The Right Way to Debunk

Aren't they? Some people believe that this is the way God talks to them. For myself, I don't make wild guesses, I consider things carefully. But I have also learned to trust my instincts and listen to what my inner self is telling me. I can't see how this can be explained to anyone who has sworn spirituality and religion off as delusions, but as I've grown older I've discovered these to be useful ways to the truth for me.Maybe that's why I loved Star Wars so much when I was a kid. "Use the force, trust your instincts" may be watered-down pop religion platitudes, but they're also deceptively poignant.

I refer you to Message 73. Keep studying me. I'm not your usual sample in a petrie dish.

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You can't be a visionary and an orthodox practitioner at the same time. They're just not very compatible.

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Nonsense.Einstein, Gould, Elderedge, E.O. Wilson, Pasteur, Feynman, Hubble, etc., were all great visionary scientists and were all really really good at doing science using the most strict, orthodox practices.

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Use the force, trust your instincts

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In the Star Wars universe, we eventually learn that The Force is simply a product of a symbiotic relationship between humans and mitichlorians, and some people are born with more or fewer, and that is what determines how strong The force is within an individual.Insincts, of course, are also biological in nature.

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But I have also learned to trust my instincts and listen to what my inner self is telling me.

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So, what are you doing to correct for your personal bias? You can't avoid having it, you know. None of us can.

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I can't see how this can be explained to anyone who has sworn spirituality and religion off as delusions, but as I've grown older I've discovered these to be useful ways to the truth for me.

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How do you know you've arrived at the 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. 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? 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. Nothing wrong with entertainment, but don't send him any money! --Percy

LindaLou And do you suppose that you could act just on instinct before having given careful consideration over the years to learning subtle "rules of thumb" gained from experience?
Why not always act on gut instinct and never bother to hold any consideration at all.

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"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."Albert Einstein

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 say you don't like the label "skeptic." I've been reading up on this a little more -- the position on science, logic and truth that you and Nator and many others take here. I think the term "reductionistic materialism" is apt. Do you disagree? The disagreements I have about your own position can be explained very well in that context. It is indeed biased in its own way, though its adherents fervently deny any such thing. Its modern roots are in the scientific Enlightenment, though the essence of the idea began with the ancient Greeks, Parmenides in particular.And to get back to the topic here, it is that point of view from which you and the TV people like Randi "debunk." The problem is, you will truthfully claim you have successfully debunked according to your own system, but people outside that system will not ascribe the "truth" to your success that you seem to believe is warranted. For example, you may think you have shown that paranormal experiences are nonsense, but people will know you are talking nonsense because they will carry on having their experiences. All the while of course, your biased system compels you to claim that they are all deluded, every last one of them. And you can pat yourself on the back for being part of an enlightened academic elite who are above such nonsensical delusions. Is it a nice club?Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

I don't see why this all can't be integrated. Logic and science can be very useful. But personal experience, instinct, and (gasp) sometimes even anecdotes can be useful too. IMHO.Your quote from Einstein is excellent.

Yes, very disappointing. That's why in my house we refer to the first three films as the "real" Star Wars. The subsequent three were total pants. As an adult I'm not sure I'd be much of a fan of the original three either, but they somehow went straight to my child's consciousness and switched some lights on. That's a nicely candid statement. It fits well with what I was saying about science being a system constructed and administered by humans, and therefore being subject to human strengths and weaknesses, including bias. How do I correct for my own-? By trying to be consciously aware of its existence and making myself try to look objectively at other positions I disagree with. It's a hard thing to do but those who aren't willing to engage in that work end up condemning themselves to a life of narrow-minded ignorance. Why else would I hang around forums where people keep wanting to argue with me LOL.

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That's a nicely candid statement. It fits well with what I was saying about science being a system constructed and administered by humans, and therefore being subject to human strengths and weaknesses, including bias.

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I am sorry. I did not complete my statement above, as I should have.The part I left off was that the scientific method is the system we humans have developed that is designed specifically to identify, eliminate and corrrect for all sorts of bias and errors in thinking that we humans are known to be prone to. It is not perfect, but it is very effective, and it is the best system we've got.It is no coincidence that the development of the modern scientific method coincided with the extremely rapid progress in knowledge about nature that has occurred in the last several centuries.The methods you prefer to employ to discover what is probably true about nature were discarded as extremely, hopelessly biased and unreliable a long time ago.That means that Naturopathy and other pseudoscientific methods that claim to have obstained some knowledge about nature, but use non-scientific methods are without any doubt going to be doomed to contain more bias and be more subject to human thought errors, since they do not use the method known to be the most effective at correcting for them, if they are tested at all.

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How do I correct for my own-? By trying to be consciously aware of its existence and making myself try to look objectively at other positions I disagree with. It's a hard thing to do but those who aren't willing to engage in that work end up condemning themselves to a life of narrow-minded ignorance. Why else would I hang around forums where people keep wanting to argue with me LOL.

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I think you should try harder. Seriously, though, you have pretty much admitted that nothing could possibly change your mind about your particular health experiences, and that you are very emotionally resistant to the idea that ghosts and spirits probably don't exist.Those statements don't really jibe with your statement above, and neither have your ways of arguing your points.You aren't anywhere near as self-aware, objective and open-minded as you think you are.

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Yes, very disappointing.

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I completely agree. Such a boring cop-out by Lucas. The Force should have remained a mystical thing.I mean, WHAT it Obi-Wan Kenobi doing looking in a microscope??All wrong. Edited by nator, : No reason given.Edited by nator, : No reason given.Edited by nator, : No reason given.

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But personal experience, instinct, and (gasp) sometimes even anecdotes can be useful too. IMHO.

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Nobody's saying these things aren't useful.I'm bloody grateful for instinct when I come close to touching something very hot, for example.However a personal experience as related to me in an anecdote is not very useful to me if I am, say, a researcher studying the effect of diet on the onset of cancer. Sure, anecdotes can be the impetus to asking a scientific question, but that's where the usefulness ends.What I need in order to learn anything about the effect of diet on cancer isn't stories and anecdotes, but controlled, double-blind studies.I will echo Percy's observation that your problem is that you can't seem to be able to tell the difference between good evidence and poor evidence, and therefore you consider hugely biased hunches and anecdotes to be just as informative and meaningful as rigorous double blind scientific studies which are specifically designed to eliminate as much bias as possible.Until you correct this rather monumental error in your thinking, I am afraid that your conclusions can't help but be fatally flawed most of the time.In an message above, you said:

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I can't see how this can be explained to anyone who has sworn spirituality and religion off as delusions, but as I've grown older I've discovered these to be useful ways to the truth for me.

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You didn't answer my follow-up question, so I'll ask it again.How do you know you've arrived at the truth regarding what your inner self and hunches tell you?It is remarkable how you can defend your own use of biased hunches and anecdote at the same time you criticize your opponents on that other message board for making the very same error!Edited by nator, : No reason given.Edited by nator, : No reason given.Edited by nator, : No reason given.

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

The problem is that the scientific reductionist either denies that there is any aspect to reality that cannot be experienced by the senses, or they throw such subjects out as being delusional wastes of time. Does their lack of scientific validity in your eyes mean that they are delusional wastes of time to you too? (And what would you say those subjects are?) I've had this depressing conversation with other people here. Reductionist materialism does not just apply to a particular kind of science. In a broader sense it describes a way of thinking and believing, and the bias that many people allow to colour what they study and how they study it.A reductionist materialist believs that:-- The mind is nothing but the brain.
-- The brain is nothing but a biological system.
-- Biological systems are nothing but chemical interactions.
-- Chemical interactions are nothing but physical interactions.
-- Therefore the mind is nothing but a set of physical interactions.A number of extrapolations are made from this:-- The whole is nothing more than the sum of its parts; therefore if we study the parts, we can understand the whole.
-- Philosophy, religion, the paranormal, etc are human constructs based on delusional premises, and scientific study is the only true way we can learn about the world. There simply is no scientific basis for spirituality or a soul.
-- Study in any of the above subjects, with the aim of getting at any kind of truth, is a pointless waste of time.However, this approach and its adherent assumptions fail to explain some basic questions, such as: How do organisms perceive, which ones are conscious or self aware, and how do they learn? How does memory work? What makes one so sure that mind=brain? Materialists assume that each and every one of these unanswered questions will be resolved through reductionist explanations, in terms of neurons and neural firing patterns. They never consider that the whole may somehow be more than the sum of its parts. And presumably this is why you told me I ought to be debunking Sheldrake's ideas, even though you couldn't even be sure which ones I was referring to and it is not clear how much you know about them to begin with.William James, who in the past was a well known American psychologist and philosopher, took part 100 years ago in an ambitious research project that linked scholars and mediums on three continents. Its purpose was to discover whether living humans could talk to dead ones. This was of course a bygone era when scientists were still willing to study such interesting subjects in a methodical way without fear of being laughed out of town with their reputations trailing in tatters behind them. The source of this information is a blog which you can find here. I have a hunch you won't like the ideas there very much.Reducionist materialism is a form of dogmatic skepticism and is arguably unscientific. I understand science to be the method of observing reality, creating models to describe reality, and testing the models by experiments and further observations that can either support or weigh against those models. For people to dismiss phenomena with massive collaborated observational and/or experimental support like crisis apparitions and telepathy is utterly unscientific and dogmatic. The blogsite above contains an interview with Rupert Sheldrake and a skeptic about Sheldrake's experiments in telephone telepathy. The skeptic dismissed the experiments as worthless nonsense without even having read the studies, because his prejudice led him to dismiss the entire subject outright as a nonsensical delusion.scientism, from Wikipedia
This forum, Percy, is a hive of scientism-believers. I'm not completely sure what your ideas are in this respect but I heard plenty on the "Is Thought Transcendent" thread and they reflected scientism and reductionist materialism remarkably well. There was the usual pile-up and I left the forum feeling disgusted. Almost everyone on that thread believed that mind=brain=neurons and that in time science should be able to provide us with all the answers. I found that view rather arrogant and I also felt it was "barking up the wrong tree." Science does that on occasion; for example, in embracing reductionist principles when developing medications, rather than looking at the body as a whole and seeking to treat the root causes of an illness. It believes, in essence, that the root causes don't matter as long as we're clever enough to work out how we can fiddle and fool the systems at a molecular level and force the body to think there isn't really a problem underneath.I'm not saying that science can't give us answers. But you said: You also said that science is the study of effects of things on matter and energy. So anything not so defined is not science. What sort of ethereal realm do you put them in, then? The same realm where you would put the tooth fairy and Santa Claus?Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

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

Ding ding ding ding ding!!!Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a new record!Lindalou managed to go FIVE WHOLE DAYS without debating any woo!And now we return to our regularly scheduled program.