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Do You Believe In Ghosts?
David In Indy:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on November 17, 2006, 12:56:21 am --- :o :o :o :o
Here I was following my count for a week, then forgot all about it tonight when I was posting.
Yay me!! ;D ;D ;D
--- End quote ---
Well, I have a drink waiting for you over in the +1000 Posts Club...
http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php?topic=1579.msg115167;topicseen#msg115167
And if you don't drink, I'll buy you a cold glass of lemonade, a soda or a cup of coffee!! :D
Marge_Innavera:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on November 17, 2006, 12:18:09 am ---Randi is a quite rational man whose scientific method is well established. If you read his books - and his work is backed up by CSCICOP - his approaches are not only rational, they're extremely objective. He forces no one to come to him, the people who approach him claim they have a supernatural talent that they can control and display.
He merely sets up the conditions under which they are tested. Being a magician himself, he is well aware of scammers and fakers and how they dupe others. Sometimes these people are con jobs, other times they truly believe they can do these things and end up not being able to demonstrate that they can.
--- End quote ---
Randi's whole POV is that they are all either scammers and fakes or victims of their own imaginations. He approaches the whole issue with George W. Bush approach: don't waste your time, I know the answers. I saw a thorough PBS report of his participation in a test of homeopathy, and it was a farce. It was based on seeing whether or not homeopathy could do something totally outside its claims. That is not research, it's a fundamentalist mentality. IMO, as a magician he is quite well versed in playing to peoples' fears and to wishful thinking, and that includes the anxiety in the Western psyche over control and categorization. He's a very good manipulator; that doesn't make him reliable.
--- Quote ---Science is all about empirical evidence. Being able to measure something. They can't test something unless what is being tested can be repeated.
--- End quote ---
Yes, physical science is all about that, which is one of its limitations.
--- Quote ---They can't test your telekinetic episodes if you can't reproduce the ability on demand so it would be a useless exercise. Kelpersmek pretty much laid it out. If you have control over it, your ability should be tested. If you don't have control over it, there's nothing to test That's not saying you don't have these episodes, it's simply saying that there is no scientific basis for them until someone with such abilities who has control over them comes forward to be tested and then there will be.
--- End quote ---
What I'm saying is that consulting the people Kelp recommended would be a total waste of time, as I'm sure he was well aware to begin with.
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: Marge_Innavera on November 21, 2006, 08:08:20 pm ---Randi's whole POV is that they are all either scammers and fakes or victims of their own imaginations. He approaches the whole issue with George W. Bush approach: don't waste your time, I know the answers.
--- End quote ---
Well, that's because no one has ever stepped up to the plate and proved him wrong. Until that happens, I'd say he's standing on pretty firm ground. People who make claims outside what is accepted have to prove their claims, if they don't or can't then [shrug].
--- Quote ---I saw a thorough PBS report of his participation in a test of homeopathy, and it was a farce. It was based on seeing whether or not homeopathy could do something totally outside its claims. That is not research, it's a fundamentalist mentality.
--- End quote ---
I didn't see it and don't know what homeopathy claims to do, so I can't comment on this. It's likely he was referring to one specific case. i.e. someone had a very specific claim that homeopathy could do something (generally not accepted by other practitioners) and he proved them incorrect.
--- Quote ---IMO, as a magician he is quite well versed in playing to peoples' fears and to wishful thinking, and that includes the anxiety in the Western psyche over control and categorization. He's a very good manipulator; that doesn't make him reliable.
--- End quote ---
Well, other people - scientists and skeptics - laud his work, so apparently he's not so much 'manipulating' as doing a very good job of testing. Yes, he's a magician, so he puts on a really good show because he DOES know what people want to see. He knows what they expect and so he frames his tests around what a normal person would expect. That's called knowing your audience.
--- Quote ---Yes, physical science is all about that, which is one of its limitations.
--- End quote ---
Well, physical science is the only empirical science there is. That's what it's supposed to do. I don't see that as a limitation.
--- Quote ---What I'm saying is that consulting the people Kelp recommended would be a total waste of time, as I'm sure he was well aware to begin with.
--- End quote ---
We are all in agreement here. Unless you can control your episodes and make them happen at will, there's no point. Your ability cannot be scientifically tested nor proven.
Marge_Innavera:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on November 22, 2006, 09:49:27 pm ---Well, that's because no one has ever stepped up to the plate and proved him wrong. Until that happens, I'd say he's standing on pretty firm ground.
--- End quote ---
That's a bit like saying that no one has ever stepped up to the plate and proved Holocaust deniers wrong. The "reward" that Kelpersmek disingenuously referred to will never be collected because no proof is ever enough for fanatics.
--- Quote ---People who make claims outside what is accepted have to prove their claims, if they don't or can't then [shrug].
--- End quote ---
Assuming that everyone is interested in proving them, especially to True Believers. It's usually a waste of time.
--- Quote ---I didn't see it and don't know what homeopathy claims to do, so I can't comment on this. It's likely he was referring to one specific case. i.e. someone had a very specific claim that homeopathy could do something (generally not accepted by other practitioners) and he proved them incorrect.
--- End quote ---
Idid see it, so I can comment on this. There was no specific case. What his "panel of researchers" did was to take some of the ingredients homeopathy uses, dilute them to the strength normally used (we're talking extremely diluted solutions here), put them in test tubes and then waited to see if there were any changes in the distilled water used. Of course there wasn't, and Randi and his followers crowed that they had "proven homeopathy wrong."
Of course, they didn't bother to mention, or perhaps didn't care to find out (see GW Bush, et. al) that the way homeopathy operates, it has to interact with the rest of the body. Their experiement was equivalent to taking out everything under the hood of a car other than the engine and then proclaiming the engine to be defective because the car won't start.
--- Quote ---Well, other people - scientists and skeptics - laud his work, so apparently he's not so much 'manipulating' as doing a very good job of testing.
--- End quote ---
By that standard, Intelligent Design should be taught in every university on the planet. Not impressed.
--- Quote --- Yes, he's a magician, so he puts on a really good show because he DOES know what people want to see. He knows what they expect and so he frames his tests around what a normal person would expect. That's called knowing your audience.
--- End quote ---
That's rather obvious.
--- Quote ---Well, physical science is the only empirical science there is. That's what it's supposed to do. I don't see that as a limitation.
--- End quote ---
Right; it's the only empirical science there is. It's limited in terms of anything outside those boundaries.
--- Quote ---We are all in agreement here.
--- End quote ---
Obviously, "we" are not as you're addressing another member of this forum who isn't in agreement.
--- Quote --- Unless you can control your episodes and make them happen at will, there's no point. Your ability cannot be scientifically tested nor proven.
--- End quote ---
Actually, I never said I was interested. There's no reason I should be.
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: Marge_Innavera on November 24, 2006, 10:36:06 am ---That's a bit like saying that no one has ever stepped up to the plate and proved Holocaust deniers wrong. The "reward" that Kelpersmek disingenuously referred to will never be collected because no proof is ever enough for fanatics.
--- End quote ---
You can't prove a negative. You have to prove a claim. Holocaust claimants have certainly done that. Randi and the scientific community say that no supernatural abilities exist. Other people claim they do. The burden lies on the claimant to prove it.
--- Quote ---Assuming that everyone is interested in proving them, especially to True Believers. It's usually a waste of time.
--- End quote ---
Why wouldn't they be? Rather than be considered wishful thinkers?
--- Quote ---I did see it, so I can comment on this. There was no specific case. What his "panel of researchers" did was to take some of the ingredients homeopathy uses, dilute them to the strength normally used (we're talking extremely diluted solutions here), put them in test tubes and then waited to see if there were any changes in the distilled water used. Of course there wasn't, and Randi and his followers crowed that they had "proven homeopathy wrong."
--- End quote ---
Well, actually that's a pretty good test. The body is over 70% water and water is known as the universal solvent. If the ingredients don't react with water, what hope is there that they're going to react with anything else in the body when most of the other chemicals in the body are in a water solution? SEE EDIT BELOW.
--- Quote ---By that standard, Intelligent Design should be taught in every university on the planet. Not impressed.
--- End quote ---
Um, that's incorrect seeing as how ID doesn't pass the same types of testing.
--- Quote ---ht; it's the only empirical science there is. It's limited in terms of anything outside those boundaries.
--- End quote ---
Well, if phenomenon is outside those boundaries then it's not scientifically provable and thus, not a science as per the definition.
--- Quote ---Obviously, "we" are not as you're addressing another member of this forum who isn't in agreement.
--- End quote ---
No, Kelp also agreed that you had to be in control of your kinetic episodes to be tested otherwise it was a waste of time.
--- Quote ---Actually, I never said I was interested. There's no reason I should be.
--- End quote ---
There are many reasons you should be, if nothing more than making a name for yourself in history and adding to the knowledge of the world, your abilities might help in the study of the human brain and save human lives and improve the standard of living for humans in the future.
EDITED TO ADD: After reading Marge's post, I went and googled the homeopathic test she was talking about. Here's a good summary of it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopathytrans.shtml
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