The best scientific method (Bayesian form of H-D)

How do I explain widespread, and distinctly varied, religious belief?I believe (though I cannot be sure) that humans look for explanations for things they do not know. It is easy when one is scared, especially of one's lack of knowledge, to try and pretend like one has the answer.To come up with an answer, without actually studying a phenomenon, the brain reaches to describe a phenomenon using things already known. X is like Y. It is a very simple process, and without further checks, such explanations become ingrained and amplified.Perhaps one of the easiest explanations humans come up with, is that my not liking X means X is bad. Everyone else must also dislike X or they are bad. X must have been judged bad by some AUTHORITY, which is why it is bad.This same phenomenon goes along with guilt. If something bad happens, there must have been a reason... something we can understand. The person must have done something bad, and so something bad happened to him. Again something larger than life (an AUTHORITY) judged X as bad and delievered punishment.Of course if a deity (or deities) can punish, they can also reward. The happenstance of good service to reward, or good service to punishment are easily explained away to reinforce the dogma that good service leads to reward. For if good service didn't lead to reward you must have done something else bad to counter it.Or like the example of Job (the common interpretation), if one can find no fault in practice, there must yet be other reasons we fail to understand. Notice, it is not that we do not understand. Oh we understand all right... God or Gods do everything. We just don't always know why.There simply are no checks on this kind of reasoning.The Authority may not even be believed as real at first, just a vague notion, a myth to set examples. But with time and oft repeatings to children these myths becomemore concrete. One eventually gets diverse pantheons, or well described external/internal forces.Some results (by the nature of how they came about) end up delivering concrete examples of how artificial religion really is: the cargo cults, or the aztecs believing the invading Spaniards were gods. Why are we to believe the ancient founders of current religions are any better than these people?The fact that Xianity itself took from other mythological systems which came before it (yet which are considered foolish by Xians), shows an ad hoc quality... a form of oral bedtimestory tradition.People are simply making it up as they go along, swallowing a placebo to feel better about what they don't understand, without actually curing the real problem: ignorance.But this is religion. If you ask me why people have an almost instinctual need to find an AUTHORITY figure to guide them, or have "spiritual feelings" (that kind of awe about something grander than themselves), or feel better when they have an outside purpose to to their lives... I don't know.We know these experiences are common to almost everyone, yet their expression (or manifestation) are totally different between individuals. So is there something "greater", something actually "spiritual" out in the Universe? Maybe.The idea that anyone has found it seems contradicted by all evidence.Einstein suggested that the Universe is all there is and real spirituality is trying to understand it as it is, rather than as we'd like to believe it is. Concepts of souls and eternal life on a nonmaterial plane were just egotistical constructs because our minds can't accept that they will at some time no longer exist.This sounds like a pretty reasonable theory.Frankly I wish there were easier answers. And if magic were real that would be extremely cool. In addition to increasing our realms of exploration, it would also mean I didn't waste so many hours worshipping my (or someone else's) vanity.How do you explain the fact that religious experience is varied (including some of the more curious examples I have given above), that religious dogma about the natural world has invariably run afoul of natural investigation, and that no one (despite the enormous power claimed) has ever run into the kinds of supernatural entities that appear so frequently in ancient texts?

---

holmes[This message has been edited by holmes, 01-13-2004]

Holmes,My answer is, "We are not alone. There are biological beings more intelligent than we are, operating in a part of the universe that we cannot sense much about, that have senses appropriate to where they live. We develope religions to cope with them."Given this reasonable, simple hypothesis, developed by analogy with every other biological species with which we are familiar, shouldn't we accept it purely on the basis of Occham's razor? We don't have to postulate the existence of any wierd psychological stuff driving people to the dramatic behavioral extremes that we see in religion. We pray when frightened for the same reasons earthworms extend their setae when their head is pinched. Or a bird alarm-screams when grabbed by a sharp-shinned hawk (a closer analogy--the alarm scream is probably to attract a bigger, unseen predator, to interrupt the sharpies kill.)What do you think?The varieties of religious experience is a puzzle. Maybe there is great species diversity in the spiritual world. Or maybe, it's because the spiritual parasites and we, the hosts, both have free will.I know that you have not experienced any evidence supporting the existence of such beings, but I have, and see an abundance of such data in the scientific literature. I see general confirmation in testing, despite flaws in the studies, little "running afoul" as you put it, and "close encounters" at a frequency and specificity just about what I would expect and see as reasonable. Earthworms have few encounters with Robins, for example. Until it's too late to make much of a report, usually. But not always. As long as one does science in the Kuhnian truth-mode, instead of the conventional paradigm conservation mode, science confirms this simple explanation.Go on, start tithing and see what happens. That's the test our symbiotic Partner in this truth search has set out.Stephen

The following quote is a reasonable and SIMPLE hypothesis?

quote:

---

We are not alone. There are biological beings more intelligent than we are, operating in a part of the universe that we cannot sense much about, that have senses appropriate to where they live. We develope religions to cope with them.

---

So despite existing in a part of the universe that we cannot sense much about, humans somehow DEVELOP religions to cope with these entities... entities we cannot sense much about? Why would anyone develop large, complex and detailed institutions to deal with entities they can barely sense?What's more, despite not being able to sense much about them, you are able to say that they are biological entities which are more intelligent than we are? How can you know any of these facts? They certainly do NOT come from analogy with other biological species.And how on earth does Occam's razor mandate acceptance of any of the above?

quote:

---

We don't have to postulate the existence of any wierd psychological stuff driving people to the dramatic behavioral extremes that we see in religion.

---

So psychological states, which humans obviously have and we see that they can lead humans to incorrect assumptions about the world around them, are too weird for you to contemplate as a very good possibility? Yet human psychological capacities to sense and communicate in a limited capacity with other dimensions that we have so far been able to document outside of fragmentary and contradictory anecdotal accounts is not weird?And occam's razor would naturally exclude humans coming to incorrect conclusions, but include this "supernatural world"?

quote:

---

What do you think?

---

I think this is an incredible position to hold. What baffles me is that you would rather draw analogies between human religious practice and earthworms (which by the way only interact with the natural world), rather than uncertain human religious practice with certainly INCORRECT human religious practice.Where was your answer to the cargo cults and the aztecs? These were clearly people that deified nonsupernatural entities. They did go through those "weird" psychological states you dimissed so easily. Would this not suggest that other humans exhibiting the same behavior (ascribing supernatural powers to phenomenon) could very well be doing the same thing as the aztecs or the cargo cults?

quote:

---

The varieties of religious experience is a puzzle. Maybe there is great species diversity in the spiritual world. Or maybe, it's because the spiritual parasites and we, the hosts, both have free will.

---

So it is a puzzle if one accepts your theory, but not if you reject it and go with the SIMPLE explanation. That just goes to show why occam's razor would in no way accept your theory.But let's run with your version of occam's razor. Doesn't the only explanation become they are all real? That every idea humans have regarding their experiences are real? I can't see how that would not be the case, given your description of why religions must have a basis in reality.

quote:

---

I know that you have not experienced any evidence supporting the existence of such beings, but I have, and see an abundance of such data in the scientific literature. I see general confirmation in testing,

---

Unfortunately this is totally circular. You have seen data in experiments that you feel are scientific, but whose methods require dropping current science standards in order to even consider their results as data... and this shows you are right to drop the standards?

quote:

---

As long as one does science in the Kuhnian truth-mode, instead of the conventional paradigm conservation mode, science confirms this simple explanation.

---

Fine. So let's talk about alien abductions. There have been reports of these for years, which follow a greater similarity than most religious doctrines. Obviously then we can feel good in the explanation that they really have been abducted.So then what do we make of all the psychological research which did not make this assumption and decided to look at that weird thing we call the brain? It has slowly become evident that these experiences are the result of specific psychological (physical-psychological) states. Some psychological researchers have even been able to INDUCE similar feelings in humans based on the results of their research.Should we throw this out?

quote:

---

Go on, start tithing and see what happens.

---

Hm. I did (in the past) and it didn't work. What does that indicate? Is there anything I can take away from the results of my experiments showing no results (with the exception of tarot)? Under MN a scientist making claims to achieving success would have to have a pretty reasonable answer when the same experiment comes up Zeros for other researchers. Does H-D include anything like this?What good is it, if it doesn't?

---

holmes

Holmes,Well, since you tried tithing to "prove" God, according to Malachi 3:10, and got no response from God you are certainly free to consider it unlikely that the God, Jehovah is out there. It was His test, you did what He said to do in His materials and methods, and got a negative response. If it was me, and others reported success, I might check carefully to see that I followed the protocols well. But, until there is some way to make doing and reporting that experiment a public affair, it remains private science.I should note that, although I slip from time to time, I don't like the term "supernatural" since dark matter, for example, appears to be "natural," just invisible to us. Ditto with zero-point or vacuum energy. Darwin contrasted natural with artificial, random with willful, as in "natural selection" and "artificial selection." In this sense, creatures with free will would be "supernatural." Imposing free will over nature.Now, I see no reason so far that natural dark matter, weighty stuff that is beyond our senses, could not be inhabited by living beings, and some at least could have free will as we do. They would be "supernatural" in the above sense, but also "natural" enough in terms of what they are made of. Such beings could also use dark energy in their living processes. Thus, these higher beings are what others call "supernatural." But, they may be no more "supernatural" to us, than a bird is to an earthworm.I find the analogy of such beings contrasted with humans, and birds contrasted to earthworms quite apt. Suppose we genetically engineered earthworms so that they were able to do philosophy, and communicate with one another. But they retained all their other worm-like characteristics. Then they could have a forum like this one, discussing whether birds existed. One worm would argue that things like light and vision, and ears and sound might exist, and that there were creatures "out there" (out of and above the ground) that lived and moved with these senses. The other would argue that, since we worms can only taste and touch, the only things we can know, do science, about, would be tasted, touched entities. "Do you believe in birds?" one would ask. "Science cannot deal with the existence of birds!" And so on.But, I don't want to be "eaten" by the birds, be "devil's food" in human terms. And here is H-D science, telling me that I can study things I cannot sense with my senses, that are smarter than I, to even learn the natural history if devils, so I can better avoid them.Wanting to live, a lot, I learn the methods, practise them, find they work, and use them to get lots of grandchildren, health, scientific success, love, good food, sanity, adventure.Not to try to persuade you that you should do likewise. Only want you to know that the choice is available, and understanding of consequences and protocols, if you are interested.Stephen[This message has been edited by Stephen ben Yeshua, 01-14-2004]

quote:

---

you are certainly free to consider it unlikely that the God, Jehovah is out there... I might check carefully to see that I followed the protocols well.

---

I'm free to? What kind of conclusion is this for a science? If yours is a better method, why does it have no definitive results?And boy I predicted that last sentence was coming: If I did not show the results you had I must have done it wrong. This is the hallmark of poor scientific methodology. One of us must be wrong... not just me. What do we do now? How do we make the determination?

quote:

---

But, until there is some way to make doing and reporting that experiment a public affair, it remains private science.

---

Tithing has been public for millenia. And there is no reason to keep it private.Until there is some way to make its proponents follow MN, so results can be tied to experiment and proposed mechanism, it will remain a pseudoscience.

quote:

---

Now, I see no reason so far that natural dark matter, weighty stuff that is beyond our senses, could not be inhabited by living beings, and some at least could have free will as we do.

---

Again, you have abandoned science, in favor of the fantastic. Dark matter is simply unknown matter, or rather matter that our calculations predict must be there in order to suit our current models. It could be that our current astronomical mathematical models are incorrect, that there are astronomical forces or realities we are currently unaware of, or that the form of the matter is not detectable using our current methods.We have no idea if there is such a thing as dark "matter" or dark "energy".Yet you have already jumped to ideas that these are entities? Where is occam's razor?

quote:

---

I find the analogy of such beings contrasted with humans, and birds contrasted to earthworms quite apt.

---

Your analogy is hardly apt. Birds and earthworms exist in the same space time continuum. It is not that earthworms are unable to perceive the dimension that birds live within (which is how you posed humans vs gods in your earlier post), they simply do not have the wide range of senses within their environment.Now I see that with Dark Matter and Dark Energy that you are trying to argue this is a similar situation with humans (and in ad hoc fashion are now arguing that this is the way to conceive of gods).But outside of DM and DE, this analogy does not hold. DM and DE while perhaps invisible, must interact with our universe in ways that we can sense and measure. Which is why we can hypothesize about their existence and come up with experiments to understand more about them.The same goes for birds and earthworms. Given the ability to think and reason, the worms would begin theorizing that there is something they cannot perceive, yet interacts with them. Obviously something is killing them off.I am unaware how you think they would be correct to not use MN in figuring out what the nature of that phenomena is. Without it they could easily come to a conclusion that there are gods in another dimension that are picking out the unrighteous, instead of entities within their own realm of existence which the worms simply do not have the range of sense to detect directly. Would that be true? What method could they use to figure out if this god-bird theory is correct?

quote:

---

The other would argue that, since we worms can only taste and touch, the only things we can know, do science, about, would be tasted, touched entities. "Do you believe in birds?" one would ask. "Science cannot deal with the existence of birds!"

---

This is a particularly bad plank in your analogy. Thanks to MN we have ways to test the universe beyond our natural range of senses. If we had used H-D methods I am clueless as to how this would ever have come about. Everything would still be guessed at using our "god radar" sense, instead of probing phenomenon and discovering new ways to add to our range of senses.Do you really know of any scientist that says nothing exists which we cannot sense directly? The fact that you brought up DM and DE and electrons shoots down your own analogy.The real question is when do birds act like gods, only interacting with worms when worms do specific acts (and done correctly!) to summon them? And I suppose one could also ask why worms should presume the truth of any books written about "gods" by other worms, BEFORE conducting experiments to determine what birds are?In all of this you have not given one reason why we should accept the worm-human analogy over the false religion-unknown religion comparison. They clearly show that such "weird" psychological phenomenon you tried to dismiss do occur. Since they do occur, that modern religion is based on the same psychological phenomenon is the simplest explanation.If you fail to address this in your next post, we are done.

quote:

---

Not to try to persuade you that you should do likewise. Only want you to know that the choice is available, and understanding of consequences and protocols, if you are interested.

---

Wow, since when does real science need to throw around silly Pascal's wager arguments? I thought this thread was about a better scientific method. Yet it keeps reducing to conversion commentary, in that it is the best science method if I don't want to get eaten by Gods. Very very poor science.

---

holmes

Holmes,Methinks you protest too much!But, to reply as I have time tonight, Because successful science as attested by history never has definitive results. Or conclusions. That's what makes it better. It's a process. Just keep moving, testing, looking, re-searching. You'll get to the truth. Standard problem in scientific controversies. We go over together the protocols we used, to see why we got different results. In many cases, scientists visit in each other's labs, and do the experiments together. Really? You know of a published study, with protocols, on titheing? Name calling (pseudoscience? Give me a break!), as I judge debates, usually means that the debater knows they have lost their case, and is starting to react and whine. Physicists seem to have a few ideas. Plenty of that, through gravity, universe expansion, the fact that electrons don't fall into atomic nuclei, the Casimir effect.As for the inhabitants of dm/de, there are prayer studies, the PEAR studies, NDE's, theomatics (have you read his stuff yet? Why not?). They appear quite busy influencing our world. If MN is willing to hypothesize about the parts of the world that are beyond our senses, I'm all for it. But, the rules of H-D seem to work better, according to Bayes Theorem. Gods, as anyone knows, are very unpredictable, and the placating or calling forth of gods, very chancy. But birds only eat worms that stay out too late (the early bird, etc. etc.), and who hang around to close to the surface. I suppose some worm could notice this, and set up "moral" behavior accordingly. And there would be many the worm who would risk feeding above ground past sunrise, and get away with it for a while.But, to make the analogy complete, now we need a Dr. Dolittle, who can talk to the worms, who needs them to do His compost heap. He could do a mini-course in ornithology, and give the worms a radio transmitter, to call him when his compost heap worms were threatened by a bird wanting to feed there. He would then, of course, run out and scare off the birds. Worms that did not want to serve him, of course, were on their own. And maybe worms that insisted on staying on the surface past sunrise, in spite of the good Dr.'s warnings. Thus, even deaf and blind worms might behave pretty shrewdly with regard to birds. The worm-human analogy generates many predictions that have been tested and confirmed. But what do you mean by "accept ... over"? The Orthodox Theology hypothesis, as explained by the man-bird-worm analogy, has many confirmations, and is probably a better bet culturally than the other, there still is plenty of room for making predictions from the other and testing them. I do realize that I never gave the ultimate test for whether one scientific method was better than another. That is, are the ideas it approves of are successful in practise, in engineering or medicine?
Any scientific method which produces theories that do not work in practise is basically bad. By work, we mean that people put the idea to use, expecting certain outcomes, and those are the outcomes they get.But, I take it that getting eaten by demons would not be regarded by you as a bad thing, and that science that prevented that outcome would not therefore be good science. So, what makes science good for you?Stephen

I will continue to protest, as your science method is fallable and faltering.

quote:

---

Because successful science as attested by history never has definitive results. Or conclusions. That's what makes it better. It's a process. Just keep moving, testing, looking, re-searching. You'll get to the truth.

---

This is my argument. You are the one who wants to end research into natural causes by bounding our research to the limits and presuppositions of one book. We must start there in order to end there...But more importantly, this does not answer my question. There should be a more compelling conclusion as a result of an experiment, than "well you can now think what you want, but it worked for me. Maybe you did something wrong."Ironically, the test retest process (which you applaud for science) is exactly what was used to develop the best methodology science can use: MN. Why should we abandon the fruits of this labor?

quote:

---

Standard problem in scientific controversies. We go over together the protocols we used, to see why we got different results. In many cases, scientists visit in each other's labs, and do the experiments together.

---

And now we take another babystep towards MN. And suppose we see that there are different results despite similar procedures? Will we then have to accurately describe the mechanisms which might account for different results? Then maybe construct a new form of experiment which is able to distinguish between mechanisms? Oh no! We are almost at MN...Finally, in choosing which mechanism to test first, it'd make sense to test the simplest mechanism first, right (this is occam's razor)? Voila, we are at MN!I am confused why you would insist on using H-D as "best" science, when problems during experiments will naturally drive us to reinvent and then use MN. Don't you see this is a step backward? MN exists for a reason, and so why it is less costly to start with it, rather than reinvent the wheel each time.I already agreed that one can use this H-D thing as a "dowsing rod" for places that science can investigate. However, there is no cause to abandon MN when scientists go to actually investigate a phenomena. At least you have given none. The fact that there will be differing results counts as a major reason to hang with it.

quote:

---

Really? You know of a published study, with protocols, on titheing?

---

It depends on what you mean by published and protocols. I have seen plenty of televised statements that tithing works. It is one of the larger scams run on the desperate by the "pious".Now these did not exist in scientific publications, but that is the very criticism you are raising (that they should be)... however they are certainly public. It is simply the choice of those making these claims not to use MN protocols which keep them out of such science publications. If their claims are bona fide I am at a loss why they are not interested in using accepted protocols to get their message to a less credulous audience.And this is where my eyebrow is raised. You mention according to protocols. Well their experiments are run according to their own protocols. So they do follow some protocols. Do you have an issue with this? Do you believe people should rely on more established and agreed upon protocols? If so, then why should MN be disregarded? If not, why should the above people even have to follow yours?The concept of protocols goes right out the window, once we say that stringent and accurate methods are not the sole determiner of best methodology.

quote:

---

Name calling (pseudoscience? Give me a break!), as I judge debates, usually means that the debater knows they have lost their case, and is starting to react and whine.

---

In the subject line of this post I called you a name. It has no connection to anything and so is pure ad hominem. That is bad form.However, in a debate on scientific methodology, using the term pseudoscience when qualified as I had is not an insult, it is a definition. H-D appears to operate as a science, but does not adhere to all of the accepted methods (ie protocols), and standards of modern science. That makes it a pseudoscience.

quote:

---

Physicists seem to have a few ideas.

---

Yes, the possibilities are as I outlined, in addition to the possibility that there ARE masses and energies whose sources we have yet to spot (which is why they are called "dark"). You may note that no physicist has ever ascribed to these theoretical entities any sort of will or intelligence or communicative powers.

quote:

---

Plenty of that, through gravity, universe expansion, the fact that electrons don't fall into atomic nuclei, the Casimir effect... As for the inhabitants of dm/de, there are prayer studies, the PEAR studies, NDE's, theomatics (have you read his stuff yet? Why not?). They appear quite busy influencing our world.

---

What evidence connects one group to the other? Have you ever actually talked to a physicist about the nature of dark matter or energy, and what the limits of its interaction with the universe (and earth) are? Have you asked one what the possibility is of their containing/exhibiting intelligence, or what they think of these faithbased programs you mentioned? If not, why not? If so, what did they say?

quote:

---

If MN is willing to hypothesize about the parts of the world that are beyond our senses, I'm all for it.

---

It does. We have already established this as fact by discussing subjects such as gravity, electrons, dark matter, etc etc.

quote:

---

But, the rules of H-D seem to work better, according to Bayes Theorem.

---

Other than by jumping the gun to deal with issues you would like to address, can you explain how it "works better"?

quote:

---

Gods, as anyone knows, are very unpredictable, and the placating or calling forth of gods, very chancy.

---

KNOWS?!?!??!? Isn't their existence the very question being posed?Hey, everyone knows that halflngs are short with curly hair on their feet, and elves tend to live much longer than humans, but this does not make them real. Same goes for Gods. Once you show me evidence beyond tales written by men, then we can start making comments such as "we all know X about Gods." As it stands there are many people that have no concept of Gods, much less what their nature is.Sheesh.

quote:

---

But, to make the analogy complete, now we need a Dr. Dolittle,

---

Just look at where this analogy has gotten. You know you were the one who brought up occam's razor. What would it say about bringing in Dr. Dolittle at this point?Wait, don't answer yet!

quote:

---

The worm-human analogy generates many predictions that have been tested and confirmed.

---

Except never dealing with evidence (beyond hand waving) regarding the varied religions humans have, including the false religions.

quote:

---

The Orthodox Theology hypothesis, as explained by the man-bird-worm analogy, has many confirmations, and is probably a better bet culturally than the other

---

YOU BROUGHT UP OCCAM'S RAZOR. YOU HAVE SINCE REFUSED TO ADDRESS IT'S TRUE IMPLICATIONS ON YOUR THEORY. THE UMPIRE IS YELLING "STRIKE TWO". I AM PUTTING THIS IN CAPS SO IT WILL STAND OUT (NOT BECAUSE I AM YELLING).YOU HAVE ONE LAST POST TO DEAL WITH THE HOW OCCAM'S RAZOR WOULD ACCEPT THE FANTASTIC WORM-HUMAN ANALOGY, WHEN WE HAVE A VERY GOOD EXAMPLE OF HUMANS CONSTRUCTING RELIGIONS AROUND NOTHING (THOSE "WEIRD" PSYCHOLOGICAL STATES YOU DISMISSED, YET I HAVE SHOWN ARE REAL).YOU KNOW FULL WELL THAT GIVEN THIS REALITY ON THE GROUND OCCAM'S RAZOR IS FORCED TO EXCLUDE YOUR ANALOGY FROM CONSIDERATION UNTIL THIS MUCH SIMPLER EXPLANATION (WHICH WE HAVE EVIDENCE FOR) BECOMES INSUFFICIENT AS AN EXPLANATORY MECHANISM.You say insults are bad form in debate. So is ad hoc reasoning, and dodging direct questions. It has already been suggested that I stop wasting my time debating you, and I am about to reach that conclusion myself. If you dodge this once more, I am not wasting another minute. It will have shown that you understand you have lost the debate and are just attempting to ward off more public acknowledement.

quote:

---

Any scientific method which produces theories that do not work in practise is basically bad. By work, we mean that people put the idea to use, expecting certain outcomes, and those are the outcomes they get.

---

You continue to use this inaccurate depiction of science. In addition to a theory working, a SCIENTIFIC THEORY must also take into account all the evidence we have currently gathered, and use the simplest plausible mechanisms to account for the results it predicts.I know for a fact that the practice of accupuncture works. I have seen it do wonders for others where western medicine failed completely and the human mind could not have supplied the cure (ie, it wasn't believing in its power that helped it work).In fact, I have first hand experience with accupuncture that did quite a bit to convince me it was more than just mental tricks. On my first visit, I was expecting to feel better. Instead my initial feeling of euphoria gradually built into a nausea that was wholly unexpected and then produced quite a bit of vomiting. This rather unexpected result started after I had gone home, and went on throughout the night, and I was forced to go in the next day for an emergency treatment.The practitioner had made a mistake. On being told what had happened, the doctor apologized and switched some needles around (from the way she had done before) and in minutes I could feel the nauseous feeling dissipate back into the initial euphoria. It stayed that way for the rest of the course of the treatments for my initial problem (which had nothing to do with nausea).Thus (IMO) this results of this practice had nothing to do with wishful thinking, but that SOMETHING was going on due to the placement of the needles. Accupuncture worked, and when not done right had quite negative results, which could be fixed in a predictable way.This is reinforced by the fact accupuncture can be done on animals. They certainly have no preconceptions that needles are going to help them.HOWEVER, I have Zero confidence in the THEORY behind acupuncture.While acupuncture certainly works, and so the "theory" behind it shows practical results, it really has no scientific validity. Thankfully as western and eastern medicines come together, the mysticism which has lain over that valuable art is slowly going away. An attempt to understand what "chi" is, and what creates the "channels" these needles appear to manipulate, is being made.This example is to show that science is about understanding mechanisms (the whys), and not just what needs to be done (the hows).Sincerely, every time I hear you describe science and how it works, I get flashbacks to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

quote:

---

But, I take it that getting eaten by demons would not be regarded by you as a bad thing, and that science that prevented that outcome would not therefore be good science. So, what makes science good for you?

---

What the hell are demons? Give me a definition, evidence for their existence according to this definition, and one credible example of a human being getting eaten by one that fits this description.I give only this condition: You may not use a religious text of any kind to make your case. Obviously if this thing is happening, then it will be recorded outside of purely religious texts.On the flipside I could ask you whether you were confident your practice would save you from the evil intentions of ogres. Would it bring elves and unicorns to your side (as everyone knows, the only plausible aid that would save an unarmed man from such beasts)? If not, what good is your science?Obviously that last one is a form of reductio.This has also been encapsulated in a well known and used mocking analogy...I have a charm to ward off tigers that I am willing to sell you. I guarantee that as long as you wear it you will never be attacked by tigers in Kansas. I and many others can guarantee this is true as we have all worn it and not one of us has been attacked by a tiger... Are you willing to buy it?

---

holmes...
But what a fool believes he sees,
no wise man has the power to reason away.
...(D. Bros)

Holmes,You say, confusing you and I. I want to include research into what you call "supernatural" causes, while retaining research into natural causese. You want to end research into causes that come from parts of the universe that you cannot sense (non-materialistic parts) where other intelligent beings might reside. I think dark matter, energy biology might be interesting and useful to explore. So, I choose a scientific method that lets me explore it, the H-D philosophy. H-D science was of course developed from NN science, and retains as many of its fruits as could be found. But, "compelling conclusions" smacks too much of dogmatic opinionation, scientific enemy #1. Meanwhile, the question of protocols and diligent adherence to them must always remain open. "I tried that." (without a materials and methods section to the report) is a very good reason to not publish a paper. No. My own personal experience is that where and how one tithes makes a huge difference in the result. It is a mystery why someone, either from an evangelical perspective, or a scientific perspective, hasn't tried to set up a tithing experiment, to "prove" God as He offers to be proven. According to Kuhn, the accepted methods of modern and historical science are a fraud, "defense of the faith" instead of "searching for the truth." Truth Seekers in science are few and far between. So, Yeshua was right once again. "Narrow is the gate (to truth), and few are they who find it." It is for this reason that we have a history satuarated with horror. "In my haste, I said that all men are liars" said the Psalmist. Nor could Diogenes find an honest man. Yes. Normally they say something to the effect that "We (physicists) are not ready to deal with these questions. One commented that dm/de were not necessary to the existence of a spiritual world inhabited by intelligent beings. A few have written books on the subject, though. Few seem to be reading the PEAR or other studies. I gave up on finding personal debates on the matter some time back, or I would have the names of the books handy. If you want me to do your research for you, to find this body of literature, let me know. I could probably get (back) there faster than you. It's not all that useful, actually. The physicists seem to have an inkling of what might be happening, but they are a long way from prayer experiments or tithing, basically psychology experiments. I addressed this back at the beginning of the thread. But, at this point, H-D science allows us to assess the plausibility of spiritual hypotheses, which, I guess, MN will not even attempt to consider. Also, H-D science appears to allow us to proceed with baby steps, and allows us to dissect out whatever truth there is to any hypothesis, as we work with it. Also, by putting all under Bayesian analysis, the whole process is quantified, normally a sign of progress in science. Also, in H-D science, there is a clear separation between understanding an idea and agreeing that it is plausible. Your consternation would never even be felt, if you were doing H-D science.
I was only saying that, as normally hypothesized, gods have certain properties. This does not defend the idea that they exist, only prepares one for the H-D testing of the hypothesis. The evidence that people are weird, which I accept, when used as an explanation that they have weird religious behaviors, is a circular argument. The question is, why are they weird? When we search for an animal model for weird behavior, what we find are things like "mad" dogs, which are "mad" because they are afflicted by another living beingsmaking them do weird things. Or, we find animals in zoos or cages, which are weird for that reason. (Hence, Desmond Morris' The Human Zoo). One of my Doctoral students, a parasitologist, said that there are other examples. A multi-host parasite with a catepillar-bird life cycle. The parasite makes the catepillar adopt weird behaviors so that it gets eater by the bird, that is the final host of the parasite.All these natural models would explain human weirdness as infections or imprisonment, by another malign living being. That the weirdness is so diverse only suggests a lot of different malign living beings with different agendas, or a very creative malign living being, who chooses to express its free will by varying its affect.That this behavior can be modelled in the nature we see is, I think, what Occham's razor is all about. We don't have to come up with very much new to explain the behavior.Note, by the way that the Sociobiologists explained religiosity by noting that humans had a fairly unusual, for mammals, passion for fathering, which in these modern times was frustrated by wars, economics, and drugs, that removed effective fathering from their lives. Hence, they invented God, the perfect father, to satisfy as a fantasy, this urge. They found, I believe, that for all the weird variations in religions, this common thread. Interesting hypothesis, don't you think? One I understand, but think is implausible, but still find useful. Demonstrating the power of H-D thinking. This is a dogmatic opinionation statement. H-D would say, "I personally ascribe a low plausibility to the theory presently offered by many to explain acupuncture, and will not be surprized if other predictions from that theory fail. Still, it is the best we have for now, so let's test it. Then we will see how it can be improved." Demon A spiritual (or dark matter) living being, with personality and free will, at war with other spiritual beings having a symbiotic relationship to humans. Hence, demons are malignant to humans. They are able to communicate with humans at conscious and subconscious levels, move electro-magnetic things (using either zero-point energy, or taking energy from surrounding air, making it colder.) They normally work by modifying human behavior, causing people to "go crazy", by creating fears, lies, deceptions, and other unrealistic mental states and emotions, leading to behaviors that are destructive, self-destructive. Being more powerful than humans, they cannot be studied scientifically by human without help from the symbiotic spiritual beings with whom they are at war (prayer). Read CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, and Pigs in the Parlor (forgot author) for an introduction to their natural history. No. No tigers in Kansas. But lots of crazy people, whose behavior is most easily explained by demons. But, I already have what is needed to keep myself more or less able to keep demons from doing much harm, to me, and to anyone who chooses to let me help them keep demon damage minimized.Did you bring up the physics stuff to excuse your staying ignorant of the references I pointed you too?Stephen

Message #83 informs the reader, "No tigers in Kansas. But lots of crazy people, whose behavior is most easily explained by demons."'But lots of crazy people' << Uh huh'Crazy people whose behavior is most easily explained by demons' << Again, too simplistic and escapist.'No tigers in Kansas' << Not yet, or not yet loose and on the prowl. But considering your theory of 'evil angels' who drag meteors into the path of Earth ... maybe you should consider buying that charm, Stephen.Holmes, does that charm happen to cause tigers to run in circles around palm trees until they render to butter?Peace.[This message has been edited by Abshalom, 01-17-2004]

Hey, guys,this for Holmes.Abshalom notes, regarding demons as an explanation for madness, This sounds to me like I win the Occham's razor debate!But "escapist?" Putting people away sounds escapist to me. Healing them at great cost seems like integrity. And wrestling with demons to drive them out is no fun, in my experience. But it does work.Cheers.

Stephan'Crazy people whose behavior is most easily explained by demons' << Again, too simplistic and escapist. LOL Just how do you suppose you win with Occam's razor?

---

"I am not young enough to know everything. "
Oscar Wilde

Re: Winning Occam's razor debateScrew Occam's Razor, and screw anyone's putting winning a prize over relieving the suffering of someone with a brain disease. We ain't talking the Oscars here.If anyone has seen someone suffering from schizo-affective disorder, bipolar disorder, etc., and I'm sure many of you have, shame on anyone who would give the sufferers or their family false hope via promises of relief through hocus pocus.And shame on anyone who thinks that their own reward for winning an argument is greater than the reward for delivering relief to the sufferer.Keep peace in mind.Edit: This message is not directed at Sidelined. I just happened to punch the reply button at the bottom of that post to deliver this message which is directed at anyone who advocates hocus pocus cures for serious medical conditions.[This message has been edited by Abshalom, 01-18-2004]

quote:

---

This sounds to me like I win the Occham's razor debate!

---

If you believe that a charge of "simplistic" means that the theory you advocate is supported by Occam's razor... I win.I sincerely hope this is a joke.If not, let me put it this way. "The hullabaloos did it." That is simplistic. But under no circumstances is that a simple theory, with the simplest mechanisms.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

quote:

---

You want to end research into causes that come from parts of the universe that you cannot sense (non-materialistic parts) where other intelligent beings might reside.

---

This is incorrect. I have already said this can be done. It simply has to be done in a more rigorous manner. If there is interaction between material and nonmaterial entities then they become part of our model. We can see this is in ALL of the forces we currently include in our model of the Universe.If you want to jump the gun, and say there is a force acting which we have yet to detect, that is fine by me. You can even use H-D to root such forces out. But then when investigating them for the sake of knowledge about them, MN must be used. Or it will have to be reinvented which is what our last post just showed.

quote:

---

"I tried that." (without a materials and methods section to the report) is a very good reason to not publish a paper.

---

You are picking and choosing. I would say methods which do not explain how they have isolated the mechanism under consideration are a good reason to not publish a paper. How can you say I am wrong, but you are not?

quote:

---

According to Kuhn,

---

This does nothing to refute my statement. H-D is a pseudoscience, if it does not take care to isolate the mechanisms under study, and yet makes claims to knowledge, or greater plausibility. The mixed results, and your then moving closer to MN to make the study more definitive prove my point in this matter.It is not one experiment, nor one man's repeated experiments which create a base of knowledge. It is a myriad of people conducting the same experiment and coming to understand the differences in their results which create a basis for knowledge.

quote:

---

Yes. Normally they say something to the effect that...

---

Yeah, what I said. Don't bother digging up anything.

quote:

---

But, at this point, H-D science allows us to assess the plausibility of spiritual hypotheses, which, I guess, MN will not even attempt to consider.

---

This is incorrect. MN simply will not UNTIL other, simpler mechanisms have failed to provide an explanation. It is about priority in research, and building based on what one knows, rather than making assumptions to jump farther than one should.

quote:

---

H-D science appears to allow us to proceed with baby steps

---

This is also incorrect. There are no babysteps in making a grand assumption, in order to manipulate data so that it appears to support the assumption.The only thing H-D science does in babysteps, is go back through the process we used to get to MN.

quote:

---

I was only saying that, as normally hypothesized, gods have certain properties. This does not defend the idea that they exist, only prepares one for the H-D testing of the hypothesis.

---

You of course left out the part of my criticism which noted that not everyone agrees with what you stated as "everyone knows". Once again, the problem of discrepencies between experiences.

quote:

---

The evidence that people are weird, which I accept, when used as an explanation that they have weird religious behaviors, is a circular argument

---

This is actually not a circular argument at all, but does not matter if it was as this is not the argument I was making.

quote:

---

All these natural models would explain human weirdness as infections or imprisonment, by another malign living being.

---

Show me one where the malign living being infecting any animal has been shown to be of a nonmaterial nature and you can begin your argument. Otherwise, it has just been cut to pieces.But what I find strange is that you had to jump to disease. I would totally grant that damage to the brain (of whatever PHYSICAL KIND) is able to create odd mental states.That is not what is the case for the examples I gave at all. What we are dealing with is people making mistakes with respect to perception and attribution. This is possible when there is no damage to anything at all. It's called a mistake, or overreaching.You see a spot on the horizon of a desert. It looks to be an oasis. That is what your brain attributes to the shimmering shadow, because it is trying to come up with an explanation for the inputs it is getting. To bad it is just odd refractions of light.Same goes for other unexplained phenomena. When we search for explanations without seeking more evidence (ie making assumptions or presumptive judgements) we are prone to error in this way.Clearly this is what the cargo cults and aztecs did. We can even see human desire to anthropomorphize objects as if they had intelligence in daily life, though we know this is wrong. It is projection of personal feelings about an object. This happens more in children (who have less experience) than in adults.Why must we jump to disease to explain every day states of affairs?

quote:

---

That this behavior can be modelled in the nature we see is, I think, what Occham's razor is all about. We don't have to come up with very much new to explain the behavior.

---

You must come up with quite a few new things. Does this biologist friend of yours describe demons possessing the animals, or corporeal parasites for which there is documented EXPERIENCE and STUDIED MECHANISMS?The best you can say in such a comparison as the one you have made... if you are to try and use Occam's razor... is that it must be some sort of infection damaging people's minds.Otherwise you are inventing whole new mechanisms and entities for which there are no documented experiences or studied mechanisms. Again, there simply are no babysteps, and no support from Occam's razor.This is it...I gave you another round because you finally dealt with the issue. But you know as well as I do... if you know occam's razor at all... that your argument must be restrained to parasites and physical damage, if it is going to use the animal analogy.If you have some way out of this, you need to present it in your next post.I am not allowing for wiggle room in our debates. From now on, I need for you to stick to the key element under discussion. Occam's razor is one of the big weapons you decided to draw, and it cuts both ways. I do not see how you are about to escape this last cut.

quote:

---

This is a dogmatic opinionation statement. H-D would say,

---

Apparently unless H-D was discussing MN, or theories which come from MN.By the way I did not give the all the reasons why I found the theory behind accupuncture to be incorrect. It had to do with coming to understand the practice of accupuncture and the major disconnects between practice and theory (and in fact the contradictions). Much of it is handwaving, mystical hoo ha.I began some basic training with a master who trained from masters in China. He was one to point out the unknown quantities that still exist as to how it works.Are you going to tell me something different with this H-D science of yours? You sure seem qualified to make opinionated statements about others' opinions, while bashing others for doing the same (and who happen to have a bit of experience).

quote:

---

(preceeded by complex description of demons)...Being more powerful than humans, they cannot be studied scientifically by human without help from the symbiotic spiritual beings with whom they are at war (prayer). Read CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, and Pigs in the Parlor (forgot author) for an introduction to their natural history.

---

They cannot be studied scientifically without the aid of other equally problematic entities. But CS Lewis can help us out?Either all of this, or people make a mistake and ascribe powers that do not exist, to natural phenomenon... which we have seen humans do (without the aid of parasites).Occam's razor anyone?

quote:

---

But lots of crazy people, whose behavior is most easily explained by demons.

---

Yet animals act crazy because of physical damage to their brains and not nonmaterial demons.... hmmm.

quote:

---

Did you bring up the physics stuff to excuse your staying ignorant of the references I pointed you too?

---

No. You brought up entities posited by physics. You then appeared to imply there was some connection between the physicists studying those phenomena, and groups that jump the gun and ascribe characteristics to these entities we are not even sure really exist. So I asked how the two connected.I have yet to hear you make a statement that lends any credibility to your sources. If you are unable to grasp how occam's razor applies to this situation, and it is because of these sources, then I am only remaining ignorant about other people's willful ignorances.Not much loss there.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

quote:

---

You can even use H-D to root such forces out. But then when investigating them for the sake of knowledge about them, MN must be used.

---

Not picking on Holmes here, because a lot of people do the same thing.It would be best to define your abreviations in each message. Even something such as "ToE" (Theory of Evolution).Now, I know MN = Materialist Naturalism, but in skimming upstring, I didn't pick up what H-D is.Adminnemooseus