Why are skeptics always so determined to dismiss direct, sensory observation and intuitive experience as irrelevant or secondary to mechanical forms of observation?
Strawman argument, first off. Nobody said that. What was said is that personal subjective experience is UNRELIABLE (not irrelevant or [necessarily] secondary)-- in fact the unreliability of human sensory experience and interpretation of such experience are the very bases for mediumship, psychics, and most of what passes for paranormal performances, all of which claims can readily be exposed and debunked with appropriate IMAGING and INSTRUMENTATION and STATISTICS. So far when that has been done, nothing supernatural or paranormal turned up.
I can easily understand why the use of these devices to expose sleight of hand and other deceptive practices used to enrich so-called psychics might be anathema to Zak.
Mechanical methods of observation do not replace direct perception, they merely enable us to focus on a narrow range of qualities and values (to the exclusion of many others) in a given object or event.
Wrong and wrong again. In fact some of the most interesting phenomena of nature are not accessible to the unaided senses. Instruments and imaging methods are mandatory for the study of the very small, the very large, the very dangerous, the very far, and the delicate and hidden -- such as the insides of the living body. And of course, they are also useful in uncovering deceptive practices as noted above. Scientific methods ENLARGE the scope of objects and phenomena which are accessible to human investigation, they OBVIOUSLY do not narrow it.
There is nothing inherent in the use of instruments of imaging methods which narrows the scope of an investigation. Sure, some methods, for example spectrometry, deliberately do that for an extremely useful reason -- again to help human senses and human reason both of which are easily overwhelmed by overloading and MISDIRECTION (as when magic is sold as the paranormal). Try fooling properly used instruments and cameras, Zak. It's much easier to bamboozle people!
What's more, many forms of mechanical observation produce data which depend on subjective interpretation to such an extent that their only value is in providing researchers with plausible hard evidence in support of their theories
Uhhun... so no theory is ever proven wrong by appropriate instrumented studies? If that were true, it would considerably simplify the grant writing problem and it would make zillionaires of us all.
That's a lovely quote you attribute to Einstein. I have no idea if he really wrote that or if it pertains in any way to this discussion.
Finally:
Instruments and imaging devices don't provide experience, they only provide data. Experience is not data, it is the assimilation of data.
That's simply splitting hairs and complicating the use of language (and if I wanted to indulge in that myself, I would first advise you that "data" are plural). Of course an isolated instrument reading or image is not an experience-- but it becomes one as soon as a person, especially but not necessarily an appropriately educated person, makes use of it. And the output of the senses are also data. They become an experience when you become aware of them and incorporate them into your thoughts, exactly the same way data from instruments do.
The important contributions of the data from appropriately used and calibrated instruments and images as opposed to those from senses are (in addition to immensely broadening the range of possible human experience)
* stability
* reproducibility
* shareability
* and reliability.
Instruments, imaging and all the related science and math that accompanies them are the reasons that our development is at a different stage than it was in prehistory and the dark ages. Practioners like Zak would have us return to superstition, unsupported beliefs, fanciful thinking and all the other horrible practices that kept humanity in the dark for so long and which seem to be enjoying a bizarre renaissance with the current WooWoo New Age. We need to think clearly and to avoid those traps.
Thanks, Zak, for the opportunity to address these issues.