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Author Topic:   The Right Way to Debunk
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 1 of 148 (439837)
12-10-2007 4:21 PM


A recent comment article in Skeptical Inquirer discussed the difficulties inherent in debunking persistent myths, and it described how debunking myths can actually be counterproductive. It mentioned the following:
  • Research shows that providing correct information to someone who believes otherwise (the example was flu vaccines) will change their belief for only a short while. Within a few days people revert to their prior belief, and even worse, there is a strong tendency to recall the provider of the correct information as actually supporting their incorrect belief.
  • The number of Arabs who do not believe Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks is soaring. The Bush administration runs web sites in seven languages to counter this, but apparently the more we combat the belief the more widely it spreads.
  • Hearing the same thing over and over again convinces people it is true. The brain apparently is not very discriminating about the quality of the source or the number of sources. An unreliable source saying the same thing over and over and over again is very effective. Apparently people are not very good at remembering how they learned something.
  • A denial like "I did not harass her" succeeds only in more firmly associating the person with harassment in people's minds.
The article concludes:
Shankar Vedantam in Skeptical Inquirer writes:
Mayo (Ruth Mayo, a cognitive social psychologist at Hebrew University in Jeruasalem) found that rather than deny a false claim, it is better to make a completely new assertion that makes no reference to the original myth. Rather than say, as Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) recently did during a marathon congressional debate, that "Saddam Hussein did not attack the United States; Osama bin Laden did," Mayo says it would be better to say something like, "Osama bin Laden was the only person responsible for the September 11 attacks" - and not mention Hussein at all.
EvC Forum attracts a great many creationists who declare their views, then ignore the rebuttals and instead just restate their views. Over and over again. Attempts to get them to go beyond restatements of their initial position are not often successful. Detailed dissections of their position are just met with more redeclarations.
I wonder if perhaps a better approach might be to just plainly state the correct information without detail or elaboration. For example, if such a debater were to declare, "Secular science wants to hide the controversy from our children," the appropriate and simple reply would be, "There is near universal acceptance of evolution by scientists, and we teach what scientists believe." If and when the debater moves beyond simple restatements of their position then others could move the debate forward with him, but as long as he remains stuck in parrot mode, so could everyone else.
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by Silent H, posted 12-10-2007 6:44 PM Percy has replied
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 3 of 148 (439886)
12-10-2007 7:06 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by Silent H
12-10-2007 6:44 PM


I think that'd be great if the discussion took that route. The proposal only applies to those who are stuck in a rut repeating themselves while ignoring rebuttals.
Another example: A creationist keeps saying, "More and more scientists are recognizing the bankruptcy of evolution and are accepting the truth of creation." Naturally the repetitions won't be worded identically, and the repetitions wouldn't necessarily be in consecutive posts and could be interspersed with other facets of the discussion, but if he won't drop into discussion mode on this point then detailed repeated rebuttals of his position are actually counterproductive because they, apparently according to the research, only indicate to people that something must be rotten in Denmark.
The correct response would therefore be, "Almost all scientists accept evolution," with no acknowledgment or even hint of the details of the argument from the other side.
--Percy

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 8 of 148 (439911)
12-10-2007 8:36 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by Chiroptera
12-10-2007 8:11 PM


Re: Ha!
The research says that rebuttals made within the context of the accusation fail. The famous example is, "Are you still beating your wife?" The knee-jerk response ("NO!") loses outright, while the reply, "I've been head-over-heels in love with my wife for over 40 years," wins.
Think of how poorly the alternative has been working here. A creationist can't get past his initial statement, maybe for example this time it's, "Scientists are biased against ID and won't allow the research to be published," so you go to the moderation thread and request intervention and a moderator steps in and makes several requests to the creationist to address the rebuttals, which doesn't happen, so the creationist gets suspended several times, and now he's sprinkling charges of discrimination throughout his posts, and he's still calling scientists biased, and it all looks pretty bad.
A simple statement of, "Scientific journals will always publish good science," and just leaving it at that unless and until the creationist starts supporting his initial assertion, I think might work much better.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by Chiroptera, posted 12-10-2007 8:11 PM Chiroptera has not replied

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 Message 9 by Silent H, posted 12-10-2007 9:01 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 10 of 148 (440012)
12-11-2007 8:59 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by Silent H
12-10-2007 9:01 PM


Re: Ha!
Silent H writes:
Perhaps a more direct response, might be to ask essentially what I've been trying to get since I've been here... What research won't they allow to be published?
Sure, that would be the first question. My suggestion is for what to do after you've asked that question 4 or 5 different ways and the creationist is still just repeating his initial claim.
What happens is that the more and more you attempt to get the creationist to engage the discussion, the more and more you slip into his context, and then all is lost and lurkers are left asking, "Why the heck won't scientists let creationists publish their research?"
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Fix quote.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by Silent H, posted 12-10-2007 9:01 PM Silent H has replied

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 Message 11 by Silent H, posted 12-11-2007 4:11 PM Percy has not replied
 Message 12 by Kitsune, posted 12-11-2007 4:29 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 14 of 148 (440209)
12-11-2007 10:07 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by Kitsune
12-11-2007 4:29 PM


Re: Ha!
LindaLou writes:
Try addressing the actual evidence Percy.
Suggestions along these lines have been made a couple times already in this thread, and my response will be very similar. The evidence is a great starting point. My suggestion is for what to do after you've presented evidence for 4 or 5 posts and the creationist is still just repeating his initial claim.
--Percy

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 Message 12 by Kitsune, posted 12-11-2007 4:29 PM Kitsune has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 34 of 148 (440468)
12-13-2007 10:38 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by NosyNed
12-13-2007 10:08 AM


Re: in regards to lurkers
Percy writes:
The right way to debunk is the topic. I think Percy is telling us that you simply answer each of the assertions with "this isn't true" or "that is wrong" or somesuch.
I want to be sure it is understood that I believe that addressing claims with evidence-based rebuttals represents the core of what we want to do here, but I'm suggesting that a different approach might be called for when someone is only repeating the same assertion over and over again. Once the number of repetitions makes it clear that this is what is happening, then I think this other approach might be appropriate.
The approach requires avoiding the context of the assertion as much as is possible. The appropriate reply to the repeated assertion, "Evolution is just a fairy tale for grownups," is not, "Evolution is not a fairy tale, it is science." As soon as you say "fairy tale" you're just banging home that false assertion one more time.
Rather, just use the simple reply, "Evolution is a well established scientific theory founded upon evidence gathered over more than a century and a half."
To repeat: when confronted with someone in parrot mode, avoid their context at all costs in your response. To do otherwise just helps cement the false assertion in the minds of others.
--Percy

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 Message 33 by NosyNed, posted 12-13-2007 10:08 AM NosyNed has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 35 by Kitsune, posted 12-13-2007 12:36 PM Percy has not replied
 Message 39 by RAZD, posted 12-13-2007 3:40 PM Percy has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 42 of 148 (440696)
12-14-2007 8:07 AM
Reply to: Message 41 by Kitsune
12-14-2007 3:08 AM


Re: The irony is killing me
LindaLou writes:
I found out about Rupert Sheldrake.
How should this be interpreted? Do you mean, "I found out about Rupert Sheldrake and discovered the true science behind alternative medicine"? Or do you mean, "I found out about Rupert Sheldrake and now understand the methods employed by charlatans"?
As I said earlier, the evidence for evolution is there for me to see. I can see fossils, I can see that they came out of strata in the geological column. It's a bit different from telling me that this drug will help me or this herb will harm me; that interpretation is more prone to being biased by the agenda of the claimant -- even if these opinions come from clinical studies published in journals.
From the perspective of using the scientific method to understand the real world, there is no difference between evolution and medicine. For some reason your analytical mind turns off when it comes to health claims, hence you end up casting accusations of bias at medical researchers while believing they don't apply to evolution researchers.
Yet your "friends" over at that other website are constantly casting charges of bias at evolutionists. They're employing the exact same devices against both evolution and traditional medicine that you employ only against traditional medicine.
But it doesn't matter what the target of these fallacious methods are, these methods are still fallacious. It isn't the targeted scientific fields that are at fault but the methods being employed against them. Anecdotal evidence is the worst sort, except of course for made-up evidence. Until you understand that it is your flawed opinion of what constitutes valid evidence that stands at the core of your wildly inconsistent positions, your mind will continue to straddle the rational and irrational worlds.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 41 by Kitsune, posted 12-14-2007 3:08 AM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 43 by Kitsune, posted 12-14-2007 8:39 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 48 of 148 (440752)
12-14-2007 12:04 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by Kitsune
12-14-2007 8:39 AM


Re: The irony is killing me
LindaLou writes:
The herbs and vitamins I take work for me...
Let's not get into this again. Suffice to say that the core of your problem is not distinguishing between good and bad evidence. As long as you're willing to interpret bad evidence as credible you'll continue to draw conclusions at odds with reality.
...they do appear to have a redeeming virtue. That is, they do not allow themselves to be limited by what orthodoxy says is right and correct.
Ignoring orthodoxy is fine, that's how Nobel prizes are won. It is ignoring good evidence while accepting bad evidence that you and this crowd have in common. Alternative medicine is stuck at the same level of progress as 50 and 100 years ago, and will still be stuck just where it is now 50 and 100 years from today, because alternative medicine doesn't seek good evidence and so can't make any progress.
If you want to find good science being done so you can examine their practices and see what they look like, look to where progress is being made.
You seem to be frustrated that the discussions on the creationist forum jump around everywhich way. I agree, it's hard to keep people on topic. I also think RAZD is going to end up banging his head against the wall with the particular people he's talking with. Can I ask what drives you both to talk with people like that? What makes you feel it is a good use of your time?
Not very much drives me to talk to such people at all. If they keep displaying attention deficit disorder I'll soon be gone. From evolution to the resurrection to the origin of the solar system in the space of just a few messages - amazing!
--Percy

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 Message 43 by Kitsune, posted 12-14-2007 8:39 AM Kitsune has replied

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 Message 49 by Kitsune, posted 12-14-2007 4:08 PM Percy has not replied
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 63 of 148 (440912)
12-15-2007 8:05 AM
Reply to: Message 58 by PaulK
12-15-2007 5:17 AM


But whether or not Buz's flood ideas are supported by any evidence, I agree that the discussion technique I suggested should work for any position in any debate when confronted with someone who only repeats their basic position. For example:
Evolutionist: There is no evidence for a young earth.
Creationist: What about the discrepancies in all the dating techniques?
Evolutionist: There is no evidence for a young earth.
Creationist: What about polonium halos.
Evolutionist: There is no evidence for a young earth.
Creationist: What about all evidence for a recent global flood in the geological layers?
Evolutionist: There is no evidence for young earth.
It is now time for the creationist to revert to merely stating his position until the evolutionist gives some indication of wanting to move the discussion forward, e.g.:
Creationist: All the evidence indicates a young earth.
Evolutionist: There is no evidence for a young earth.
Creationist: All the evidence indicates a young earth.
Evolutionist: There is no evidence for a young earth.
Creationist: All the evidence indicates a young earth.
Evolutionist: What evidence?
Voil! And this avoids the appearance of bias when a moderator has to show up and force the recalcitrant evolutionist into discussing constructively.
--Percy

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 64 of 148 (440913)
12-15-2007 8:23 AM
Reply to: Message 62 by Kitsune
12-15-2007 7:54 AM


Re: The irony is killing me
LindaLou writes:
My system of deciding what seems to be true and what isn't, is not the same as yours. This is probably an obvious point.
Well, DUH!
Do you not ever get any hunches or gut feelings? I believe those have their place.
Are we talking about science? If so, then yes, of course hunches and gut feelings and dreams and inspirations and guesses and intuition have their place. These provide a continual source of ideas for science. But the hunch is the beginning of the science, not the end. After the hunch the scientist goes out and finds the evidence that proves his hunch either correct or incorrect or perhaps somewhat correct.
Your problem, a huge one condemning you to a life of confusion, is that you give as much credibility to hunches and anecdote as to scientific evidence. There is one best method we know of to establish what is likely to be true about the real world, and that is to gather and analyze objective evidence using the scientific method, and then to replicate the process multiple times. Scientific evidence is also the best way to debunk a position, given an opponent not operating in parrot mode.
I have always believed, ever since I discovered that "skeptic" was a label people were applying to themselves with pride, that it is a horribly misleading term. When people hear "skeptic" they don't think "honest seeker of truth," they think naysayer, doubter and dour negativist, and that's not what skeptics are. A skeptic is someone who requires quality evidence for what he believes to be true about the real world, and that's all.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 62 by Kitsune, posted 12-15-2007 7:54 AM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 65 by Kitsune, posted 12-15-2007 12:14 PM Percy has replied
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 67 of 148 (440940)
12-15-2007 2:49 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Kitsune
12-15-2007 12:14 PM


Re: The irony is killing me
LindaLou writes:
It's hard to have bias about a radiometric date for a rock; it's a simple fact (providing, of course, that all due consideration has been taken for possible contamination and other errors).
You can say this while in the midst of a debate with creationists about the age of the earth? Of course it's possible to be biased about radiometric dating, and much else, apparently.
What I was doing with y'all earlier was engaging in the battle of the clinical studies.
Actually, the battle was trying to get you to tell the difference between good and bad evidence. If you could do that then you would be able to differentiate between a good study and a poor one. But your criteria for accepting a study's results is not the quality of the study but the degree to which it confirms what you already believe. In fact, you don't even need a study or even science to accept something, just a popular press book.
LindaLou writes:
Percy writes:
A skeptic is someone who requires quality evidence for what he believes to be true about the real world, and that's all.
It means ruling out a lot of other possible sources of evidence because they don't fit into the scientific box.
No, LindaLou, it does not mean that. Anything in the universe that we can detect through our senses, directly or indirectly, can be the object of scientific study. That excludes nothing.
The same approach to studying the universe, namely science, produced both the evolutionary views you agree with and the medical views you do not. Yes, you are very confused because your perspective contains a severe contradiction which you're unable to acknowledge. You can't defend the science that supports evolutionary views while criticizing the science that supports medical views, because at heart they are the same science. These contradictory qualities are readily apparent to people on both sides of the fence, both here and over at la-la land, as is evidenced by the fact that you're receiving fairly similar treatment in both places.
I truly hope your views don't end up hurting you, but herbs are dangerous because they are dirty drugs, and rejecting the scientifically established findings of science carries additional dangers. The greatest risks probably stem from eschewing traditional medical treatment for some condition that in the end turns out to be serious and to have required timely treatment. The increased health and longevity of modern populations is due to advances in traditional medicine, not alternative medicine which never produces any advances except in the size of the wallets of those selling to their gullible adherents. Rejecting the findings of something that has been as incredibly successful as mainstream medicine is unlikely to produce positive results.
In your debate with Russ you're well aware that he's trying to sell you snake-oil, but at least Russ is consistent. He sells snake-oil not only in debate, but in real-life, too.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Minor clean up.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Kitsune, posted 12-15-2007 12:14 PM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 68 by Kitsune, posted 12-15-2007 3:50 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 72 of 148 (440967)
12-15-2007 4:56 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by Kitsune
12-15-2007 3:50 PM


Re: The irony is killing me
LindaLou writes:
Dirty drugs? Bloody hell. And you sit there and lecture me about how scientists use logic and are not biased.
I think you have to decide which side of the fence you're on. The same spirit and methods of scientific discovery gave us both evolution and mainstream medicine. There is at heart no difference between evolutionary scientists and traditional medical researchers, nor in the quality of their science.
If those over at la-la land are correct about the bias of medical researchers then they are also correct about the bias of evolutionary scientists. It cannot be the case that some fields of science that study real-world evidence can be biased and others not, because they're all looking at evidence from the same place: reality.
Evolution and medicine can even both be considered in the broader field of biology - it's not like we're comparing psychology and geology. There is no significant real-world difference in the quality of evolutionary and medical science, and the only reason you see a difference is that you agree with one and not the other.
I don't know why you took sudden issue with my reference to herbs as dirty drugs. I've explained this before. The problem with herbs is that rather being a distillment of a single or at least a few known active elements like traditional drugs, they instead contain hundreds of chemicals, many of the effects of which are unknown. In many cases the only proof we have of the safety of these compounds is experience and anecdote, which is incapable of teasing out subtle or long-term effects, and as seen with ephedra the unknown effects can even be short term and fatal.
This is the kind of evidence that successfully debunks claims that herbs are generally safe, and the only answer you've had for such evidence is to call upon anecdotal evidence to which you give equal weight with scientific evidence. Until you stop marching into debates with inferior evidence of the worst kind you'll continue to get beat up.
LindaLou writes:
Come on, we've talked about these things already. This thread is not the place to resurrect them.
I've never lost sight of the topic, I'm just using examples familiar to you. The best way to debunk a position is with scientific evidence and argument. It's clear you still don't understand that this is the primary point, because you go on to say:
Science was wrong about many things in the past. Medicine was too.
The claim has ever been that science and medicine are never wrong, most of all because this is obviously not true. The claim is that scientific methods are the best way by far to find out what is most likely true about the real world. When science and medicine are wrong the correct answers are not to be found in hunches and anecdote, they're to be found in better and more rigorous science and medicine. In particular, you do not go off on a debunking mission armed with hunches and anecdote, you go off armed with science. It doesn't matter whether you're debunking creationists or naturopaths, science is the only effective debunking tool.
You can't be a visionary and an orthodox practitioner at the same time.
These are categories and rules of your own invention. A primary requirement to doing science is to pay attention to the evidence from reality and follow it where it leads, and from this simple approach we've had visionaries from Galileo to Newton to Pasteur to Einstein. When you ignore reality, the habit of alternative medicine practitioners, actual contributions to human knowledge about our universe are impossible, and you get things like homeopathy and chiropractic that are perpetuated by ignorance instead of knowledge.
You should look into Sheldrake's ideas with the goal of debunking them by demanding real world evidence for claims. There's nothing to fear from this approach, for if Sheldrake's ideas are true representations of reality then the evidence will be there.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by Kitsune, posted 12-15-2007 3:50 PM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 73 by Kitsune, posted 12-15-2007 5:16 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 80 of 148 (440993)
12-15-2007 6:18 PM
Reply to: Message 73 by Kitsune
12-15-2007 5:16 PM


Re: The irony is killing me
LindaLou writes:
You have refused to entertain any ideas that once people -- with the beliefs, judgements, personal experiences, knowledge, ignorance, and so forth that are inherent in the human condition -- get us from point A (the subject under study) to point B (the conclusion), the result is usually a pure reflection of a pure truth. Balderdash...
You believe that the end results of the scientific process usually point to the truth...
Your lectures to me about science always leading us to truth...
I think what you're trying to say is that you think I believe the scientific method leads to truth. I've never said this and I don't believe this. I don't even know how you define truth. Is a truth timeless and unchanging? If so then it couldn't possibly be science, because science is tentative.
Science is the best way we have of understanding the way the real world works. Confusing it with truth just gets into definitional, or even worse, theological discussions. If someone wants to call Planck's constant a truth then good for them, but in science it's just a way of helping us create accurate mathematical models of the real world. Leave truth to the theologians and let the scientists do science.
If at some point I start talking about truth then you can start questioning my statements about truth, but that time hasn't come yet, and is very unlikely to.
What I've actually said about science is that it is the best method we have for telling us what is most likely true about reality. There are no claims that science is perfect or flawless. The claim I've made is that the scientific method is far, far superior to your preferred methods of hunches and anecdotes. However imperfect and flawed you want to argue science might be, your methods are far worse. There's no comparison.
It is entirely possible for scientists or doctors to become so complacent and arrogant that they have something sorted out, when in reality they are hugely mistaken. You seem to think this is a rare occurrence.
In other words, scientists and doctors are imperfect people. As are naturopaths, right? And being people, naturopaths would be as vulnerable to faults like complacency and arrogance as scientists and doctors, right? Except that because their ideas and methods are not based upon sound science, there is much greater potential for their human foibles to express themselves in ways dangerous to their patients, right?
I'm not going to debunk Sheldrake in any way.
Debunking is just a way of saying that you're going to apply the standards of science to evaluating claims. You know how the show Mythbusters has both the "Busted" and "Confirmed" results? Well, debunking works the same way. The outcome of debunking can be confirmation, or it can be exposure of flaws, weaknesses and worse.
What I meant was that you should approach Sheldrake's ideas critically by requiring that they be backed by valid evidence. If his ideas are representative of reality then the evidence will be there.
I'm going to watch his experiments unfold and see what data comes out of them. It's fascinating and original work.
Nothing wrong with entertainment, but don't send him any money!
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 73 by Kitsune, posted 12-15-2007 5:16 PM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 82 by Kitsune, posted 12-16-2007 2:42 AM Percy has replied
 Message 99 by iano, posted 12-16-2007 2:00 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 87 of 148 (441058)
12-16-2007 8:39 AM
Reply to: Message 82 by Kitsune
12-16-2007 2:42 AM


Scientific Methodology is at the Core of Debunking
LindaLou writes:
Interesting. Particularly, how you seem to believe it's OK to place aspects of reality in separate boxes rather than attempting to integrate them.
You're again making an incorrect interpretation of what I said. I don't know how you define truth, but science studies the reality that can be studied using the five senses because things that are real have an effect on actual matter and energy. To the extent that the truth you're talking about can't be detected in this way it isn't science.
It sounds like you believe there are aspects of reality that can't be studied by science, but since science can study anything we can see, hear, touch, taste or smell either directly or indirectly, there isn't much room in reality for these other aspects. The paranormal effects you mention disappear as soon as objective scientific methods are applied. Scientific researchers of the paranormal, of which there are a few, are stuck at the same level of progress as 50 years ago. The paranormal study group at Princeton University here in the states recently closed its doors.
In almost every post you introduce a new accusation out of the blue, and this time it was "reductionist materialism." In this thread we've been talking generally about science, and nothing we've said is identifiably reductionist. Reductionism is a tool of science to be applied as appropriate. Coragyps studies ecology in the aggregate where reductionist approaches would, I expect, be largely inappropriate, while WoundedKing sounds like he spends time in the lab, or at least has spent much time in the lab in the past, where reductionist approaches might be more likely to bear fruit.
I can tell that you believe there is more to reality than science can study, but that would mean there's more to reality than can be seen, heard, touched, tasted or smelled, and so if you want to study these things scientifically you must figure out how you're going to detect them. The key to understanding anything is to bring scientific methods to their study. Objective, reliable observations and evidence lie at the core, as measured by replicability.
If you want to understand the best methods of science then you should examine those fields where the most progress is being made. Genetics, cosmology, astronomy and particle physics (because the Large Hadron Collider will be coming on line soon) come to mind.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by Kitsune, posted 12-16-2007 2:42 AM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 88 by Kitsune, posted 12-16-2007 11:20 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 89 of 148 (441081)
12-16-2007 11:56 AM
Reply to: Message 88 by Kitsune
12-16-2007 11:20 AM


Re: Scientific Methodology is at the Core of Debunking
LindaLou, in each post you find a new accusation to cast. I think you're going to have to work through your problems with science on your own. I already told you that science is not inherently reductionist and that it is a tool to be applied as appropriate. If you want to insist on a broadly inappropriate application of the reductionist label and cast derogatory labels like scientism at me and others here then you'll have to find someone else to debate with and another thread to debate in. I'm not here to get into a name-calling contest, I'm just here to describe how science can be used to examine claims in an objective and systematic way.
I can't force you to accept the proper definition of science. If you want to understand the best scientific practices, the ones I've described generally in this thread, then you should examine those of the most rapidly advancing scientific fields, like cosmology, genetics, astronomy and particle physics.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 88 by Kitsune, posted 12-16-2007 11:20 AM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 91 by Kitsune, posted 12-16-2007 12:24 PM Percy has not replied

  
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