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>> The only way to scientifically determine whether a claim is valid or not
>> is to, you know, actually investigate it. If we wrote off anything that
>> sounded too weird, human kind would never have advanced anywhere.
>
> Person A: I can read minds.
> Scientist: Hypothesis: Some people can read minds. Sure, let's test it.
> - Test yields a negative result -
> Person A: I was off that day. I cannot read minds on Fridays.
> Scientist: Sure, let's repeat the test on a Monday.
> - Test yields a negative result -
> Person A: The room was too cold. It doesn't work in the cold.
> Scientist: Sure, let's repeat the test in a warmer room.
> - Test yields a negative result -
> Person A: There are too many lights. I cannot concentrate.
> Scientist: Sure, let's repeat the test in the dark.
> - Test yields a negative result -
> Person A: Today's subjects were antagonistic. It doesn't work with
> everybody.
> Scientist: Sure, let's find new subjects.
> Person A: No, I've had enough. I don't have to prove myself to you.
> - next day -
> Person B: I can read minds.
> ... rinse and repeat.
>
> So what did the scientist "prove"?
That if this ability does exist, it's far too rare and/or unreliable to
be useful for military purposes, which was the point of the study.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>> The only way to scientifically determine whether a claim is valid or
>> not is to, you know, actually investigate it. If we wrote off anything
>> that sounded too weird, human kind would never have advanced anywhere.
>>
> No argument there. Now.. Given how only the people that cheat, lie,
> stack the deck, or consider "Blair Witch" style theatrics, followed by
> babbling, "That random sound sort of sounded like...", or, "Gee that
> random camera glitch moved like moved 'purposefully', why can't we drop
> the supposed paranormal already? Oh, and I love that last one, "move
> purposefully". By whose definition, by what criteria? That its less
> random than some other random light? More? Moved in what you *think* is
> a pattern? What the hell does "moved purposefully" even fraking mean
> without context of the ability to determine what the purpose *is*?
The military weren't studying the entire zoo of paranormal claims, they
studied one specific aspect: the claim that certain people can see
events distant in space and possibly time. This one is quite easy to
verify one way or the other. They tried; the statistics were
unimpressive; they gave up and shut down the project. Seems like a
non-WTF to me.
> Its been tested and retested ***over and over*** thousands of times,
It has *now*. Not sure about back when this study was done...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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"Sabrina Kilian" <ski### [at] vt edu> wrote in message
news:4b1240c8$1@news.povray.org...
> somebody wrote:
> > But there's a deeper issue here as well besides rewriting history to fit
a
> > hollywood theme: If someone makes the correct (as proven later)
prediction
> > based on faulty reasoning and/or insufficient data, are those
contemporaries
> > laughing at him correct in doing so or not? With billions of people
> > expressing billions of opinions today, some are bound to make
predictions
> > that, to a future generation, may appear to be spot on. But if that
person,
> > at this time, is unable to provide supporting evidence or articulate a
> > reasoning for his prediction, I feel I would be correct at laughing at
him.
> What if that person got together some money and did some actual
> investigations into their predictions. By providing a testable
> hypothesis, statistically and scientifically sound testing, and found
> some results, either confirming, disproving, or offering no conclusive
> proof. Person takes confirmation as vindication, disproving as reason to
> rethink their stance, and the last as reason to refine their experiment.
> Still laughable?
No, but that's a posteriori. Anyone may make a claim without good reason or
evidence, and I can justifiably laugh at him (for making a claim without
supporting reasoning or data). That's present time. That same person, in the
next 10 years, may actually work very hard to prove his claim, and let's say
it turns out to be correct (whether it was dumb luck or unexplainable genius
behind him making such a claim 10 years before he had any evidence, matters
not). But that won't change the fact that at the time he made the claim, he
did not know enough to make it.
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somebody wrote:
> Probabiliy of so called psychic phenomena being "real" is, for all practical
> purposes and by all intelligent accounts, is between 0 and 0. Any single
> cent wasted on such research is, well, wasted,
Well, we know that *now*. 50 years ago, before someone studied it
scientifically, it wasn't quite so obvious.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
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On 11/28/09 23:12, somebody wrote:
>> Except that evidence wasn't lacking.
>
> Claims motivated by greed is not evidence.
Thanks for the non sequitur. Let me know when you're talking about
psychokinetic and related claims.
>> Because no one came to you stating that they had dug a little and found
>> reason to believe there is a diamond mine there. No one came to you with
>> a story about how 200 years ago, someone found a diamond there, or found
>> clues indicative of diamonds.
>
> So your litmus test is *someone* telling you something. Let's see how you
> respond to the Nigerian scam problem:
Nope. You asked why it's not analogous, and I told you.
>> It sure could be. Your point? I don't pursue them, because that's not
>> my area of interest. It's not exactly an academic activity, and if I
>> were to dig deep and find that some are legitimate emails, humanity has
>> gained nothing. Sure, I may get rich, but I didn't realize this whole
>> discussion was oriented towards /personal/ gain.
>
> So, instead of admitting that they are *all* scams (which would invalidate
> your point above, since they are claims made by *many people*), you are
> saying that you are not interested in money. Admirable. But why not pursue
> them anyway, get the money, and donate it all to a worthy cause that
> benefits humanity?
Did you ever pass reading comprehension?
What you're stating I said is not what I said. I won't bother to respond.
--
"A man doesn't know what happiness is until he's married. By then it's
too late." - Frank Sinatra
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somebody wrote:
> Number of outlandish
> claims in general, definitely has increased dramatically
I'm not sure that's true. The ability for you to know all the outlandish
claims going on has increased. But I suspect that there were tons and tons
of outlandish claims being made during the middle ages that would just be
scoffed at these days. And no reason to think there were fewer.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
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somebody wrote:
> In other words, odds are, all paranormal claims are nonsense. To even
> *begin* investigating, there has to be some extraordinary supporting
> evidence.
And there was. Numerous witnesses all over saying it worked and they had
seen miracles with their own eyes.
Think up a list of nonsense that *didn't* get investigated that might have
aided the military, and you'll understand perhaps. :-)
> 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.
And they did. They offered eye witnesses. Then the scientific method, during
investigation, showed that the eye witnesses were mistaken. What more do you
want?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
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On 11/28/09 23:45, somebody wrote:
>>>> There was a time when all of humanity honestly believed the world was
>>>> flat, and anybody who claimed it wasn't was *obviously* a lunatic.
>
>>> AFAIK that's an urban legend. "Popular history" so to speak.
>
>> That's an urban legend if you're looking at "recent history". It
>> wouldn't surprise me if 10,000 years ago everyone thought this. And if
>> not then, keep going further back in time...
>
> Sure, and at one point, all proto humans were hurling feces at each other.
> None of this is relevant to the question of *modern* science investigating
> paranormal *today*.
Thanks again for the non sequitur. Please raise a red flag for when
your response is actually a response to something I wrote, as opposed to
something unrelated that you just want to sneak into the conversation.
--
"A man doesn't know what happiness is until he's married. By then it's
too late." - Frank Sinatra
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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: Fools, science and things like "Helicobacter Pylori"
Date: 29 Nov 2009 12:15:04
Message: <4b12ac18@news.povray.org>
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TC wrote:
> Once it was known as true that the earth is a disc. Jerusalem was the center
> of the earth, the sun and the planets were proven to revolve around the
> earth.
You know, I don't think this is true. I think the religions pushing this
stuff always knew they had no idea if they were actually right or not.
Even nowadays, it surprises me (in some sense) that religious people object
to the teaching of evolution here. You'd think if creationism were *true*
and they *really* believed it, they wouldn't be worried about *science*.
Why would the church lock up Galileo if they thought his observations and
deductions were factually incorrect?
> Look into the old theories of epicycles and hypocycles which were
> used to explain the movements of the planets scientifically. Today we know
> better.
Epicycles were the String Theory of orbital mechanics. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
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From: Orchid XP v8
Subject: Re: Fools, science and things like "Helicobacter Pylori"
Date: 29 Nov 2009 12:21:19
Message: <4b12ad8f@news.povray.org>
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Darren New wrote:
> You know, I don't think this is true. I think the religions pushing
> this stuff always knew they had no idea if they were actually right or not.
Oh, I think there have always been people who truly, honestly believe
that every single syllable of the Bible is the Word of God, and cannot
be wrong. Whether these are the people "pushing" religion is another
matter...
> Even nowadays, it surprises me (in some sense) that religious people
> object to the teaching of evolution here. You'd think if creationism
> were *true* and they *really* believed it, they wouldn't be worried
> about *science*.
Oh, I think *today* people just want to be right.
> Why would the church lock up Galileo if they thought his observations
> and deductions were factually incorrect?
They believed it to be blasphemy, a most evil sin, and that his work
could corrupt the minds of others. And the church's job, of course, is
to prevent the innocent from being corrupted. (Or raking in craploads of
money, depending on how cynical you are...)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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