Domestication

It’s one of the sickest known jokes, and sure to offend many:
“Why do nice guys finish last? Because women, like other domestic animals...need a strong hand to tame them”
But has it got any truth in it? OK, disclaimer, to anybody hopping mad on their chair with disbelief. Don't come up with simple-minded objections to this. It's possible here that I'm using the word 'taming' differently to you. Men are animals, just as women are. And of course, in mating, women have selected behavioural traits in men that they liked as much as men have done in women.
So you could come up with similar jokes about men. I'm sure they exist, I was just told this one. It wasn't funny, but thought provoking. I'm weird.

The offensive part is the allegation that women (or at least a large part of the female population) have been 'domesticated', i.e selected in particular for specialisation in domestic requirements (as men, say, specialise over women in hunting). We know about the so-called "battle of the sexes", whereby genes of one sex actually have competing (and interdependent) interests with genes belonging to members of the other sex. Men could disadvantage women in a peculiar way, through physical and/or other oppression. Some lineages or tribes or cultures of men, therefore, might have domesticated some women. It may be that because women HAVE been less powerful for so long, HAVE been treated so unequally by men as a whole, that the joke is now partially true, for some women. Men may have controlled women for so long, as they have bred and controlled dogs for their own purposes, that it may be that some women have become partially domesticated too.
This doesn't imply that women are any less intelligent and otherwise able than men, by any means. Perhaps, the opposite. Certainly, women seem to do a disproportionate share of the work. This is still true to this day. According to ABS figures, women work, on average, 41 mins longer than men per day, once all reported 'responsibilities' are totalled up. But it certainly seems likely that men and women, statistically speaking, perform better in different roles. Once again, for those out there....this doesn't logically imply that a woman's place is in the home, that she lacks skills that you have, or any other misinterpretation you're likely to come up with.

O'Reilly Is A Tool

Bill O'Reilly of "The O'Reilly factor" (a FOX News program), found himself convincingly beaten by Phil Donahue, who used O'Reilly's own debating 'tactics' (intimidation, personal attack, loud voice) against him.
Cleverly, O'Donahue inverted O'Reilly's most common charge against others (lack of patriotism) against O'Reilly!

Of course, O'Reilly will never see beyond his own simplistic viewpoint.
But it was funny anyway to watch somebody smarter than him lower himself to O'Reilly's level in order to make O'Reilly squirm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ctlmholr45c
Fox 'News', a total sham.

Other tactics to use against O'Reilly:
-When necessary, just keen repeating to O'Reilly that his facts are wrong, whilst shrugging your shoulders with disappointment.
-Absolute coolness, and ask O'Reilly to calm down when he gets keyed up. Tell him that's absolutely necessary if you and he are to have a civilised discussion. Tell O'Reilly that he is being irrational.
-Point out logical errors that he makes using ridiculous hypotheticals.
-Tell O'Reilly that you wish you couldn't feel his spit flying across the room.


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Advanced shared equity home loans are like communism

Simple Things

I’m enjoying the simple things in life more:
-- The street-sign “Form One Lane” which always gets turned in to “Form One Planet” by hooligans. The efforts of the council to remove this graffiti, and the significantly more efficient response by the hooligans, who re-graffiti it.
Generally, I despite graffiti artists who fuck up trains, their own and other's neighborhoods. But the person who says that all graffiti is disgusting is lacking something too.
-- Me and some random girl rushing from the ticket counter at Central, to make the train back to Gordon, just making it on to the train as the doors closed.
Me saying to her “We made it!!” with a big grin, and receiving one back.

The Problem of Morality

Moral expectations are related to perceived intelligence.

We don't hold dogs to as many 'moral' standards as we do humans, as we believe them to be largely incapable of controlling impulses which we think that we, as humans, can. Those with significant understanding of dog psychology also think that choices the dog believes itself to be freely making were actually NOT made by the dog. That many dog behaviours are more obviously predictable to us, and less "chosen" by the dog eg willful disobedience. That kind of vocabulary, to describe animal behaviour (which places emphasis on choice rather than training and feedback), is less appealing to specialists. And with good reason.

It seems to me that smarter creatures probably would think humans incapable of freely choosing choices which we believe that WE freely chose. They'd know more about our limitations in controlling our thoughts AND our emotions, and see more of our habits, genes and environment being responsible for our 'choices' than we realise. Probably, they wouldn't hold us to as many moral standards as we do ourselves. We could be in cages, being observed, socialised, just as other animals are by humans. But not judged.

Cho

Sure, lax gun laws did facilitate the murderous rampage of Cho Seung-Hai. There needs to be change in that respect. But all this is very superficial.

Where there is no cancer growing malignantly inside the head of the murderer, no extreme tragedy experienced to cause a meltdown, the cause for the mass-murder is clear. It is a frustrated, unrestricted narcissism that drives people towards such crimes. Cho saw himself as a Christ-like figure, with an important message to tell. When you realise that the States has a particularly narcissistic culture, it becomes clear why there are proportionately more school and university mass killings there than in other countries with even less tight gun laws.

In years past, I have caught myself in narcissistic moments. It's true that there WAS a tiny core of extreme confidence in oneself. But, mostly, it is the fight that this core engages in against an extremely damaged, fragile ego, a quiet depression, a bitterness, an all-pervading dissatisfaction with life. Narcissistic people respond far more explosively to stress, to humiliation, to exclusion, to the indifference of others. They want attention, glory, praise. There is a distortion of thinking which can be treated most effectively over time. Sometimes, genuine individual effort alone is enough, but where that fails or where the subject is not aware enough to self-diagnose,the provocation and then support of outsiders is crucial. I've mentioned before that a reasonably large ego is OK in some respects. It motivates, for example. But one has to keep it in check, privately and publicly!

ook at Cho's videos, his writings, his self-centredness, his planning, his warnings, his identity. He suddenly became as grandiose in real-life as in his fantasies. If only temporarily, he finally felt powerful. An easy, most cowardly way out, yes. So, to prevention: Tease out narcissistic thoughts, which become evident in the individual's creative expression, in their opinions and behaviour. Gently dismantle the narcissistic structures people build in their minds. No more killer. And do something about those gun laws!

Oh, and consider how narcissistic Jesus Christ himself must have been. Wow. I'm not saying he didn't have some fantastic traits. He was probably extremely intelligent. But what came with that, amongst other things, was "I have god's message, listen to me, give me attention, control, power". One can imagine his increasingly grandiose thought patterns as he attracted more and more sheep to his flock.

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The Onion reports that thousands more are dead in the ongoing victory in Iraq

Control

Why is it that those that seek to control others most are often the ones who are least able to control themselves?

Wisdom

What of the "arsehole" that told a patient that he didn't have the willpower to regain movement, because he knew the only way that the patient would regain movement would be if he had somebody to prove wrong?
Arsehole or not?

What of the guy who refused to admit that winning the lotto was positive luck, or that his car crash was unfortunate?
Wise, or ridiculous?

Privacy

Gotta take my surname off this blog for a little while at least.
Employers could search for my full name, find something that they don't like. Decide to no longer hire me or whatever. Heard so many stories like that.
The world isn't ideal. I'm still getting used to that

Stuck

Somebody I really like reminded me of how easy it is to get stuck in the day-to-day. I've just been thinking about how little I resemble the me of years ago.
A time when I was much more childish, spiteful, aggressive, hypocritial, insecure, uninformed, less empathetic.
But I had some things going for me which I no longer do, to the same extent.
Energy. Humour, cockiness, charm, passion. Excellent grades. More curiosity. More muscle.

But I was wrong. Perfectionism in certain ways is not an enemy that should be vanquished. When I realised how much of a perfectionist I was, I became periodically horrified by it, and thought it a test of myself to be free of those thinking patterns. I must have created a new definition of perfect, which included not permanently thinking about ways to improve. What a mistake.

I need to be born again, minus the cries of hallelujah, minus the Church.
Pay attention to food intake, exercise, positive thinking.
Reintroduce my fanaticism about time, planning, optimisation.
Start diarising again, start doing something social most days.
Stop moralising about my actions, censoring myself. Stress about things that I SHOULD stress about (Care more about uni?). Play with the dog more. Talk to my parents more. Bring back the ambition, the edginess, the distorted but useful thinking patterns.

Make the most of life


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Turning down sex to read The Neoconservative Legacy

Law

I've become more interested in Law lately. If I entered uni now, I'd probably consider studying it.

Generalising here - lawyers are highly intelligent, articulate people. Lawyers of some specialisations are sometimes unduly criticised for being 'unethical', that is, for fulfilling their professional responsibilities, despite reservations they may have about about the ethical details of a case.. I could dissect lawyers, discussing what aspects (beyond money), draws students to study Law. That could be interesting. Somebody else, do it. I'm more interested in what this beast, the Law, is really all about.

We know what the Law is. It tells you what you can or can't do, without running the risk of being punished. Many think the law actually prescribes what one SHOULD or SHOULD NOT do, if one is to be 'moral'. A modern example: to not kill others. Sometimes, the idea that the Law is somehow related to the question of what is good and/or what is moral seems obvious. At other times, it seems to simply allow the powerful to discharge their will. That could mean letting the majority have its way, or letting the aristocracy or the wealthy or the King's bloodline have its way etc etc. Depends on the time and place.
I should also point out that The law is obviously a diverse field of study. One can study contracts, criminal law, property law, intellectual property. Etc Etc. Some have more relation to ethics than others.

Some see The Law as a benevolent force, as in "the long arm of the law will eventually catch up with that criminal".
Some see The Law as a structure to preserve unjust power structures or as one to tear them down, to undermine their legitimacy through a creed of universalism.
Some see The Law as a way of limiting our thoughts, our imaginations.

What I personally find curious to note that the Law is constantly trying to cover the new lawless domains which technological innovation creates. The Law here looks more like a dogmatic, old-fashioned, conservative mother. Or even a priest, potentially unnecessarily regulating our behaviour from a position of inexperience, from a viewpoint of fear, with little understanding of technology itself and the nature of innovation and of general societal change.

Perhaps more dangerous is this possibility:
The scientist tries to understand how the real world works. But the Law often seems to try to "bring ideology" to the world. To impose an ideology as to how the world SHOULD work, 'hopefully' effectively enough to actually MAKE the world work a little bit more like that. As in, convincing people that stealing guarantees punishment, murder guarantees jail etc. Here, the Law is a weeping, altruistic child, disgruntled by things about the world which upset it. Or a religious zealot, convincing heathens or criminals of the hell which awaits in response to their sins. What is illegal has changed drastically. Apartheid was once legal, as was the stoning of blasphemers etc. The Law slooowly changing to reflect our changing circumstances is more an admission of its impotence, of its confusion in the face of change, where properly considered ethical systems give one better guidelines about how to react to change . And of the Law's reluctance to admit that it has almost nothing valid to say on the eternal question of what is desirable and what is not. It certainly does not admit that its judgements are often arbitrary, individual interpretations of vague dogmas. It cannot admit the contextually relevant reasons of an intelligent defendent if it is to serve its purpose. Luckily, judges don't care much about this in practise, and do "stretch" the law as they see fit, given additional circumstantial information.

It's true, I've always felt science was a nobler pursuit than law. Because most scientific work is less, or could be less ambiguously good for mankind than the law is. Obviously, again, Law is a diverse field, my argument isn't great. Whatever, it's 3am.

I've never felt civilisation could be enforced by policemen. I believe in 'justice' in some sense. But I think it cannot arise from the words from a judge's mouth, a lambasting by a jury, or from shaming or societal norms. It cannot be ordered by the will of the democratic majority or enshrined eternal in the sacred texts of the Constitution. This is not to advocate anarchism. The Law is ENTIRELY necessary. A law which seeks not to punish, but to understand, and then prevent, would not be something anybody reasonable could complain about.
It's just that I've always felt the Law has almost nothing to do with civilisation. I've always felt civilisation was more about understanding how things work. That we stopped burning witches AND stopped wanting to burn them because we realised they weren't witches, not because we grew a conscience or because it became illegal to do so.
Law doesn't give you such civilisation, only the surface appearance of it. Not to dismiss the possibility that certain law systems are more conducive to civil arrangements than others. Understand the difference?

Lawyers may learn case studies for reasons of precdent, defend or rebut against the laws as they exist today, become brilliant at manipulating or interpreting the meaning of the words which laws are made out of, find loopholes etc. Just please, please, lawyers: recognise that the Law has very little relation to the more vexing questions of morality, and none to truth. If you believe in such a thing. I'm not suggesting one must, but just don't be pretentious and think the Law has anything serious to say about how to justify your own behaviour.


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Cannibals don't eat clowns as they taste funny

Why there can't be a God

I watched the video clip for Metallica’s "One". It’s from the movie "Johnny Got His Gun", which I watched years ago. This movie has always stuck with me. It was disturbing and wonderful at the same time when I first watched it.
We hear out load the thoughts of a “de-cerebrated individual”, severely injured in warfare. He lies on an operating table, his entire body covered up by a sheet.

He has no arms or legs. He is totally paralysed. He is blind, deaf, mute, he cannot feel or smell anything. He of course knows nothing of his whereabouts.
Yet he is fully conscious. He lies there, his thoughts and memories racing around crazily, for YEARS. Year upon year of misery, frustration, loneliness, desperation and helplessness stack up. He thinks “inside, I’m screaming, but nobody pays any attention”. “If only I had arms, I could kill myself”. It drives him insane that he is living COMPLETELY in his own mind, and that nobody can understand the pain that he is suffering.
The man eventually gains of his neck muscles. Remembering Morse Code, he instructs the doctor, using his head movements, to please kill him.
The doctor knows that it is illegal to do so, and he refuses, though he cannot communicate this to the patient or apologise for not being able to.
And so the man goes on as the screen fades...

“I’ve just GOT to do something. I can’t see how I can go on living like this, like a piece of meat”.


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Never try to teach a pig to sing – it won’t work, and he’ll be angry with you.

You need everyone

It seems a paradox. But society needs all these different people with different, completely opposed and sometimes incompatible ideas, in order to be stable. When there are a plurality of competing ideologies, of wildly different people, the resulting society is healthier. It's a weakness, a slowness of a true democracy, but it's also a major advantage of it. It's not just about variety, about the relief from the boredom of uniformity. The whole system actually works better if you have:

Pragmatic empiricists arguing with genius logicians. Idealists raging against apathetic people who laugh at the idealists for their naivety. Communists arguing with Capitalists arguing with Anarchists arguing with Fascists. Mathematicians arguing with lawyers arguing with historians arguing with biologists arguing with linguists. The rich feeling guilty for their subjugation of the poor who enjoy being able to blame their misfortunes on their subjugation. Nihilists arguing with seven-day-adventist moralist fundamentalists. The sweet resentment of the pitied ugly toward the beautiful. Materialists flaunting the things which irritate spiritualists so much. Spiritualism's mockery of the deathbed sorrow of the materialist.The strong happy to care for the weak who want the strong to care for them.The dramatists who don't give a shit about the real issues but simply want drama. Businessmen ignoring poets who ignore businessmen. The optimists to remind the pessimists of the possibilities that the pessimists remind the optimists don't exist. Theists and atheists duelling, and snatching ideas from each other, and from different religions. The morbid drawn towards the death that the squeamish want to avoid talking about.

Some countries claim to be a democracy but really are composed of citizens with a ruthlessly communitarian, authoritarian, conformist culture.

Stoned

The 'scope' on Windows Media Player - the line representing the music playing that shows amplitude, pitch etc. Something I've enjoyed observing and recording when me and my friends have been stoned

Perfect Waves
Super Mario Brothers Theme!!
Chinese Bamboo Flute
"AM180" by Granddaddy (Start)
"Solo Violin" -byBach
"Engel" by Rammstein (Whistling at Start)
"Rollercoaster" by Red Hot Chili Peppers (Start)
"I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston
"The Scientist" by Coldplay
Requiem For A Dream Synthesisers eg "Fear
"Feuer Frei" by Rammstein (Start)
"Do you Know What I Mean" by Oasis (Plane at the start)
"Sweet Dreams" by Marilyn Manson (Last 20 seconds)

Strange Waveforms
"Israel's Son" by Silverchair (Starting strings)
"Crossroads" by BoneTHugs N Harmony
"Under The Weeping Moon" by Opeth - 2 minutes 25 secs

Gandhi had problems

And was supposedly a paedophile.
15/3/07: The bracketed parts of this quote made me feel slightly inhuman, although, according to it, I am becoming more human.

"The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, [that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals]"
-from Reflections on Gandhi, George Orwell, 1949

Glasses

I watched a documentary on smell a while ago. As 90% of taste comes from the olfactory receptors rather than the tongue, even 'experts' can't tell the difference between coffee and tea when their noses are plugged. This guy that completely lost his sense of smell started losing much of his memory too, due to the interconnectedness of the brain parts and the way that his was wired. He claimed he has started hating eating too, and was highly depressed.

This got me wondering how not having the best eyesight might change your brain. If one has better eyesight, presumably, the brain would need to expend more resources to give a the clearer picture of what you see (Cognitive load theory). Just as a man who goes blind compensates for this as his brain re-wires itself so that his sense of touch and hearing are more sensitive, varying degrees of blindness, or even short-sightedness, must alter the brain’s workings quite profoundly. Perhaps even affecting your skills in maths, science, languages etc. Who knows in what way. Maybe having great eyesight improves your art skills.

The Sublime

26/6/06. What gives me a sense of the sublime?
Sometimes, a fantastic modern environment, a futuristic museum. Shinjuku, Tokyo. Times Square.
But more often...Vast, grand, empty spaces. Huge public squares such as Red Square, Tiannenmen’s Square. A mystical feeling that suffering has taken place and that battles have been fought by passionate, tearful, fearful men over ideas, sometimes noble, sometimes absurd. Lives torn apart and made.
All of these places have a sense of historical importance. That alone is enough. The grey concrete housing departments of Alexanderplatz, Berlin do it too. Old Le Corbusier-designed French apartment high-rises, a sense of old ideas.

Also, in landscapes. The red rocks in the deserts of Arizona, of Australia. In Antarctica, a frozen world. The mountains of Peru. In Mongolia, the vast light green grass with pale blue lakes of waters. And knowing that it’s chilly makes it even more beautiful. Dripping rainforests with massive trees in Brazil, a canopy of even height with vines wrapped around every tree. Sand dunes in Egpyt on which lost Arab women are riding camels.

31/10/06 Yesterday I went to an Informal Class at the University of Texas’ Pickle Research Centre, in the north of Austin. After the class, I had to wait outside on the side of a deserted stretch of road for the bus. Standing there, I felt the scene was sublime, beautiful. What I really liked was waiting for an hour just nearly under the power lines. From this point, I could see:
- The power lines, supported by heavy wooden logs, stretching far away. The soft buzzing sound from the transformer box mounted on one of the logs.
- The full moon above the power lines
- The bus stop sign
- A transmission tower flashing red hundreds of metres away in the distance
- A water storage tower standing alone amongst the tall grasses in the middle of an overgrown field next to the road
- The street lights curling away in to the distance, an occasional car coming roaring past.
With the exception of this and the soft hum from the transformer box, the night was cool and quiet. Standing there, watching, and then, eventually, listening to my iRiver MP3 player, I felt the beauty of the place. What I really like is the feeling of seeing the markings of civilisation (the power lines, or a train track on which occasionally a train would pass by when I was in Czech Republic), and yet the place is lonely, quiet, and the environment is still totally natural. It is a lonely, quiet area and the moon and the deserted field and other natural things are right next to such looming infrastructure projects.


7/12/06. Delirious thoughts on absurd humour: You have a virtuous room, virtue is embodied in the walls. Your room is The Good. You can strike truth in to the hearts of others.

Tourism

From before my trip to the game-reserve:

It is well known that enterprising South African farmers fence off huge areas of land inappropriate for wild animals that they've bought cheaply and dump "The Big 5" (Buffalo, lion, elephant, rhinoceros and leopard) in to the enclosure. They then put other animals in there to feed The Big 5. The experience is inauthentic because the "rangers" employed by the farmers are simply yuppies placed in land-rovers who are trained to say a few things about each of the animals which sound good to the uneducated tourist. They engineer the 'surprise' encounters with the animals, because they almost always know where the animals are. They are schisters and they'll take you out on a game tour at 2pm. All the sensible animals at this time are finding cool spots to rest from the 40 degree heat. In a 3 day experience at some of these private game parks it is known that you often won't see wild animals behaving like wild animals should. They'll behave more like zoo animals. They can't hunt. They don't chase. They are fed at regular times. The structure of the animal pride or whatever is totally non-existent in the new environment they find themselves in. You won't see a leopard ripping apart an impala, it'll just be sitting there, panting. None of the animals will act surprised around you, because they see tourists like you at the exact same time every single day. Tourists might gaze in wonder at them if they've never seen them before. But I HAVE seen them before and I'll see the experience as a fraud if that's what it is, as I've heard other traveller say. Then they’ll take you on a “cultural experience tour” where you’ll pay heaps to see some alcoholic bums from Cape Town dance around in some traditional clothing. They’re former prisoners, not the proud Africans who once lived in these areas before their cultures were crushed. They’ve got more problems than the old guys had, and you can see them just trying to grab your money, because they don’t care. It’s just a show. I hope my mum, the travel agent, and South African, will not allow us to be ripped off like this.

Objectivism, Objectively

Who is John Galt?

Objectivism, Ayn Rand's reason for writing her books, functions as a reasonably accurate PowerPoint replacement for an in-depth understanding of Economics. But it is essentially a cheapened, retarded substitute for doing difficult philosophy.

Ayn Rand was a stubborn genius, a typical product of a Russian smart (and wealthy) enough but hateful enough of the corruption in her system to flee to the U.S.A in the days when the U.S.A was ideologically healthy and valued rights and the truth more than equality and some confused notion of respect. However, if many of her readers and believers woke up in her paradise, they'd be confused and angry.

Consider how Alissa's emigration beautifully represents the links between Economic theory, morality and religion. When I read her, I thought of old Ayn Rand aka Alissa Rosenbaum more than she realised as a typical Jewish girl of her time period, arranging herself towards living up to a dominant man. (Jewish girls aren't like Ayn anymore, not that I'm saying this pleases or displeases me!).

I was totally mind-fucked to learn, then, that when she was 45, she started fucking Nathan Blumenthal, who was 20. He is nothing like the heroes of her book. He wrote academic books on self-esteem, one of which I've read.Who could resist seeing what kind of person Ayn Rand would go for? But he was basically like her servant, spent all his time promoting her philosophies, and agreeing with her etc. There's something about that which makes me really really confused about her, and about her change of 'hero'. Did Ayn Rand have a penis? She is a very influential figure. But what is certain is that Ayn Rand isn't as cool as some of her readers of old still think she is.

If you care seriously for the idea of truth, there are better philosophies than Objectivism. There are no valueable short-cuts to take in life, and Objectivism is no exception to this rule.

Jobs

Why do companies that I am applying for graduate jobs at require that I be involved in the community, when some of these companies themselves don't do shit for the community?
Management likes to break the spirit of new workers?

You call yourself a scientist?

Politicians and ideologues have always sought to portray their ideas as being "scientific". The word is bandied around like there's no tomorrow. So what, if anything, do, or should, people who describe themselves as 'scientists' have in common?

There are certain things which anybody who wants to consider themself a scientist is supposed to do. Scientists are supposed to observe the real world, and formulate hypotheses about how it might work. They should then test these hypotheses using all the analytic tools they have access to (observing through stethoscopes, x-rays, and analysing their findings with mathematics, especially statistics). Scientists are supposed to create models (either conceptual or physical ones) to explain their observations, and to revise and refine these models based upon the evidence that they gather and pain-stakingly control. Obviously, scientific hypotheses are actually TRUE or FALSE in some sense - there either was a big bang or not. But scientists do not propose or execute experiments with the aim of revealing some grand "truth", but in terms of the increasingly accurate predictive and explanatory power of these models and the evidential support of their hypotheses.

The heuristic maxim that is the backbone of science is Occam's Razor.
"Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate ::::: Plurality ought never be posed without necessity". Galvani Volta thought the electricity in the nerves of living creatures was of a different nature to the electricity that ran machines or stretched between the clouds. Mistake. The introduction of an extra category was unnecessary, entirely superfluous, and did not fit any observations at hand but was based on a bias, a prejudice (So must many of our beliefs today be, but we know what is wrong, and it is hypothesis that does not match belief, and we may weed out wrong hypotheses). Newton made no such mistake. He realised that the SAME, UNIVERSAL force made his apple fall from the tree to the ground as did keep the moon in orbit of the Earth. Positing a redundant extra force to move the moon was not only no longer necessary to explain what was observable, it was entirely absurd.

As scientists rationally attempting to evaluate what we see / what we see our equipment registers, we look to the most simple explanation which best fits in with the body of evidence that we have from all of the scientific fields of inquiry. When we propose an explanatory entity, this entity MUST EXPLAIN MORE, through its introduction, than it would render unexplainable and unpredictable, than it would introduce logical contradiction or redundancy.
As an example - to a scientist, it is possible, but ENTIRELY IRRATIONAL, to believe that there is an alien hidden by an energy field in this room which does X and Y that I can't explain. All of our observations seem to indicate that there is no alien presence changing anything in this room, so to propose that there was one would raise many more questions than it would solve. You go with the most simple explanation for what you observe. Not for what you want to believe. Not for what is possible. Not for which there is no evidence AGAINST. Not for what would be "cool" or more interesting or would make you want to pray. It may be dull, but have the courage to apprehend the world as we observe it. The flickering lights are more probably caused by current fluctuations, the graphical aberrations on my monitor caused by the age of my video card etc, the sound in the roof by a possum. The new entity or force should not raise more questions, or be redundant somehow. We should always doubt 'miracles', not only because the idea of a miracle is logically impossible, but because we peform 'miracles' by standards of old, and we now understand that there's no such thing.

If a person reveals that they take seriously the possibility that ghosts exist, this is plainly not the opinion of a scientist, or rather, it is not the scientist in that person talking. Now, it may be that ghosts or the afterlife DO exist, in some sense (though I don't believe this). There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE between acknowledging the possibility of something existing which seems extremely unlikely and actually entertaining the idea as part of your belief system. Any self-respecting scientist must declare that they almost certainly do not exist, given the complete lack of evidence for them. And no scientist can admit of the existence of non-material objects or objects which cannot be observed or described, precisely because they cannot be observed or described. So the scientist speaking needs to encode such a belief in to an hypothesis of some kind! Granted, there is not always consensus in the scientific community, but it certainly does emerge on well-studied issues, at least until new evidence crops up. Scientists should know as much about the problems with human perception, with human emotion, with the biases of human intuition, and with our logical and intellectual limitations as they do know about the problems of measurement.
Likewise, it may be that there is a God. But no scientist can say that his or her belief that there is a God is at all scientifically reasonable. No true scientist thinks in terms of "God". There is simply no observation that can be made which justifies considering such an object or using it to explain the mechanisms of nature. The idea of "God" has zero explanatory power, raises more questions that it answers, and is entirely redudant - other things explain more than adequately what "God" is supposed to explain. If you are a scientist, you are a materialist, and that's that. If you're a scientist and you believe in a God of some kind, you have not just seriously compromised your scientific integrity and credibility in a number of ways. You have selectively rejected the input of the scientific method on a number of questions and embraced some combination of mysticism, dogma, faith and revelation as the tools by which to gain knowledge on these questions or structure your life experiences. I'm not saying you're wrong for believing in God. You are just not a scientist in the truest, most consistent sense. You may occupy a scientific post and improve man's scientific knowledge but you lapse in to unscientific thinking on certain questions. You may be very very intelligent in many ways. But you are just not consistently using the thought-tools which have taken us out of the pre-industrialised, primitive world. Like everybody, I suppose, you are just not thinking scientifically at all moments. Nothing necessarily 'wrong' with this, we're free to believe what we want and think like we want. Just be aware that's what you're doing.

A reasonable scientist would do well to be skeptical of a variety of many other things. If human telepathy were possible, why is it that nobody who claims to possess these powers has ever been able to demonstrate them in a laboratory, under controlled settings? Why is it that there is absolutely no evidence for the existence of aliens? For anything supernatural? Of human prophets? Of humans with healing powers? Of ESP, spoon-bending, triangles in which people disappear? Of God, the Devil, of the tooth fairy? Why is that there is evidence for evolution and none for "intelligent design"?
Scientists, either try to consistently think scientifically, or acknowledge that many of your beliefs are deeply unscientific and that you're happy with not subjecting all of your beliefs (maybe most of them) to the scrutiny of scientific methods.