Psychic abilities and phenomena: the scientific/skeptic analysis
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Saturday, August 26, 2006 22:49
VIEWED: 10059
PAGE 3 of 11
Quote:Actually, you did! Well done!
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Did I sound profound there?
Thomas Kuhn wrote a classic on the nature of scientific revolutions. Scientists study a subject. A consensus develops. Scholars become invested in the consensus, professionally and ideologically. Anomalies, the stuff that don't fit within the paradigm of the consensus, get ignored, dismissed, or outright ridiculed.
Then some mavericks run out from the herd and poke around the anomalies. They find an alternative explanation and postulate a competing paradigm. They get booed. Or worse.
But eventually, enough people pay attention to the new paradigm for a revolution. Maybe new technology or a new mathematical solution gets discovered. Or maybe the mavericks find a charismatic champion. The old paradigm gets stored in the closet, and the new one becomes the consensus everyone is dogmatic about. Then someone notices an anomaly....
Thus, our scientific understanding of the universe is continuously in motion. Just like Chris said. No matter how hard we buckle down and refuse to budge.
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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Quote:I always enjoy your posts, Finn. You've made good points on all counts in this thread. Couldn't have said it better myself.
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Science is always alive and changing, which is why it is generally very questionable to speak in terms of a “scientific consensus” on anything but the most widely accepted ideas, and even those can be replaced with newer better ideas. Science should always be open to change and new ideas. That does not mean that science should necessarily embrace unfounded and inconclusive concepts, because new ideas and open-minded practices can be just as dogmatic. Science should be guided by the evidence.
Science has a very rigorous system of rules for sorting out spurious reasoning. Evidence (anecdotal evidence is STILL evidence!) and critical thinking and parsimony (Acham's Razor) need to be taken into account, and not just dismissed because they don't fit in with our preconceived notions--whatever they may be. That is what distinguishes science from religion. Science is open to be proven wrong.
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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Quote:
Originally posted by SimonWho:
You're confusing "science" with "popular belief". There really was no science before the scientific method came in over the last two hundred years. There was way too much blindly following the words of previous generations.
I take issue with that. Sir Issac Newton lived more than two hundred years ago, we're still using his science. Aristotle laid the foundations to the scientific method in the 300's BC.
Quote:
Originally posted by SimonWho:
...Can you point to any major scientific standpoint that has required such an adjustment over the last fifty years, say?
Sir Issac Newton's laws of motion was the accepted theory of the movement of planetary bodies for what, two hundred years before Einstien's theory of special relativity came along.
First light traveled through ether, then it was a wave, then wave particle duallity came along...
Zen Buddhist to the Hotdog Vendor:
"Make me one with everything."
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Both of which were more than 50 years ago.
My question was can you name some major scientific standpoint from 1955 that has been dramatically uprooted since?
I still don't understand why you think attacking science for inconsistency gives your argument any weight at all. Science is constantly improving, like sanding down a square until you get a circle. We learn new things all the time (how many days pass without the newspapers commenting on a "scientific breakthrough"?)
Even religions evolve, adapt, change. Attitudes to everything from unbelievers to fish on fridays shift with the tides of time.
Science is like a clock. Sometimes it's a little fast, sometimes a little slow, sometimes dead right. Scientists constantly adjust this clock to try to improve the timing.
Belief in the paranormal is more like a broken clock. Yes, it's dead right, twice a day, everyday. But it's still broken. (IMO, obviously).
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Quote:
Originally posted by SimonWho:
My question was can you name some major scientific standpoint from 1955 that has been dramatically uprooted since?
I missunderstood the point of your question. I was trying to point out that just because a Theory stands for more than 50 years doesn't mean it is correct.
Quote:
Originally posted by SimonWho:
I still don't understand why you think attacking science for inconsistency gives your argument any weight at all. Science is constantly improving, like sanding down a square until you get a circle. We learn new things all the time (how many days pass without the newspapers commenting on a "scientific breakthrough"?)
I don't think I attacked Science at all, have I? I've certainly attacked peoples positions, and their interpretations of science, nothing more.
Quote:
Originally posted by SimonWho:
Belief in the paranormal is more like a broken clock. Yes, it's dead right, twice a day, everyday. But it's still broken. (IMO, obviously).
I think your wrong *shrugs*.
Trust me I'm not some irrational person who 'wants' to believe. If it wasn't for the fact I've experinced these things to the point where coincidence or any other explination doesn't work I'm sure I'd be arguing your point just as strongly.
All I can say is just because something doesn't lend itself to human scientific analysis, doesn't mean its not there.
Zen Buddhist to the Hotdog Vendor:
"Make me one with everything."
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I think everything falls within the purview of scientific analysis. They've already come up with very convincing explanations for out of body experiences and "alien abductions".
Unfortunately scientific analysis looks for experiments with control groups, adjustable variables, repeatability, that sort of thing. Which of course most reported psychic phenomena do not supply.
Like I said, I have no problem with people believing in God, Flying Spaghetti Monsters or ghosts. I do object when they demand me to believe the same or insult, demean and attack those who do not share their beliefs. Obviously that has been the traditional role of religion (and still is in America) but lately those who believe in the paranormal are taking that role.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SimonWho:
I think everything falls within the purview of scientific analysis
As do I, just not necessarilly human scientific analysis.
I unfortunatly don't have the words to explain, but I'll try within the context of my own experiences.
I have had dreams that come true, not like some metaphorical ambiguous nonsense, I mean if the dream happened after the event it would be a memory, but it happens months before.
Very vivid, from my own perspective as if I'm actually there.
How could I prove that in a scientific sense? Record all my dreams in minute detail, and see if any come true?
That wouldn't work since its only a small percentage of my dreams that are of this vivid pre-memory type, so the evidence would suggest a coincidence, wouldn't it?
How about if I only recorded those which I know will come true (and I do somehow know which will and which won't).
That doesn't work either, because anyone who wished to disprove it just needs to say that its a coincidence, as I can't record the full experience.
I can't see away that Scientific analysis could prove (or indeed disprove) my experiences.
If anyone can, I'm more than game.
Zen Buddhist to the Hotdog Vendor:
"Make me one with everything."
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Quote:
Originally posted by SimonWho:
I do object when they demand me to believe the same or insult, demean and attack those who do not share their beliefs. Obviously that has been the traditional role of religion (and still is in America) but lately those who believe in the paranormal are taking that role.
I think that may be overstating it, a bit. The sheer # of people who believe in major superstitions involving a 'God' originating from attempts to 'legendize' a simple, gentle, loving human that wanted nothing more than for us to see ourselves in others dwarves the # of strictly paranormal devotees.
If I offended anyone w/the above description of Christian/Jewish/Muslim religions....TOO BAD! Ha ha ha ha ha !
Get me back!
Make fun of Buddah! Go ahead, I can take it as well as I can dish it out! (Just don't make fun of Richard Gere, that would get me very angry- he's cool).
American Gigalo Chrisisall
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Quote:That would be a very good start.
Originally posted by citizen:
How could I prove that in a scientific sense? Record all my dreams in minute detail, and see if any come true?
The first step of the scientific method is observation. That is something "naysayers" forget about science. We observe. We look for patterns and predictive variables. It is only after a great deal observation that we can hypothesize, and then experiment.
Imagine you were a marine biologist studying a new species of sulfur-farting crab you'd just discovered. Sulfur farts don't exist in crabs, your colleagues say, but here it is. You'd document how you sampled the farts and how they were tested for sulfur. You'd keep a log and journal, not only of its sulfur farts, but of all habits and functions. You'd write down all the questions (where does the sulfur come from?), and look for patterns that might reveal the answers (could it be from the shrimp it eats?).
So you'd do something like this with your dreams: observe the heck out of them. Write them all down in every detail you can, and not just the ones you think would come true. Also, write down other things that you did and felt that day. All your habits and functions. Then don't look at your descriptions again. When something happens from one of your dreams, write it down in every minute detail. Have someone else go back and match your real experience with your dream, and compare them point by point for accuracy. Get an accuracy rate. Find out what percentage of dreams come true. Find out what happened on days when your dreams came true. Ask questions and posit answers. Then you got yourself a hypothesis you can test.
Even then, it is just you studying yourself--so at best this is STILL in the observation stage. To do a pilot study, one would have to compare your dreams with those of a control, someone who doesn't have dreams that come true. Find out if some of his dreams "come true" just by chance. Then as this grows into a real study, you get more psychic dreamers to compare to non-psychic dreams. When you get a representative sample and a decent sample size of several hundred in each group, then you have a study where you can analyze results statistically.
Unfortunately, this sort of study doesn't happen. So all we have are preliminary observations. We think we've found a sulfur-farting crab, but we don't know for sure. Science is slow that way.
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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I guess I belong in Dante's hell for the trimmers. I neither accept nor reject the idea of paranormal experiences.
Mainly that's b/c while my experiences are few, I've known people who I respect as being honest, intelligent, perceptive, thoughthful and highly educated who have had multiple experiences they can only attribute to something not ordinary.
My choice is to reject their accounts (and to a large extent the people who give them) and conclude there is no such thing; or accept their accounts (while at the same time rejecting the studies that have failed to document these phenomena) and conclude there is such a thing.
Not being quite able to do either, I end up in the middle.
I do find people's own accounts of their experiences interesting, however.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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