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Limitations of Science?

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  • #212
    Mickeroo
    Administrators, Computer Games Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 32,553 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Mickeroo


    mickrock wrote: »
    Why would research into parapsychology have anything to do with theories of evolutionary biology?

    Trying to make every type of phenomenon and behaviour fit in to the shaky theory of darwinism is cracked.

    I could be wrong, but I think it's because it makes no sense for humans to have these abilities unless they somehow evolved them.

    Either way it's pretty hilarious to refer to evolution as a shakey theory while defending studies on super powers, good work. :D


  • #213
    mickrock
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,021 ✭✭✭mickrock


    Mickeroo wrote: »
    Either way it's pretty hilarious to refer to evolution as a shakey theory while defending studies on super powers, good work. :D

    At least parapsychology can be tested under lab conditions.

    Darwinism is just conjecture that most people have blind faith in.


  • #214
    Calibos
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,851 ✭✭✭Calibos


    mickrock wrote: »
    At least parapsychology can be tested under lab conditions.

    Darwinism is just conjecture that most people have blind faith in.

    9e2.jpg

    :rolleyes:


  • #215
    Obliq
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,371 ✭✭✭Obliq


    mickrock wrote: »
    At least parapsychology can be tested under lab conditions.

    Darwinism is just conjecture that most people have blind faith in.

    But parapsychology seems to fail lab conditions, whereas survival of the fittest is like a natural law that you only have to look out the window to see proof of. Just sticking my oar in, ignore me...:pac:


  • #216
    sephir0th
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 390 ✭✭sephir0th


    mickrock wrote: »
    Darwinism is just conjecture that most people have blind faith in.

    1000x500px-ll-b2fdb6ac_lozgr_gif_collection_of_someone_eating_popcorn.gif


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  • #217
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 25,874 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Zombrex wrote: »
    Does it include evolutionary biology? Because I've yet to see any research into parapsychology that attempts to fit into current evolutionary biology, and as such it seems next to useless, like a theory of disease that doesn't include micro-biology.
    Goes the same for current physics.
    Aside from the hand waving, quantum mystic, I-don't-understand-a-wierd-quantum-effect-therefore-it's-magic type stuff of course.


  • #218
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Obliq wrote: »
    But parapsychology seems to fail lab conditions, whereas survival of the fittest is like a natural law that you only have to look out the window to see proof of. Just sticking my oar in, ignore me...:pac:

    Literally every scientist who has looked seriously at the data accepts that the psi effect is there. This has been done to death in an earlier debate on this thread but the conclusion that the psi effect is real is based on numerous studies on the Ganzfeld procedure by numerous researchers in numerous cultures. The skeptical holdouts are people like James Randi who is not a scientist and claims his institute did studies to disprove the effect which they never did, Susan Blackmore who is a scientist but greatly overstates the work she did herself, and Richard Wiseman who botched the statistical analysis of his own study failing to take sample size into effect. After the original debate regarding the validity of Ganzfeld data in 85/86 standardized computer controlled testing was agreed upon and since then the hit rate has gone up from 30% to 34% in numerous studies.
    Psi seems person specific and appears to be present to a statistically significant degree in about 10 - 15% of the population. People with a stronger right side brain bias appear to exhibit the effect with more frequency. This is a based in particular on a study done at the University of Edinburgh over 128 sessions with artistically gifted students which yielded a hit rate of 47%. In 1996 Ray Hyman a long term psi skeptic said "The case for psychic functioning seems stronger than it has ever been... I also have to admit that I do not have a ready explanation for these observed effects". The skeptics have lost the ganzfeld debate.

    Nobody in their right mind would question natural selection in nature.


  • #219
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    King Mob wrote: »
    Goes the same for current physics.
    Aside from the hand waving, quantum mystic, I-don't-understand-a-wierd-quantum-effect-therefore-it's-magic type stuff of course.

    "I think I can safely say that nobody understand quantum mechanics"
    Richard Feynman (theoretical physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics winner and ranked by 130 leading physicists in 1999 as one of the 10 top physicists of all time). Personally, I have learned more about physics from Fehnman's books than any other source and would recommend that anyone with an interest in physics read his books "six easy pieces" and "six not so easy pieces".

    We know quantum mechanics works, we have no idea how it works (despite almost 100 years of research and multiple hypotheses). What we do know is that it defies human logic. We simply cannot relate quantum mechanics with nature as we percieve it. It is a mathematical description of the subatomic world that when you start thinking about it makes no logical sense; entities are particles, no they're waves, they exist, then they don't exist, they are entangled ever after separation by light years, my head hurts.


  • #220
    Obliq
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,371 ✭✭✭Obliq


    nagirrac wrote: »
    This has been done to death in an earlier debate on this thread

    No sh1t?! ;)


  • #221
    mickrock
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,021 ✭✭✭mickrock


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Nobody in their right mind would question natural selection in nature.

    Some people in their right minds question whether random mutations and natural selection can account for the complexity of life.


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  • #222
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 25,874 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    nagirrac wrote: »
    We know quantum mechanics works, we have no idea how it works (despite almost 100 years of research and multiple hypotheses). What we do know is that it defies human logic. We simply cannot relate quantum mechanics with nature as we percieve it. It is a mathematical description of the subatomic world that when you start thinking about it makes no logical sense; entities are particles, no they're waves, they exist, then they don't exist, they are entangled ever after separation by light years, my head hurts.
    So therefore magic....?

    But then again, you don't understand it so it may as well be to you...


  • #223
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,464 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    mickrock wrote: »
    Darwinism is just conjecture that most people have blind faith in.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Nobody in their right mind would question natural selection in nature.
    Mick, meet Carrigan. Carrigan, meet Mick.

    There's a room here for the two of yiz.


  • #224
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    King Mob wrote: »
    So therefore magic....?

    But then again, you don't understand it so it may as well be to you...

    Care to explain it?


  • #225
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    robindch wrote: »
    Mick, meet Carrigan. Carrigan, meet Mick.

    There's a room here for the two of yiz.

    Not sure if you have a reading problem or a comprehension problem, but..

    1) I understand evolutionary biology quite well and accept it as the logical explanation for how life forms evolved on our planet. There are still quite a few gaps to be fillled in and the biggest unknown of all, how life emerged on the planet to begin with, is still in its infancy of understanding.

    2) The name is nagirrac


  • #226
    Gumbi
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,682 ✭✭✭Gumbi


    nagirrac wrote: »

    Not sure if you have a reading problem or a comprehension problem, but..

    1) I understand evolutionary biology quite well and accept it as the logical explanation for how life forms evolved on our planet. There are still quite a few gaps to be fillled in and the biggest unknown of all, how life emerged on the planet to begin with, is still in its infancy of understanding.

    2) The name is nagirrac
    It was an misunderstand I think. Mickrock probably believes in a young Earth lol.


  • #227
    Sycopat
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 308 ✭✭Sycopat


    nagirrac wrote: »
    botched the statistical analysis of his own study

    What worries me is that this seems to be a common theme in both the pro and and anti-sides analysis.

    These meta-analysis of meta-analysis are getting ridiculously convoluted to follow though and are very hard to trust considering the tendency to describe each other as flawed or claims to acknowledge flaws, but still sneaking the data from flawed studies in.

    I'm starting to think that what the field, as presented in the papers linked in this thread, (not all of which I've fully read. Why can't any of these people draw graphs ffs?) needs is a large scale independent experiment with multiple controls and blinds.

    Then there's the complaints about how a .05 significance level is too stringent, which strikes me as daft. Other fields I'm aware of tend to be more stringent when the numbers of replicates is low and variables high, not less.

    It strikes me as a field that doesn't know what it's doing.

    Oh and as there was a gap and I missed a reply to me earlier in the thread:
    The vast majority of scientific journals are the same so the same argument holds regarding subscription costs.

    The vast majority of journals abstracts and lists of contents are free to peruse. So the total pay wall of the journal of parapsychology still strikes me as quite odd.

    Anyway.

    I have not been convinced of the quality or reliability of the work by anything presented in this thread, so I'm personally going to stay thinking it's bollocks.

    And lets face it, if parapsychology ever actually delivered the goods in a seriously good study, it wouldn't languish in a specialised interest journal.

    Posterity can tell me I'm wrong if it wants.

    Which brings me to a point that may be interesting and related to our new found 'topic':

    How much science relies on swaying popular opinion to gain widespread acceptance.

    And how much acceptance pseudo-science can gain when it sways popular opinion, or how long out dated thinking can stick around if it suits some people to hang onto it.

    There are a lot of theories which in their time were not accepted and later came to be, and some which people steadfastly want to dismiss despite mounting mountains of evidence (No doubt nagirrac will think me one of the latter for my opinion of parapsychology) and yet others which come around again and again and eventually fall out of favour or become accepted.

    I suppose what I'm trying to get at (and it's late so I'm rambling a bit) is that one of the limitations of science is that so much of the controversial stuff is decided in the court of public opinion, a court which cares far less about what the data actually says than it does about how it's presented.


  • #228
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 25,874 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Care to explain it?
    That you are using your personal ignorance and lack of education about quantum mechanics and physics as a basis for your claims about psi, or to give it it's proper name magic.

    You keep falling back to bladder on about the observer effect or quantum entanglement when you make claims about psychic dogs or what ever, but neither you, nor the cranks you are regurgitating from seem to be able to propose even a hypothetical mechanism by which those effects could produce psi/magic phenomena.

    It's precisely the same as a writer in Star Trek using those same scientific terms in unscientific ways to make a fantastical plot point sound more plausible.
    It's called technobabble.


  • #229
    pauldla
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,247 ✭✭✭pauldla


    Sycopat wrote: »
    I have not been convinced of the quality or reliability of the work by anything presented in this thread, so I'm personally going to stay thinking it's bollocks.

    And lets face it, if parapsychology ever actually delivered the goods in a seriously good study, it wouldn't languish in a specialised interest journal.

    Posterity can tell me I'm wrong if it wants.

    Yup, have to agree with that!


  • #230
    endacl
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,434 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    Kinda late to this thread, so forgive me if it's been mentioned already, but the main virtue of the scientific method IMHO, over all other forms of figure-it-out, is the willingness to use the phrase 'I don't know'. That, and a desire to figure it out, of course...


  • #231
    endacl
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,434 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    King Mob wrote: »
    That you are using your personal ignorance and lack of education about quantum mechanics and physics as a basis for your claims about psi, or to give it it's proper name magic.

    You keep falling back to bladder on about the observer effect or quantum entanglement when you make claims about psychic dogs or what ever, but neither you, nor the cranks you are regurgitating from seem to be able to propose even a hypothetical mechanism by which those effects could produce psi/magic phenomena.

    It's precisely the same as a writer in Star Trek using those same scientific terms in unscientific ways to make a fantastical plot point sound more plausible.
    It's called technobabble.
    Sometimes its just babble...


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  • #232
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    King Mob wrote: »
    That you are using your personal ignorance and lack of education about quantum mechanics and physics as a basis for your claims about psi, or to give it it's proper name magic.

    You keep falling back to bladder on about the observer effect or quantum entanglement when you make claims about psychic dogs or what ever, but neither you, nor the cranks you are regurgitating from seem to be able to propose even a hypothetical mechanism by which those effects could produce psi/magic phenomena.

    It's precisely the same as a writer in Star Trek using those same scientific terms in unscientific ways to make a fantastical plot point sound more plausible.
    It's called technobabble.

    I was asking you to explain how quantum mechanics works in the world of reality, you know the materialistic world we live in, but of course you missed that in your rush to prove my ignorance.
    I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in science and have worked in the applied science field for 3 decades and in the research MRI field for a decade. How about yourself, what is your scientific background and experience?
    Psi has been established beyond any reasonable doubt, the cranks are those that refuse to look at the data (Dawkins), those that claim they have run their own experiments but couldn't produce data (Randi), and those that ran a limited number of experiments and couldn't do even basic statistical analysis (Wiseman). You would be very hard pressed to find a credible scientist these days that denied that psi is a real effect.
    Your definition of crank seems to be the ability to propose a hypothetical mechanism for the effect. We don't know how gravity works (when did Newton die?) let alone quantum mechanics, does that make Einstein and every other scientist who references gravity a crank?


  • #233
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 25,874 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    nagirrac wrote: »
    I was asking you to explain how quantum mechanics works in the world of reality, you know the materialistic world we live in, but of course you missed that in your rush to prove my ignorance.
    Well there's a lot of stuff we don't know about how quantum mechanics effects the world.
    However in the words of Dara O Briain, that doesn't mean you can insert whatever fairy story most appeals to you.

    Neither you nor the cranks who you believe have been able to propose any rational, consistent models for how any of their psi/magic effects works.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in science and have worked in the applied science field for 3 decades and in the research MRI field for a decade. How about yourself, what is your scientific background and experience?
    Undergrad in physics.
    However credentials it seems do not pretend people from believing stupid stuff.
    Your authority is meaningless without evidence, and the fact you think you can rely solely on your authority, your authority is questionable.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    You are hopelessly mired in 19th century physics as is much of the lazy academic science world in their cozy world of grants and "don't rock the boat or the money might stop flowing".
    Lol so scientists make more money denying psi/magic exist?
    How does that work and how do I get some of that action?
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Psi has been established beyond any reasonable doubt, the cranks are those that refuse to look at the data (Dawkins), those that claim they have run their own experiments but couldn't produce data (Randi), and those that ran a limited number of experiments and couldn't do even basic statistical analysis (Wiseman). You would be very hard pressed to find a credible scientist these days that denied that psi is a real effect.
    How about the fact that Richard Feynman was one of these horrible close minded skeptics?
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Your definition of crank seems to be the ability to propose a hypothetical mechanism for the effect. We don't know how gravity works (when did Newton die?) let alone quantum mechanics, does that make Einstein and every other scientist who references gravity a crank?
    No, my definition of a crank is someone who uses ignorance and dishonesty to promote an unscientific or irrational idea.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    So in your narrow bigoted view of "science" all the following are cranks:
    Dean Radin, Ian Stevenson, Daryl Bem, Charles Honorton, Rupert Sheldrake (yes, him again), Jessica Utts, John Beloff, John Searle.. all crazies according to your good self. Your credentials and accomplishments in science are better I take it? or are you just another hack academic who couldn't survive in the real world and live off the teat of government sponsored welfare?
    So how about all the qualified and even Nobel prize winning scientists who believe in stupid ****?
    Are your credentials better than Kary Mullis or David Rasnick or Etienne de Harven?
    If not, then I take it you simply accept what they say about AIDS not existing?

    Or how about James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA. Since he's a lauded scientist with impeccable qualifications, he must be right about all of the racist bull**** he spouts, right?

    Or how about Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell who believes in alien visitation and the Roswell crash? He must be right, right?

    Having qualifications do not prevent any of these people from believing stuff that isn't true.

    But please, continue with the personal attacks. It just further calls into question your own authority :rolleyes:


  • #234
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    King Mob wrote: »
    But please, continue with the personal attacks. It just further calls into question your own authority :rolleyes:

    You were the one that started the personal attacks with the "using your personal ignorance and lack of education" vulgarity.
    Richard Feynman has been dead since 1988. The ganzfeld experiments using experimental conditions agreed by Lyman and Honorton started just before his death. The results obtained in Honorton's lab were replicated later in Princeton, University of Amsterdam, University of Edinburgh, North Carolina Institute of Parapsychology, and the University of Gothenburg. OK, let's just call them all ignorant and dishonest scientists and move on I suppose, life is too short.


  • #235
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 25,874 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    nagirrac wrote: »
    You were the one that started the personal attacks with the "using your personal ignorance and lack of education" vulgarity.
    Only cause that's the behaviour you display.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Richard Feynman has been dead since 1988.
    And? Was the evidence not there before 1988 or has psi/magic only bee observed since then?
    nagirrac wrote: »
    The ganzfeld experiments using experimental conditions agreed by Lyman and Honorton started just before his death. The results obtained in Honorton's lab were replicated later in Princeton, University of Amsterdam, University of Edinburgh, North Carolina Institute of Parapsychology, and the University of Gothenburg.
    So you claim, but others have been tackling this contention of yours, and you'll need ot do more than name drop universities to address their points.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    OK, let's just call them all ignorant and dishonest scientists and move on I suppose, life is too short.
    Again you've avoided my point in a very childish and transparent way.
    You are arguing that because the scientists you like are more qualified than I, I cannot question their conclusions and must accept everything they say as fact.
    If this is the case, it must then also hold through for other scientists who you are not as qualified as who espouse unscientific, nonsensical and in some cases vile ideas.

    So why do you not simply accept the words of highly qualified scientists when they tell you AIDS doesn't exist or that aliens crashed at Roswell or that racist opinions are supported by genetics?

    Are you going to suggest that the scientists I pointed to are somehow wrong?
    How can you say something like that when they are so much more qualified than you?


  • #236
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    King Mob wrote: »
    Only cause that's the behaviour you display.

    So why do you not simply accept the words of highly qualified scientists when they tell you AIDS doesn't exist or that aliens crashed at Roswell or that racist opinions are supported by genetics?

    Are you going to suggest that the scientists I pointed to are somehow wrong?
    How can you say something like that when they are so much more qualified than you?


    There you go again, aliens, UFOs and belief in magic, do you not see how childish that is? How judgemental of you! I do my own research, I look at others research, I read the range of opinions out there and I make up my own mind. Just like everyone else. If it makes sense to me I tend to give it more credibility. Psi makes sense to me as I have seen the effect myself and looked at the data in detail.
    Do Watson's ravings on race take away from his achievements in evolutionary biology? I don't think so. What he said was highly insensitive and should not have been said. He is an old man and has probably lost a few marbles.
    Can't comment on AIDS research as I know very little about it. I think people are living longer with HIV because of anti-viral medicines to keep the virus count in check, and because they recognize the importance of a strong immune system and are looking after themselves better, good nutrition and keeping toxins out of their bodies that harm the immune system. A healthy body has a great ability to fight off infection, and visa versa.
    You are actually making my point although I am sure not intentionally. I am more likely to accept the word of someone who actually works in the field and does the research than someone who is not working in the field but feels compelled to pontificate on it, regardless of qualifications. Dawkins and religion is a good example, knows nothing about religious belief and its impact on people's lives at the personal level but has a bash anyway. If I want to learn about religion Dawkins is the last person I would turn to. Skeptics like Randi who has no scientific background or ability but doesn't stop him having a bash at anything sounding paranormal. Wiseman, who has never done anything useful in his life other than bashing the work of others, generally in error. Name the credible scientists alive today that say psi effects are not real? There are none.
    Yes there were lots of psi data before 1988 but it was scoffed at. After the experiments were standardized (through collaboration with skeptics) the results were even more compelling but were still scoffed at. Slowly but surely as with all science the research moves forward and the skeptics die off.. but stay with the skeptics by all means, you also in time will slowly come to the conclusion that you were wrong.


  • #237
    mickrock
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,021 ✭✭✭mickrock


    nagirrac wrote: »
    I understand evolutionary biology quite well and accept it as the logical explanation for how life forms evolved on our planet.

    As an explanation for the complexity and diversity of life Darwinism isn't very logical at all and the "proof" is only circumstantial at best.

    That it is now accepted by most as fact rather than a dodgy theory is strange.


  • #238
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,367 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    mickrock wrote: »
    At least parapsychology can be tested under lab conditions.

    Or at least people can TRY to test it.If it does not exist then you can not test it. You can only do tests that come back negative. Which appears to be generally what happens.
    mickrock wrote: »
    Darwinism is just conjecture that most people have blind faith in.

    A statement which does little more than to show you do not understand the subject, or the scientific method.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Literally every scientist who has looked seriously at the data accepts that the psi effect is there.

    "Literally every" eh. Thats a bit sweeping. A statement that can be negated by a single counter example and I have already listed many counter examples in the thread.

    If these scientists have released peer review studies to establish what you are claiming above however I am more than happy to read through them. Alas the links provided so far have been made up of cherry picking studies in meta analysis which fit the ends, and inclusion of studies that were shown even by those doing them to be methodologically flawed.

    And as we have also seen in these threads some of these scientists who WANT there to be psi have performed all kinds of linguistic tricks to try and make it look like there is. Such as the guy who explained his failure to evidence psi away by saying that it clearly just does not work on static pictures.... while the guy who tried it with music blamed his lack of findings on the people being studied losing interest.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    but the conclusion that the psi effect is real is based on numerous studies on the Ganzfeld procedure by numerous researchers in numerous cultures.

    But again it only seems to be so when they cherry pick the right results from the Ganzfeld trials. As I mentioned, cited and linked to before: when another scientist rolled in and picked the studies randomly rather than cherry picking them he found precisely squat.

    The message appears to simply be "Keep trying" and to perform new studies which take into account the failings of the old. This is not helped though, as I said, by the people who take their failed studies and try to put spin on them (static pictures do not work, the people being studied must have lost interest) to turn them positive. Such people are an embarrassment to the ones trying to evidence psi and they would do well to take a scalpel to those elements and remove them before continuing.
    Sycopat wrote: »
    What worries me is that this seems to be a common theme in both the pro and and anti-sides analysis.

    100% agreed. As I said above the message here for me seems to be that both sides need to go back to square 1, but take with them all they have learned from botches in the past. That is what science is about. If you do not get the results you want or expect you work out the errors and failings and start again armed with this new knowledge. Science is an iterative process.

    Alas what appears to happen instead is that people are happy to perform meta analysis which deliberately includes reports that have been shown to be methodologically flawed... in some cases even by the people who actually performed them.

    While other people such as here..future on this thread make excuses for those flawed reports in order to try and get them accepted despite their failings. Including but not limited to quote mining quotes and applying those quotes to studies that the quotes were not even talking about. A disservice and dishonesty so extreme I am aghast to see it performed on a thread such as this.
    Sycopat wrote: »
    It strikes me as a field that doesn't know what it's doing.

    Much of it yes. What worried me is that some of the people putting spin on their results to massage them... among other tactics... know _exactly_ what they are doing... but they do it anyway. I would be keener to weed out the dishonest elements first and the flawed elements second or in parallel.


  • #239
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 25,874 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Ok, first off: format your posts. Your rambling are hard enough to read without it being in a dense block of text.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    There you go again, aliens, UFOs and belief in magic, do you not see how childish that is? How judgemental of you!
    Again, that's what believing in psychic powers is akin to, doubly so when you can't actually point to any plausible mechanism and rely on the arguments from ignorance that you are.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Do Watson's ravings on race take away from his achievements in evolutionary biology? I don't think so. What he said was highly insensitive and should not have been said. He is an old man and has probably lost a few marbles.
    But he's a qualified scientist, how could he be wrong? How can you possibly say he's wrong when he's more qualified than you?
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Name the credible scientists alive today that say psi effects are not real? There are none.
    There's plenty, you'll just reject any suggestions I make by saying crap like "they haven't looked into the evidence" or make personal attacks like you do with others.
    We also run into the problem that few scientists who aren't believers in whatever nonsense rarely comment on that nonsense unless they are popularisers of science like Carl Sagan, Brian Cox or Neil Degrasse Tyson, all of whom I'm sure you're about to attack personally and who's opinion you'll reject despite them all being more qualified than you.

    For example, please list a few scientists who specifically reject the evidence UFOs. If you can't does that mean that the evidence for UFOs is stronger?
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Yes there were lots of psi data before 1988 but it was scoffed at. After the experiments were standardized (through collaboration with skeptics) the results were even more compelling but were still scoffed at.
    So then why did Feynman reject psi/magic?
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Slowly but surely as with all science the research moves forward and the skeptics die off.. but stay with the skeptics by all means, you also in time will slowly come to the conclusion that you were wrong.
    Not really likely unless folks like yourself replace the ignorance, blind faith and dishonest tactics with actual evidence...


  • #240
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    King Mob wrote: »
    Not really likely unless folks like yourself replace the ignorance, blind faith and dishonest tactics with actual evidence...

    Quite hilarious given you are the one exhibiting the first two and supporting those that carry out #3. I will try and speak slowly for you so you might begin to understand third time around ;).

    Ignorance is the state of being uninformed. Now I would not stoop to your level and call you ignorant but you demonstate all the hallmarks of someone who is left brain dominant (not usual for physicists, actually quite common). Fortunately the world is also made up of people who are left brain dominant or at least a blend, otherwise we would have no beautiful music, no great art, no beautiful buildings, just boring scince replicating the same data over and over and clapping each other on the back.

    Let me repeat once again. Dr. Watson is wrong because there is NO data to support his nutty statement. I dismiss Dr. Watson's statement on race because there is NO data to back it up. However, I do respect Dr. Watson's work in evoutionary biology, it was wonderful work in its day.

    I also am openminded enough to respect Ian Stevenson's work in reincarnation studies as he did meticulous studies over several decades and collected and analyzed hundreds of samples. One can agree with or disagree with or ignore his conclusions, but the quality of his work is undisputed. My "credibility" test when it comes to science is the work the individual has done themselves in the field. That is why I would give more credence to Dean Radin than James Randi or Wiseman in the area of psi research for example.

    I do not have blind faith in anything. You do however, you have blind faith in materialistic-reductionism. I understand fully your plight, because I was like that myself and opened my mind. I hope you will do the same. The world we live in is a strange place with many strange effects that defy our logic. So, should we just put our heads in the sand and ignore them? Let me give you one example. This is my area of research so I would be delighted to engage with you here and have you tell me I'm ignorant and suffer from blind faith.

    The traditional materialistic-reductionist view of the brain is that it is hard wired like a computer and the only way to effectively treat disorders of the mind is through medicines that modify brain chemistry. I agree medicine works and have seen the beneficial effects myself, no question that SSRIs for example have helped countless people. However, there is also very strong evidence that meditation works for many mental disordres. Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz at UCLA is only one of many out there who help people with OCD for example but he has also done significant research work using fMRI to demonstrate the physical changes in the brain that occur in such patients. Studies using fMRI show that patients following his therapy exhibit lasting changes in their neural pathways.

    If you are interested in the field it is called neuroplastcity and if you want to dip your toes in I would recommend "The Mind and the Brain" by Jeffrey Schwartz.. or perhaps you won't and just scoff and say "just magic, placebo effect, fertile imaginations". Stop and think just for a moment, before and after meditation therapy, lasting changes in the physical structure of the brain. Can't wait for you to explain it using the "non ignorant" worldview.

    The only one's using dishonest tactics in science (if you could call it that) are skeptics. Stay in the Randi / Wiseman camp by all means, firmly aligned with and old and dying worldview that is falling apart each passing day.


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  • #241
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 25,874 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Let me repeat once again. Dr. Watson is wrong because there is NO data to support his nutty statement. I dismiss Dr. Watson's statement on race because there is NO data to back it up. However, I do respect Dr. Watson's work in evoutionary biology, it was wonderful work in its day.
    Again in your rant you've failed to address my point. Can't imagine why, among other stuff you've dodged.

    Watson is a decorated, well qualified scientist, how can you disagree with him?
    How could he possibly be wrong?
    Why is it important that he doesn't have the data to back up his claims, he's way more qualified than you, so therefore you have to believe him right?


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