In defence of science, it's a bit of a myth that science closes minds, or that scientists have closed minds. In my opinion the best scientists are open-minded. There are cases where closed-minded scientists have delayed scientific progress for years. Plate tectonics took around 40 years to be accepted as a theory. Medical science didn't take quite that long to accept that helicobacter pylori caused stomach ulcers, but it certainly took longer than it should have. A good scientist is sceptical, but once the evidence is there and has withstood many tests, he or she has to accept the evidence, no matter how radical or inconvenient it might be. The trick is, to paraphrase a line from Buffy, not to be so open-minded your whole brain falls out.
Scientists would accept the existence of ghosts if there was evidence of a scientific standard to support it. As far as I'm aware - and please do correct me if I'm wrong - there has been no such evidence. All sightings have alternative explanations that, on the balance of probabilities, are more likely. This photo, although it's undoubtedly cool, has other, more likely explanations that have been mentioned already.
The world is an amazing place. I started a science degree this year and some of the stuff I've been learning about has bowled me over with how astounding it is - and it's all the more astounding because it's demonstrably true. Science certainly doesn't know everything. I don't think any scientist could or would say that, or they'd all give up and go home. We're at the point where we know enough to realise how much we don't know - a very exciting prospect! Some might see science as being limiting, but without science there are plenty of things we wouldn't know at all.
