomena.

They are certainly interesting challenges, ones that are mirrored in the rest of science. For example scientists have no clue what Dark Matter is (or even if it is "matter") they simply know something is there because of the effect it has on visible matter. But studying it and experimenting with it is near impossible because it doesn't seem to interact with anything in the universe except through gravity (a possible explanation is that it is matter in a higher dimension, and that it's gravity seeps through to our dimension).

At least with "ghosts" you can see something

iamhunted

any chance this thread can be attributed to someone else as considering a) I didnt start this thread, b) I have no interest in this thread and c) Im waiting for someone to pop up with Brainiacs 'Im do science me' - convoluted waffle about science made by complete no scientists.

iamhunted

Wicknight wrote: »

Because your belief is your theory and you "doing it" is an experiment based on your theory, if you don't get the results you expect then your theory is wrong. Simple as.

your belief is your theory? Someone says "i believe in ghosts' so that makes that their theory? what the hell is the actual 'theory' then? See what I mean about waffle

A theory is a theoretical model, it doesn't "not exist".

It is either accurate or inaccurate.

Are we talking about proof of facts of are we talking about a theory?

The question I initially asked was why do you think things have to be repeatable in order to be true? You havent answered that yet. instead yer on about theories. Then again I dont think youve ever actually answered one of my questions without going off on a tangent about something completely unrelated. Pity you wouldnt tell me what you think a cynic or skeptic is - your noticable by your absence from that thread.

Oryx

Wicknight wrote: »

That is the million dollar question. :pac:



The easiest of those to form controlled repeatable experiments around is the man who talks to dead people as it is possible to isolate him/her. Assuming they are up to it you can then experiment at length with them

That sounds almost fiendish. So what would the experiments consist of?

Crop circles would be more difficult as in most cases it is only the after effects of the phenomena that are observed not the actual formations themselves (unless you are the one faking it of course :pac:)

The best way to approach them is probably the way they have been approached, by people trying to replicate them as close as possible. This method of replication is essentially your "theory" and the matching of prediction is matching the type of crop circle you can make using your method with the evidence of real world crop circles.

That has been done, didnt they find differences in the breaks in the stems or something? For the record I think crop circles are most likely all fake btw. Just stating my bias.

The haunted house is trickery still because of lack of control over the environment. Again a possible line of scientific enquiry would be to try and replicate the pheneomena using known laws of physics. At the very least this will narrow down exactly the unexplained bits in the unexplained phenomena.

Anything can be replicated, how would doing so help? I just dont follow that logic.

Zombrex

iamhunted wrote: »

your belief is your theory? Someone says "i believe in ghosts' so that makes that their theory?

Well they probably wouldn't say that, they would say in the context of explaining a phenomena "That is a ghost". Or "I think that is a ghost"

That is their explanation for the phenomena, which in scientific terms is a hypothesis. A theory is a hypothesis that can be tested, so yes your belief is your theory.

Simply stating "I believe in ghosts" without the context of explaining specific phenomena would be a bit pointless wouldn't it?

iamhunted wrote: »

what the hell is the actual 'theory' then?

What do you mean?

iamhunted wrote: »

See what I mean about waffle

Not really. Everyone else seems to be following ...

Like I said I'm happy to explain in detail anything you are unclear about.

iamhunted wrote: »

Are we talking about proof of facts of are we talking about a theory?

We are talking about a theory.

Proof as a concept doesn't exist in science, and facts are simply nuggets of observed information.

iamhunted wrote: »

The question I initially asked was why do you think things have to be repeatable in order to be true?

No, that isn't the question you asked. You asked why is it important to repeat something when studying it. I explained why.

I did not say that things have to be repeatable in order to be true. I don't even understand what that question means or what "things" refers to (phenomena, observation, theory, what?)

iamhunted wrote: »

You havent answered that yet.

You are correct, I haven't. I didn't state that in the first place so why would I answer that question.

iamhunted wrote: »

Then again I dont think youve ever actually answered one of my questions without going off on a tangent about something completely unrelated.

Perhaps your questions are flawed?

iamhunted wrote: »

Pity you wouldnt tell me what you think a cynic or skeptic is - your noticable by your absence from that thread.

I'm more than happy to answer that question in that thread, I was under the impression you didn't want my input with regard to cynics/sceptics since every time I do offer my input you insult me and get angry.

Zombrex

Oryx wrote: »

That sounds almost fiendish. So what would the experiments consist of?

Depends on what you theory is, ie are you exploring the theory that he is actually communicating with a dead person. Brake down that into its component parts. That may mean to getting right down to looking at what his brain is doing as this is happening.

Have a think about a prediction of that theory if it were true and then try and falsify it. Most experiments work by trying to disprove a prediction of a theory, thus demonstrating that there is a problem with the theory. If you do this a lot and the improved theories begin to survive your experiments you know you are on to something.

This is not the same as trying to support the theory he is say faking it, that is a different theory.

Oryx wrote: »

Anything can be replicated, how would doing so help? I just dont follow that logic.

The closer you replicate the results the better idea you have of what could be causing the phenomena.

If you come across an observation of the phenomena that you cannot replicate then this is something to have a much closer look at. You are basically discarding stuff you can already explain to try and get at the core of what you cannot explain. That is the interesting bit.

iamhunted

Wicknight wrote: »

Well they probably wouldn't say that, they would say in the context of explaining a phenomena "That is a ghost". Or "I think that is a ghost"

That is their explanation for the phenomena, which in scientific terms is a hypothesis. A theory is a hypothesis that can be tested, so yes your belief is your theory.

Simply stating "I believe in ghosts" without the context of explaining specific phenomena would be a bit pointless wouldn't it?


What do you mean?


Not really. Everyone else seems to be following ...

Like I said I'm happy to explain in detail anything you are unclear about.


We are talking about a theory.

Proof as a concept doesn't exist in science, and facts are simply nuggets of observed information.


No, that isn't the question you asked. You asked why is it important to repeat something when studying it. I explained why.

I did not say that things have to be repeatable in order to be true. I don't even understand what that question means or what "things" refers to (phenomena, observation, theory, what?)


You are correct, I haven't. I didn't state that in the first place so why would I answer that question.


Perhaps your questions are flawed?



I'm more than happy to answer that question in that thread, I was under the impression you didn't want my input with regard to cynics/sceptics since every time I do offer my input you insult me and get angry.

It is quite, quite plain from reading this post that you havent bothered either listening to nor reading my posts. You seem to have missed everything - you never answered my original question (its in post number 5 in case you need to refresh your memory), instead told me I asked a different one, you avoid other questions by pretending not to understand them
(for example: Simply stating "I believe in ghosts" without the context of explaining specific phenomena would be a bit pointless wouldn't it? - when its obvious people do say they believe in ghosts without explaining it the way you expect themn to) - useless fecken waffle once more sir.

I'm more than happy to answer that question in that thread, I was under the impression you didn't want my input with regard to cynics/sceptics since every time I do offer my input you insult me and get angry.

Please stop feeling sorry for yourself. I noticed you still havent given us your insight.

Zombrex

iamhunted wrote: »

you never answered my original question (its in post number 5 in case you need to refresh your memory), instead told me I asked a different one

You asked this question -

why is it necessary to be able to repeat something? How does this make it any more genuine?

It is pretty easy to see that question, it is the first post in this thread.

You then claimed what you actually asked was this

why do you think things have to be repeatable in order to be true?

You will notice that those are different questions, and the second one has an implied assertion (that if something is repeatable it is true) that I am supposed to have made that I never did make nor do I in fact understand. You would have to explain what "things" refers to since a theory or experiment is never "true", only accurate, so obviously it can't be a theory or experiment that you mean.

To clarify if you didn't understand the first time things don't have to be repeatable in order to be true. Things are true if they are true. Repeatability is something we use to help discover if some theory of ours is accurate at explaining something, but it has nothing to do with the thing itself nor it's truth.

iamhunted wrote: »

(for example: Simply stating "I believe in ghosts" without the context of explaining specific phenomena would be a bit pointless wouldn't it? - when its obvious people do say they believe in ghosts without explaining it the way you expect themn to)

And as I said it is obvious that this is pointless unless they are stating it about a specific phenomena.

why would anyone say "I believe in ghosts" yet not be trying to explain a specific phenoemena. Who believes in ghosts by not as an explanation for something? That doesn't make sense

iamhunted wrote: »

Please stop feeling sorry for yourself. I noticed you still havent given us your insight.

My insight into what?

watty

If something can't be replicated you can question did it ever happen. What value is it.

If it can be replicated you can document the required conditions and design experiments to try and identify what it is.

If the phenomena never repeats, then you can't test any theory about it, you can't even be sure it happened.

If it repeats you can design better ways to record the event and analyse it and verify and original recording or eye witness report was not a hoax.

These are only general points, for example if only one person saw a massive Meteor hit the Moon, this could be verified later without repeating the phenomena.

So if the subsequent effects of a one off event can be unambiguously measured, no repeat is needed.

Zombrex

watty wrote: »

If something can't be replicated you can question did it ever happen. What value is it.

More specifically than that if cannot build up an explanation through testing you can't say what "it" was in the first place in order to say that "it" happened or didn't happen.

This is a point I think is missed a lot by some people.

When someone says Do you believe 'it' happened, or Are you saying 'it' wasn't genuine, or So you think 'it' was faked, what they are actually taking about is the explanation being given for something that is unexplained. If you remove all explanations you simply have an unexplained phenomena like any other.

It is one explanation out of the set of possibly explanations and as you say without being able to repeatable study the explanation it is impossible to say that the explanation happened.