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johnm214 said:

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Even science, as much as I love it, cannot grasp everything.  To think otherwise turns it into a faith.  Science only deals with things we can quantify, so we should only use it to the extent that we can and understand its limitation.

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Back that up, please.  How is this true? Seems pretty dubious- qualitative analysis is done all the time without any quantitative aspects being used.  Sounds like another dubious criticism of science- irronically from the same person who claims some scientific evidence exists for 'something' (not quite clear what).

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nice1 said:
OK
but thats not how all people (scientists) perceive it.  Often absence of evidence is used as evidence of absence. 

Thats the thin line between objective science and scientific faith.

We have to accept that some things cannot be quantified.  As I said we as humans cannot control things that are beyond our control and therefore may not be able to use science to measure them with repeatability.  To ignore this is to ignore the rest of the universse that science has yet to grasp - as it simply can't.

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regarding this post and one before. you explain really well this barrier that SOME scientists and people that rely on scientific authority for repeatability have regarding events and experiences that they find impossible to explain.
I see the 'repeat method' trip originating from the industrial Ford model and the conveyor belt (I am not saying it it worthless obviously. Only when it is religiously applies to all reality). That is the image I get. If something cannot be industrially produced to demand, and patented, and churned out then it is worthless and /or doesn't exist. That to me is the crux of this mechanistic paradigm, and this 'other' phenomena will not obey its rules, like a rebel spirit on the conveyor belt will spiritfully fuck everything up. LOL I just got the image of Charlie Chaplin doing it in that film. Man that comedian had SUCH insight!!

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Diploid said:
The PEAR lab found that

The PEARL research is to this day a painful embarrassment and ugly mark on Princeton university.

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PEARL operated from 1979 until it closed in 2007. Their results have been attributed to bad experimental design rather than a real measured effect. After peer-review of the results, other scientist have stated that the lab deliberately fudged results when they couldn't generate them honestly. There is an audit trail of changed numbers that are inconsistent with other audit trails of what should be the same data. Physicist Robert Park has called PEARL an "embarrassment to science".

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Peer review: the myth of the noble scientist"Peer review is supposed to combat fraud, but it can just as easily hold back radical discoveries, says Terence Kealey" [read on]

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In other words, when nearly 30 years of trying to find evidence of psi failed miserably, the PEARL scientists, who are fallible humans after all, began to FAKE THE DATA in order to produce results. In 2007 this sorry example of not-science was finally closed and Princeton can't put it behind them fast enough.

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I don't think all researchers, and scientists, would agree this research "failed miserably".

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One could arge that the VAST majority of science and society agrees in the mechanistic materialistic physicalist worldview, but that dont make it 'the reality'.

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Diploid said:
a problem with scientists who conclude absence of evidence is evidence of absence

By this reasoning I should believe in the Tooth Fairy because there is an absence of evidence for her existence and clearly no one has proved she doesn't exist.

It's absurd.

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Meanwhile, it is well known that people often see what they want to see even when it isn't there. Even with the best of intentions. This is why scientific tests, and especially drug safety and efficacy tests, are conducted with double-blind protocols where neither the patient nor the clinician knows if a drug or a placebo is being given. When the clinician knows ahead of time, the results are ALWAYS skewed because no matter how hard we try, humans can't be completely objective.

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Peer review is supposed to combat fraud, but it can just as easily hold back radical discoveries, says Terence Kealey

Sometimes, trusting what scientists tell us can be a bit difficult. One day we are told that artificial sweeteners help prevent obesity; the next, that they actually cause it.

One day coffee is bad for us, then it's good, then it's bad again. The generous explanation for these see-saws is that science is always developing our understanding. But there is a more sinister concern: fraud.

No fewer than 15 per cent of scientists at the National Institutes of Health (the American government's top health laboratory) recently admitted to bending data to fit their theories.

The myth is that science is the noble search for truth. The reality is that scientists are selfish. In the old days, scientists often published secretly to safeguard - and profit from - their discoveries.

On writing a paper, a researcher at a university might deposit it in a college's safe, publishing it only if someone else made the same discovery later. The first scientist would release his data to make sure everyone knew he had got there first.

The same principle was behind the use of codes to protect intellectual property. In 1676, Hooke published his law of elasticity as a Latin anagram - "ceiiinosssttuu".

This made sure that he would be credited for the idea, which he later revealed to be "ut tension sic vis": stress is proportional to strain.

Inevitably, this secrecy caused problems, so during the 17th century Robert Boyle created a club within which scientists did reveal everything to their fellows. Among the group, people still worried about being scooped, but as members kept their findings secret from non-members, the insiders enjoyed huge advantages.

The name of this association was the Royal Society.

The conventional narrative holds that, as the advantages of pooling knowledge became obvious, all scientists adopted the Royal Society's conventions: now, scientific papers are published freely.

But that's not quite true. Actually, scientific journals are as closed as the Royal Society once was. The gatekeeper is "peer review": that is, papers are screened by experts, who judge if the experiments the manuscripts describe are credible.

But how, without having actually witnessed the experiments, can experts determine that? Reviewers have to trust the authors to have told the truth. Consequently, the most important part of a paper is the name at the top.

If a well-known scientist submits a paper, it will probably be accepted; if an unknown submits one, it will probably be rejected. Science is still a closed club - partly to ensure that only accurate papers are published, but largely to prevent fraud.

But peer review carries dangers. First, it allows dunderheads to block unexpected ideas. Everybody within the scientific community knows of researchers such as Barbara McClintock, who won the Nobel Prize in 1983 for discovering gene jumping, a process by which scraps of DNA move about the genome.

She was forced to publish her findings informally, in the annual reports of the Carnegie Institution, because she could not persuade peer reviewers to accept them.

Moreover, peer review is slow, and allows unscrupulous reviewers to plunder their competitors' papers and to block their publication.

As we enter the Wiki-world, peer review will lighten. Scientific publishing is being transformed by the web: people once paid for hard copies of journals, but now free periodicals such as Public Library of Science Biology proliferate online.

They are still peer-reviewed, but soon reputable scientists will start to publish their own electronic papers. The convenience will be irresistible.

Some form of peer review will need to survive, to deter fraudsters, but it will probably resemble the one practised by the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, in which, essentially, distinguished friends simply vouch for each other.

And a good thing, too. Peer review was always an illusion, providing a deceptive imprimatur of objective truth.

Less formal arrangements will remind us that new science is always provisional - and that validation comes only after publication, when others try to reproduce the work.

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Given that, and given how psi completely flies in the face of a thousand years of careful scientific observation, which is more likely, that psi exists or that people see psi where they want it to exist?

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zzripz said:
Your 'science' is more a religion.

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Diploid said:
a problem with scientists who conclude absence of evidence is evidence of absence

By this reasoning I should believe in the Tooth Fairy because there is an absence of evidence for her existence and clearly no one has proved she doesn't exist.

It's absurd.

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Meanwhile, it is well known that people often see what they want to see even when it isn't there. Even with the best of intentions. This is why scientific tests, and especially drug safety and efficacy tests, are conducted with double-blind protocols where neither the patient nor the clinician knows if a drug or a placebo is being given. When the clinician knows ahead of time, the results are ALWAYS skewed because no matter how hard we try, humans can't be completely objective.

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Peer review is supposed to combat fraud, but it can just as easily hold back radical discoveries, says Terence Kealey

Sometimes, trusting what scientists tell us can be a bit difficult. One day we are told that artificial sweeteners help prevent obesity; the next, that they actually cause it.

One day coffee is bad for us, then it's good, then it's bad again. The generous explanation for these see-saws is that science is always developing our understanding. But there is a more sinister concern: fraud.

No fewer than 15 per cent of scientists at the National Institutes of Health (the American government's top health laboratory) recently admitted to bending data to fit their theories.

The myth is that science is the noble search for truth. The reality is that scientists are selfish. In the old days, scientists often published secretly to safeguard - and profit from - their discoveries.

On writing a paper, a researcher at a university might deposit it in a college's safe, publishing it only if someone else made the same discovery later. The first scientist would release his data to make sure everyone knew he had got there first.

The same principle was behind the use of codes to protect intellectual property. In 1676, Hooke published his law of elasticity as a Latin anagram - "ceiiinosssttuu".

This made sure that he would be credited for the idea, which he later revealed to be "ut tension sic vis": stress is proportional to strain.

Inevitably, this secrecy caused problems, so during the 17th century Robert Boyle created a club within which scientists did reveal everything to their fellows. Among the group, people still worried about being scooped, but as members kept their findings secret from non-members, the insiders enjoyed huge advantages.

The name of this association was the Royal Society.

The conventional narrative holds that, as the advantages of pooling knowledge became obvious, all scientists adopted the Royal Society's conventions: now, scientific papers are published freely.

But that's not quite true. Actually, scientific journals are as closed as the Royal Society once was. The gatekeeper is "peer review": that is, papers are screened by experts, who judge if the experiments the manuscripts describe are credible.

But how, without having actually witnessed the experiments, can experts determine that? Reviewers have to trust the authors to have told the truth. Consequently, the most important part of a paper is the name at the top.

If a well-known scientist submits a paper, it will probably be accepted; if an unknown submits one, it will probably be rejected. Science is still a closed club - partly to ensure that only accurate papers are published, but largely to prevent fraud.

But peer review carries dangers. First, it allows dunderheads to block unexpected ideas. Everybody within the scientific community knows of researchers such as Barbara McClintock, who won the Nobel Prize in 1983 for discovering gene jumping, a process by which scraps of DNA move about the genome.

She was forced to publish her findings informally, in the annual reports of the Carnegie Institution, because she could not persuade peer reviewers to accept them.

Moreover, peer review is slow, and allows unscrupulous reviewers to plunder their competitors' papers and to block their publication.

As we enter the Wiki-world, peer review will lighten. Scientific publishing is being transformed by the web: people once paid for hard copies of journals, but now free periodicals such as Public Library of Science Biology proliferate online.

They are still peer-reviewed, but soon reputable scientists will start to publish their own electronic papers. The convenience will be irresistible.

Some form of peer review will need to survive, to deter fraudsters, but it will probably resemble the one practised by the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, in which, essentially, distinguished friends simply vouch for each other.

And a good thing, too. Peer review was always an illusion, providing a deceptive imprimatur of objective truth.

Less formal arrangements will remind us that new science is always provisional - and that validation comes only after publication, when others try to reproduce the work.

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Given that, and given how psi completely flies in the face of a thousand years of careful scientific observation, which is more likely, that psi exists or that people see psi where they want it to exist?

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zzripz said:
How come you debunkers always use the same cliches? I honestly wish that since I have been online, since proper 2004, I had noted all the come-backs I have had from debunkers, and I bet you it would be funny. You all say the same thing--"Tooth Fairy' is a very common one.

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So let as LOOk at this. When you are a child and lose you baby teeth mommy says that if you put it under the pillow when you sleep in the morning you will find a sixpence (it used to be that when I was a little kid), and low and behold in the morning you find the money and imagine that a tooth fairy actually put it there when the reality is your mum secretly slipped it there.
Same is so with Santa Clause, and presents.
So you now use this to patronize and call the WHOLE of people's anomalous experiences a LIE, and that anyone who 'believes' it are like children. Don't you?

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Sometimes, trusting what scientists tell us can be a bit difficult. One day we are told that artificial sweeteners help prevent obesity; the next, that they actually cause it.

One day coffee is bad for us, then it's good, then it's bad again. The generous explanation for these see-saws is that science is always developing our understanding. But there is a more sinister concern: fraud.

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No fewer than 15 per cent of scientists at the National Institutes of Health (the American government's top health laboratory) recently admitted to bending data to fit their theories.

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Actually, scientific journals are as closed as the Royal Society once was. The gatekeeper is "peer review": that is, papers are screened by experts, who judge if the experiments the manuscripts describe are credible.

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But how, without having actually witnessed the experiments, can experts determine that? Reviewers have to trust the authors to have told the truth. Consequently, the most important part of a paper is the name at the top.

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But peer review carries dangers. First, it allows dunderheads to block unexpected ideas. Everybody within the scientific community knows of researchers such as Barbara McClintock, who won the Nobel Prize in 1983 for discovering gene jumping, a process by which scraps of DNA move about the genome.

She was forced to publish her findings informally, in the annual reports of the Carnegie Institution, because she could not persuade peer reviewers to accept them.

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The Tooth Fairy didn't exist.  The evidence for it is on the same level as your evidence for psi.

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( “the "Scientist's Creed" - all Scientistic sects profess a common faith in the premise of materialism and the method of reductionism)

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” Materialism holds a commanding position in science throughout the world today. The materialistic world-view has earned this position because it has been extremely fruitful for the scientific work of the last few centuries, not only in the physical sciences, but in biology, too. The "clock-work" model has created and reinforced the strong belief that, given enough time and money, materialistic science will eventually explain everything, including life and consciousness. The philosopher of science, Karl Popper, wryly characterized this belief as "promissory materialism." Indeed, promissory materialism is a fundamental article of faith in Scientism.”

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Scientism's spirit taboo presents serious challenges to anyone who wishes to understand life, consciousness, and the self—especially one who earns his or her living in academic science. If a young scientist today wants to study consciousness, he or she is advised to abandon that wish and convert to Neuralism instead. Heretical scientists no longer lose their lives, but those who challenge the authority of Scientism still risk their livelihoods. They suffer from difficulty obtaining funding, shunning by the community, and denial of access to publishing in the professional literature. That's why true "academic freedom" is freedom from the academy. It's also why the consciousness paradigm shift will make its greatest progress without the help of the established academic institutions.”

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