tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post2485474981879987194..comments2024-01-14T02:32:38.226-05:00Comments on Public Parapsychology: Review of Outside the Gates of ScienceAnnalisa Ventolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10604572323799521346noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post-73560858993687110112009-08-21T19:12:17.472-04:002009-08-21T19:12:17.472-04:00"A science that that depends solely on experi..."A science that that depends solely on experiments that are repeatable in a lab automatically rules out real but unique or rare events, imposing artificial limits on nature."<br /><br />N.B., I'm having trouble conceptualizing this. Can you cite me an example of one reasonably widely-accepted phenomenon, object, or other thing that can't be tested via the scientific method? I can think of nothing. I stand by my statement. Nothing that exists in or affects our world is above or beyond the scientific method. You really need to cite an example to make this a concrete objection.<br /><br />"We don't believe in eye-witness reports, no matter how many and how credible the witnesses. Bring the phenomenon into the lab." <br /><br />I don't what this scientism is, but I know that rationality and the scientific method don't rest on belief. Science doesn't view a personal tale as evidence. Religious people don't regard one person's personal experience as proof for THEM of that person's religious philosophy. Again... if it exists in or affects our world, evidence can be produced for it. When one claims that what they are a proponent of is the first thing in all of reality to be an exception to this fact, don't be surprised when it is met with doubt. <br /><br /><br /><br />"Eyewitness 'anecdotal' reports of ESP, PK, and afterlife-suggestive psychical phenomena are often of excellent quality, and would be accepted if the subject were most anything else."<br /><br />No anecdote is accepted as evidence by definition, but you do hit upon something here with the "if it was anything else" part. If the experience in question flies in the face of all previously regarded scientific evidence, then yes, pure anecdotal evidence is going to be met with greater doubt. Think of it as a set of scales. You have a large amount of weight on one side. It's going to take a considerable amount of weight to change the scale to tilt to the other pan. Putting a set of feathers on it won't be enough. Would you treat a story in the Wall Street Journal, say, "Obama meets with Prime Minister", the exact same way you'd treat a Weekly World News headline that read "Obama meets with Elvis?" Of course not. Given the great amount of evidence that Elvis is dead, you'd need more than tales, even if they were several and very sincere-sounding, to convince you otherwise.<br /><br /><br /> "It is up to the super-skeptic to show how the witnesses could plausibly have been deluded, or were guilty of fraud."<br /><br />Seriously? Um... no. It's not up to anyone else to disprove your claim and you know that. It's up to a proponent of a claim to prove it, especially when that claim involves invalidating several other claims that already have significant evidence for them. Science, and life, doesn't work that way. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the great religious philospher and scientist, once wrote when the Vatican had temporarily banned him from publishing, "Only those who truly believe their faith dare to question it." If you truly believe in the things you do, you should welcome scientific inquiry, not attempt to move the goalposts or prematurely claim you've proved your position through unconvincing stories and lack of evidence. Those advocating a completely biological explanation for consciousness are not engaging in those behaviors and neither should you.alcaldehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14404682533930977783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post-68027061081603640752009-07-04T19:20:48.186-04:002009-07-04T19:20:48.186-04:00"No amount of recounting claims by people add..."No amount of recounting claims by people adds up to proof for anyone else. That's not madness; that's realism and rationality. If something is real (exists in or affects our world) it can be measured and tested via the scientific method."<br /><br />The usual scientism. The very notion of "proof" is unscientific. It really applies to mathematics, basic logic, and law. All science can establish is some degree of likelihood based on experiment. <br /><br />A science that that depends solely on experiments that are repeatable in a lab automatically rules out real but unique or rare events, imposing artificial limits on nature. The believer in scientism says, " We don't believe in eye-witness reports, no matter how many and how credible the witnesses. Bring the phenomenon into the lab." Eyewitness "anecdotal" reports of ESP, PK, and afterlife-suggestive psychical phenomena are often of excellent quality, and would be accepted if the subject were most anything else. It is up to the super-skeptic to show how the witnesses could plausibly have been deluded, or were guilty of fraud. <br /><br />On top of this, there actually is no experiment that could be designed which would convince closed-minded scientists (especially pathological skeptics). There always is some very implausible, virtually impossible way there could have been fraud, experimental error, misperception or delusion. Then even if some psi phenomenon is replicated, they want to see it replicated again, then they want to see it replicated again, and so on. No amount of evidence is enough to the closed mind.nbtruthmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post-36066437712931181792009-06-30T12:34:39.858-04:002009-06-30T12:34:39.858-04:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post-67593996663193310002009-06-28T15:08:02.093-04:002009-06-28T15:08:02.093-04:00There's a saying: "the plural of 'ane...There's a saying: "the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'evidence'". No amount of recounting claims by people adds up to proof for anyone else. That's not madness; that's realism and rationality. If something is real (exists in or affects our world) it can be measured and tested via the scientific method. If it does not exist in or affect our world, it is irrelevant whether it exists or not. Hence, there is nothing restrictive about a scienTIFic worldview, and something suspicious about proponents of any claim that science isn't an adequate test of it.Joseph G. Mitzennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post-12902050871530625542009-06-26T16:58:43.023-04:002009-06-26T16:58:43.023-04:00Broderick seems to hold on to a restrictive semi-S...Broderick seems to hold on to a restrictive semi-Scientistic mindview, rejecting all the compelling investigations of the early researchers into psychical phenomena, plus all the more recent investigations, that have produced compelling data some of which aren't strictly controlled laboratory experiments. <br /><br />This includes Richard Hodgson's investigation of Mrs. Leonora Piper, and the investigations over many years of Mrs. Gladys Osborne Leonard (both Piper and Leonard were the most extensively tested mediums of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and were never found to be fraudulent). To say nothing of Dr. Charles Richet, Dr. William Barrett, Sir William Crookes, Frederick Myers, etc. etc. <br /><br />Then more recent examples like the Schwartz medium experiments and the Stevenson apparent reincarnation investigations.<br /><br />Broderick throws out all this as not rigorously scientific enough for his standards. His position clearly implies we have to question the reality of most human experiences and observations, many of which are unduplicable in the laboratory and incapable of the sort of "scientific proof" he is looking for. This way lies a sort of sophisticated madness, because no human experience can then be accepted as a true account of a real event.nbtruthmannoreply@blogger.com