> You've moved the goalposts here quite a bit from "nobody from the [peanut gallery] has ever, in the history of science, come up with an idea worth pursuing" to "their ideas have never resulted in a new scientific discovery"
I haven't moved the goalposts at all. "Worth pursuing" means "results in a new scientific discovery". That's what you are claiming: that listening to the peanut gallery will give us some new scientific discoveries. I'm simply pointing out that it never has up to now.
> Why assume that physic abilities which seem to defy everything we know would be dependent on fundamental forces?
Because everything is dependent on fundamental forces. That's why they're called fundamental. Again, read the Carroll article referenced elsewhere in this discussion.
> If the US government already had a mountain of prior scientific evidence showing that psychic abilities were non-existent or ineffective they wouldn't have poured such massive amounts of money into that research.
Bad example. The US government, like all governments, does lots of things that are stupid and guaranteed to fail.
> a scientist exploring a topic outside of his area of expertise.
It wasn't outside his area of expertise. Many scientists in the course of their work gain expertise outside the narrow area in which they are credentialed.
It is also not impossible for a person with no scientific credentials to become an expert in a scientific field. But if they do that, they are no longer a member of the "peanut gallery". They are a working scientist. A historical example is Michael Faraday, who never had any scientific credentials at all, but made himself an expert in electricity and magnetism by intense study and experimentation.
I haven't moved the goalposts at all. "Worth pursuing" means "results in a new scientific discovery". That's what you are claiming: that listening to the peanut gallery will give us some new scientific discoveries. I'm simply pointing out that it never has up to now.
> Why assume that physic abilities which seem to defy everything we know would be dependent on fundamental forces?
Because everything is dependent on fundamental forces. That's why they're called fundamental. Again, read the Carroll article referenced elsewhere in this discussion.
> If the US government already had a mountain of prior scientific evidence showing that psychic abilities were non-existent or ineffective they wouldn't have poured such massive amounts of money into that research.
Bad example. The US government, like all governments, does lots of things that are stupid and guaranteed to fail.
> a scientist exploring a topic outside of his area of expertise.
It wasn't outside his area of expertise. Many scientists in the course of their work gain expertise outside the narrow area in which they are credentialed.
It is also not impossible for a person with no scientific credentials to become an expert in a scientific field. But if they do that, they are no longer a member of the "peanut gallery". They are a working scientist. A historical example is Michael Faraday, who never had any scientific credentials at all, but made himself an expert in electricity and magnetism by intense study and experimentation.