the unexplained...real stuff!

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Originally posted by Trevormkidd:
[b]I will be honest I have no idea what that post has to do with anything I posted. [/b]

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Likewise

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Originally posted by Trevormkidd:
[b]Why would private enterprise invest money in something like psi? [/b]

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For the same reason [url=http://www.nader.org/index.php?/archives/307-Corporate-Welfare-Horror-St... Meyers[/url] didn't have to. They just waited on the sidelines for taxpayer funded research to produce the best selling cancer drug in medical history.

American capitalism is sometimes credited with turning high risk investment into profit-wielding consumer windfalls. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader says blockbuster drugs haven't been one of those benefits. Consumers have been paying twice for the same drug discoveries handed off to private enterprise years ago. These multinational corporations are even referred to sometimes as "the market."

For all their multi-billion dollar profiteering over several decades, big pharma hasn't produced anything as life-saving as Salk-Sabine's polio vaccines or Banting and Best's insulin, both made on shoe-string bugdets several decades ago. There [i]is[/i] an invisible and driving force behind aspects of capitalism, and sometimes it's not a penchant for risk-taking. Psi research would be classified as "high risk" R&D along with other leading edge medical research being undertaken by federal agencies and academic instiutions around the world today. Oh yes, and sometimes private enterprise does have a hand but often not both at the same time.

Big pharma doesn't invest in a lot of things, preferring instead to payout blue chip dividends for profits made on decades-old discoveries. They don't mind gouging senior citizens for pain medications either. Socialize the risk and privatize profits. That's been the general formula driving capitalism for a long time.

[ 13 April 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Think about that a little harder. If Geller proclaimed he was going to take Randi's challenge, that would be big news. If Randi then turned around and refused, especially since he's has called out Geller to take it in the past, it would discredit Randi and the challenge.

So why doesn't Geller stand up and say he will bend a spoon in a controlled trial for Randi's challenge? If Randi refuses, the challenge goes away and it would be a victory for psychics and mentalists everywhere. If Randi accepts, then Geller would prove something to do the world, and he could donate his million to paranormal research.

Or -- just maybe -- Geller can't really bend a spoon with his mind, just by 'really wanting it'.

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In this case, you are dealing with just one person - Uri Geller and I have no idea what is in his mind, so I obviously can't answer why he won't take the challenge. It doesn't prove anything one way or the other and it doesn't explain why any of the myriad of other people who claim to be able to bend spoons have not taken the challenge either.

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Why would it still be in its infancy? These claims have been around for all of recorded history. And, of course, as you have shown in your links, people are researching these things. Wouldn't people have been trying to prove this for centuries?

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The 'centuries' argument is weak and I'm sure you know that. After all, Sir Isaac Newton spent a good deal of his time trying to prove alchemy. As you well know, it's ony been the last 200-300 years that the scientific method has been established and if I recall correctly the invention/discovery of probability and statistics methods to determine whether something is mere chance or not has been around even less.. As to since then, obviously the technologies to study most of these things, beyond doing simple card tests, has existed for an even shorter period of time. So, most of this field has only been able to function in the way needed to do serious testing for at most 75 or so years. Hardly 'centuries'.

I don't claim to be an expert in psychological research so this comparision may not be correct, but psi research is often also called parapsychology and I'm not sure that the field hasn't advanced almost as far as psychology/neurology in most areas. After all, in parapsychology there are names for for the claimed mental abilities but no real understanding of how these things work. Similarily in psychology/neurology, there are names for things like autism, but no real understanding of what causes it, what parts of the brain it effects, and so on.

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The mere fact that psi research has not had huge scientifically verified 'breakthroughs' stems from a myriad of factors other than that 'it doesn't exist'.

Such as?

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I've told you a bunch of factors already.
1.Psi research in shut out of universities, at least in America, which limits the research.

2.Scientists who do research into it are looked down upon which limits the ability to get into mainstream journals, peer review and so on.

3.The funding outside of universities is extremely limited. Unlike 'global warming deniers' psi researchers are unlikely to get corporate funding, and unlike 'creation scientists' they don't get religious funding. Before you argue that corporations should be all over psi if it really exists, I would point out that corporations spend very little on research and development on what is basically 'blue sky' science.

Given all that, I think there has actually been an amazing amount of psi research and they have done a thorough job in the first step of any science, which is to document the observations.

As you yourself quoted, 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence'. Psi research spent many years beyond what any other science would have done to merely document the basic evidence in order to present the extraordinary evidence. Again, before you say, "I'm not familiar with it" it's because you haven't looked!

Many studies have shown that psi abilities exist beyond mere chance. As Fidel (sigh) stated in an earlier post, psi research is only now starting to move on to the point of doing research to explain how these things might occur.

I would also point out that your basic argument is pretty anti science.

You are arguing 'these observations can't be correct because they dispute the current theories'.

Of course, if the observations are correct, then the scientific method argues that it's the theories that need to change, not the observations.

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Originally posted by Adam T:
[b]I would also point out that your basic argument is pretty anti science.

You are arguing 'these observations can't be correct because they dispute the current theories'.

Of course, if the observations are correct, then the scientific method argues that it's the theories that need to change, not the observations.[/b]

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Actually, if someone were to observe kosher pigs flying backwards with turquoise wings, it would be argued that the observations were wrong, rather than the theory of animal biology.

You clearly have not read the link I posted above written by Sean Carroll, where he comprehensively refutes all your points. The reason for that is that you are likely someone who just wants to believe. [img]http://phillyist.com/attachments/philly_jim/i-want-to-believe.jpg[/img]

Psi is no different than young earth creationism or kosher pigs flying backwards.

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You clearly have not read the link I posted above written by Sean Carroll, where he comprehensively refutes all your points. The reason for that is that you are likely someone who just wants to believe.

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Sean Carroll offers his opinion like any other scientist. The idea that he is the final word on this subject is ridiculous. It would be impossible for him to see all the research.

Still, if you 'want to believe' that he has refuted thousands of studies that show evidence of psi that is up to you.

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Doesn't it tell you something that nobody is willing to invest big bucks in psi or into Kosher pigs flying backwards? That's because there's no chance of any benefit.

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Actually it just proves, as I said earlier, that corporations do very little 'blue sky' research.

To try and say it proves something otherwise, when it is well known what the real reason is, is completely dishonest.

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In case anybody doesn't understand my analogy to kosher pigs flying backwards... the point is that such creatures are impossible. They would violate all the rules of biology, of evolution and of mechanics for that matter. These are well-established rules tested millions of times. If these rules were wrong we would have known by now, rather than spontaneously discovering an omnibus exception.

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You are clearly taking the view of 'if the evidence contradicts the theory, the evidence must be wrong' and that is basically the entire basis of Sean Carroll's argument. You agree with his argument, so naturally what he says is conclusive proof to you.

I argue otherwise so naturally his argument doesn't carry much water with me.

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Originally posted by Adam T:
[b]

You are clearly taking the view of 'if the evidence contradicts the theory, the evidence must be wrong' and that is basically the entire basis of Sean Carroll's argument. You agree with his argument, so naturally what he says is conclusive proof to you.

I argue otherwise so naturally his argument doesn't carry much water with me.[/b]

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If your evidence contradicts all previous evidence, then it's more likely your experiment is wrong than that of everyone else in history.

Would you believe someone who told you they saw a kosher pig flying backwards? I rest my case.

All real physical scientists work with the framework of bayesian statistics. It has occam's razor as a result. Among other things, spectacular claims require more evidence than uninteresting claims.

[ 13 April 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
[b]... if he had psychic powers how come he wasn't a great hockey player?[/b]

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I think everyone has a role and purpose, especially with a great team game like hockey. One of Lyle's purposes was to help the Canadiens win la coupe stanley in 1993.

[url=http://www.sheldrake.org/D&C/controversies/Dawkins.html][b]Richard Dawkins comes to call[/b][/url]

by Rupert Sheldrake

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Richard Dawkins is a man with a mission – the eradication of religion and superstition, and their total replacement with science and reason. Channel 4 TV has repeatedly provided him with a pulpit. His two-part polemic in August 2007, called Enemies of Reason, was a sequel to his 2006 diatribe against religion, The Root of All Evil? . . .

He then said that in a romantic spirit he himself would like to believe in telepathy, but there just wasn’t any evidence for it. He dismissed all research on the subject out of hand. He compared the lack of acceptance of telepathy by scientists such as himself with the way in which the echo-location system had been discovered in bats, followed by its rapid acceptance within the scientific community in the 1940s. In fact, as I later discovered, Lazzaro Spallanzani had shown in 1793 that bats rely on hearing to find their way around, but sceptical opponents dismissed his experiments as flawed, and helped set back research for well over a century.

However, Richard recognized that telepathy posed a more radical challenge than echo-location. He said that if it really occurred, it would “turn the laws of physics upside down,” and added, [b]“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”[/b]

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And what transpired next in the conversation amounted to Dawkins and his crew ridin' outa Dodge on their polemic horses.

eta: I'm disappointed by prominent science representatives like Dawkins. Dawkins and quacks like Randi remind me of another controversial subject simply labelled as the "unknown" when government officials and private commentators volunteer their opinions on unidentified flying objects. They, too, say there is no proof and resort to what amounts to verbal and mental abuse as far as eye witnesses are concerned. But what about the recounting of sightings by tens of thousands of otherwise credible people? Military and high-ranking government officials have seen things that boggle the human mind. What about the physical evidence of photos dating back to turn of the century, a time when there was no PhotoShop or internet to share faked photos at near speed of light transmissions? And what about the physical radar evidence? It's a denial machine at work as far as many, many people including a growing number of scientists are concerned.

[ 14 April 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

And I'll bet no-talent bums like Randi can't read [url=http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/]this person's[/url] thoughts on the matter either. And that's because people like Randi are mental midgets. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

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Originally posted by Fidel:
[b]eta: I'm disappointed by prominent science representatives like Dawkins. Dawkins and quacks like Randi remind me of another controversial subject simply labelled as the "unknown" when government officials and private commentators volunteer their opinions on unidentified flying objects. They, too, say there is no proof and resort to what amounts to verbal and mental abuse as far as eye witnesses are concerned. But what about the recounting of sightings by tens of thousands of otherwise credible people? Military and high-ranking government officials have seen things that boggle the human mind. What about the physical evidence of photos dating back to turn of the century, a time when there was no PhotoShop or internet to share faked photos at near speed of light transmissions? And what about the physical radar evidence? It's a denial machine at work as far as many, many people including a growing number of scientists are concerned.[/b]

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Re: UFOs

One should always show preference for the simplest explanation.

It doesn't take much to believe all these people are either lying or hallucinating. I've experienced hallucinations before and they're very vivid, I can see why someone would believe them. If these events were real rather than hallucinations, you would expect a few things. You would expect them to be uniform across space-time, and they are not. Hallucinations are more likely to be influenced by culture than are actual sightings. Throughout human history, there have been way more sightings of ghosts, demons, talking animals, etc than aliens, because that was what people believed in. All of a sudden in the early twentieth century when popular culture came up with aliens and people became more secular, there were more sightings of aliens (up from virtually zero) and fewer sightings of ghosts and demons have gone way down. The simplest explanation is culture+hallucinations.

I've actually had hallucinations of demons. I don't think some red slimy dude was in my room with a pitchfork. I think the brainwashing I got for fourteen years at a religious school is still a significant part of me deep down, and deep down is what comes out when one is half-asleep, half-awake. Well anyway, I think that explanation is a lot more sound than the notion I'm sort of prophet of darkness, with a supernatural connection to the netherworld.

It really takes a lot to believe that aliens only decided to visit Earth once science fiction movies started becoming popular. Is that the intergalactic welcome signal? The Day The Earth Stool Still? And how did the aliens get rid of the ghosts? Why is it some people can see them, but nobody else can, why are they special? Why would they invest so heavily in all this technology once they notice the signal from science fiction movies, to come here and abduct the stupid ones? Why are they abducting more people in western countries - is it because more of them have watched science fiction?

The principal of most likely assumption is a good one on a priori grounds, though it can be derived from Bayesian Statistics. If someone were to argue that they did an experiment and recorded that Adam T. can jog at 7.8267 times the speed of light in vacuum... would you believe the claim? Or would you think the experimenter was incompetent? For Adam T. to do such things, every single rule of biology, of materials science, of quantum mechanics, of relativity, of electromagnetism... and all the combined weights of the millions of experiments professionally done on each of those, with the wisdom and experience of their principal investigators. Hard to believe.... All people of sound mind would simply believe the experimenter was either incompetent or lying.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. An extraordinary claim (such as a pink teacup orbiting around the sun at a Jupiter orbit) should be rejected as a default. If, despite thousands of years of investigation and hundreds of experiments, no convincing evidence can be found, then it should be aggressively rejected as a matter of principle, to facilitate progress.

[b]ETA[/b]: It's worth adding that visiting aliens are simply unlikely, they would not violate the laws of physics, in fact many people such as myself expect a universe to be teeming with life.

Psi on the other hand would be a refutation of all the physical results in the entire body of scientific knowledge.

[ 14 April 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

No scientific method can determine what is true. Scientifically, one can only determine what is [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability]falsifiable[/url] but hasn't been falsified... yet.

[ 14 April 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
[b] I am not discounting that hypothesis entirely... [img]tongue.gif" border="0[/img]
I can unbend a penis with my thoughts, but I guess that doesn't count. (More fun than spoons, though.)[/b]

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lol and lol.

[ 14 April 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

Related to what Apples wrote, the trouble with the UFO stuff is that there is a vast leap from "[i]Look, there's something unusual in they sky[/i]" to "[i]It must be alien visitors from another world![/i]"

We don't really know if we're alone or not. We don't know if any other life is capable of ever visiting us. But I'll remain skeptical until I see real evidence.

[img]http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_drake_equation.png[/img]

Yes, a healthy dose of skepticism is necessary always. But sometimes questions beg answering. If there [i]is[/i] something bigger than our stoogeocrats and their masters in Warshington, then why would self-important megalomaniacs want it to go away? Labelled quacks and kooks for a long time, clairvoyants, genuine psychics and fraudsters alike have made similar statements that we must all develop a healthy respect the planet we all share, and stop polluting! Our very presence here is proof life exists in outer space, but for how much longer do we intend on short-changing each other on the rent? Marxists have described how capitalism provides a false accounting of the real economy wrt the environment and social costs. When will we decide, collectively, to grow up and start acting like the intelligent beings we were designed to be?

[img]http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/cartoon1.gif[/img]

[ 14 April 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

[url=http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/18/ufo-files-from-the-u.html]UFO files from the UK's National Archives[/url] There's an interesting letter from Carl Sagan to Britain's MOD in 1996 concerning crop circles.