"Neeum Zawan" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message
news:4b0feda0$1@news.povray.org...
> On 11/27/09 00:47, somebody wrote:

> >> I fail to see how the hypothesis is irrational and non-scientific. At
> >> least not any more than communicating via radio would have been to some
> >> scientist 500 years ago.

> > Just because one (*) thing that was beyond reason 500 years ago turned
out
> > to be true, anything that is beyond reason today has nonzero probability
of
> > being true one day. Right.

> Strawman. You're suggesting that I suggested that anything under this
> sun is worthy of investigating.

Then riddle me this: How do we determine what's worthy of investigating?

> > Newton, they laughed at Einstein..." doesn't work. There are millions of
> > "Bozo the Clowns" for each Newton or Einstein.

> The statement is irrelevant, unless you have a criterion for
> differentiating future Bozos from future Einsteins.

Exactly. Lacking evidence one way or the other, odds are, the person making
extraordinary predictions is a Bozo.

In other words, odds are, all paranormal claims are nonsense. To even
*begin* investigating, there has to be some extraordinary supporting
evidence.

> >>> built right on a diamond mine worth a "billions and billions" of
> > dollars,
> >>> which nobody knows about. Should I start digging?

> >> You've set up a strawman.

> > How so?

> Your diamond mine scenario is not even close to analogous with the one
> we're talking about.

Again, how so?

> See comment at end of message.

> > Could be. Or maybe you are jumping to conclusions.
>
> In all of your messages on the topic, you've not given a *single*
> reason why such research was ridiculous, beyond "outrageous", and
> "intelligent" people should know better. Which is just a sophisticated
> way of saying "because I said so".
>
> I _could_ expand further on my points, but since you don't seem to be
> willing to elaborate, I certainly won't. Come back when you actually
> want to have a discussion that's not supported by your feelings.

My argument (not feeling) is, there is a finite set of confirmed truths at
any finite time, but potentially uncountably many falsehoods. Unless there's
good evidence *before* we start, we cannot simply waste time investigating
anything and everything. The onus is on who deem paranormal investigation is
worthy to show that the paranormal claim in question is somehow different
than all these falsehoods.

I am sure you get hundereds of Nigerian mail scams a month. Do you
investigate any one of them? Maybe one of them is not a scam and is the real
deal, could it be not?

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