Science and its boundaries

[Lolet]

Do paranormal shows count? 

I would say that a documentary at least deals with something generally accepted as fact or is an objective discussion of somethign that isn't. What "generally accepted" means is hard to say but I tend to define it as accepted generally within relatively modern academia and learned opinion.

Within that definition then my answer would be no.

Keke

It depends on who your asking. A great many people believe in ghosts.

[Kekerusey]

It depends on who your asking. A great many people believe in ghosts.

Relatively few educated people though and those that do (the wolves) appear to be more about making money out of those that do (the sheep)!

Keke

[Kì'eyawn]

It depends on who your asking. A great many people believe in ghosts.

Relatively few educated people though and those that do (the wolves) appear to be more about making money out of those that do (the sheep)!

Keke

Define "educated."  I've met plenty of people with advanced degrees who express some level of belief in the paranormal—or, at least, feel that such things might be possible.

[Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn]

I believe there are things that happen that we can't explain or don't understand (yet) I just don't think it's dead people haunting us.

[Kekerusey]

Define "educated."  I've met plenty of people with advanced degrees who express some level of belief in the paranormal—or, at least, feel that such things might be possible.

Why not name some of these people who claim such things are real? Let's be clear about what I am referring to here ... well respected scientists and academics, published researchers and authors not Joe "I got a degree" Blogs, not Brent Spiner (who promotes anti-science) or John Travolta (Scientologist) and certainly not the fraud who wrote "Medium".

Hell I think Cameron (who is an atheist BTW ... smart dude) would say much the same!

Keke

[Lolet]

There are also the millions who have witnessed something paranormal.

[Kekerusey]

There are also the millions who have witnessed something paranormal.

None of whose accounts can be verifiably supported!

Keke

[Lolet]

There are also the millions who have witnessed something paranormal.

None of whose accounts can be verifiably supported!

Keke

None? Okay then.

[Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn]

Define "educated."  I've met plenty of people with advanced degrees who express some level of belief in the paranormal—or, at least, feel that such things might be possible.

Why not name some of these people who claim such things are real? Let's be clear about what I am referring to here ... well respected scientists and academics, published researchers and authors not Joe "I got a degree" Blogs, not Brent Spiner (who promotes anti-science) or John Travolta (Scientologist) and certainly not the fraud who wrote "Medium".

Hell I think Cameron (who is an atheist BTW ... smart dude) would say much the same!

Keke

I could make a list of well-known intellectuals who were open to paranormality.
Nicholas Copernicus
Sir Francis Bacon
Johannes Kepler
Galileo Galilei
Rene Descartes
Isaac Newton
Robert Boyle
Michael Faraday
Gregor Mendel
William Thomson Kelvin
Max Planck
Albert Einstein

imo Cameron (who is a genius, not because of the fact he's an atheist but because of the feats he has accomplished) would say something more along the lines of not to completely deny the existence of something without evidence one way or the other.

There may be millions of accounts that can't be verified but there are just as many that can't be denied outright.

[Kekerusey]

None? Okay then.

Laugh it up fuzzball  I assure you that there is no validatable evidence whatever for ANY claimed supernatural event. Try ... amuse me please!

Albert Einstein

No ... Einstein wasn't!

The rest ... well most of them are way too old (historically) and yes, that does mean you can pretty much reject them, Newton (for example) is cited as being a creationist and maybe that's true but there's the thing ... EVERYONE was a  creationist back then! That's why I specifically said, "... within relatively modern academia and learned opinion"

imo Cameron (who is a genius, not because of the fact he's an atheist but because of the feats he has accomplished) would say something more along the lines of not to completely deny the existence of something without evidence one way or the other.

And Cameron is on record as being an atheist because there's no evidence for such things

There may be millions of accounts that can't be verified but there are just as many that can't be denied outright.

And once upon a time virtually everyone alive believed the world was flat ... was it?

As I said above to Lolet, "there is no validatable evidence whatever for ANY claimed supernatural event" but I invite you try and find some ... go on ... it'll be fun!

Let's define "validatable" shall we? By "validatable" I mean it is documented in a reputable journal of science or archaeology or similar. Am I asking too much? No, because that is exactly how the academic, peer-reviewed world works ... it doesn't work by popular science, (not even "Scientific American" or "New Scientist" although I would personally say that what they print is fairly reliable, typically based on peer-reviewed material), it doesn't work by Discovery Channel documentaries, it doesn't work in the "court" of public opinion, it works by peer-reviewed periodicals, journals of a reputable nature where the material is open to other scientists and academics to repeat and to verify the work in question. I admit that on the peripheries of such fields the evidence can be more shaky but that's the nature of researchers who are ""pushing the envelope" of what we currently understand. I also admit that mistakes do happen in science and elsewhere but no endeavour is perfect and no on, least of all me, is claiming anything in science is absolute ... others will argue otherwise but I (along with any scientist worth his or her salt) will absolutely (LOL) admit that nothing in  science is beyond challenge. Science  (my passion ... you might have guessed) represents not unshakeable truth but our best current understanding and remains wholly open to challenge and it is a testament to theories such as those of evolution that they have changed in fine rather than been dismissed, despite the best efforts of the leading proponents of the world's whackiest ideas

Keke

[Kì'eyawn]

None? Okay then.

Laugh it up fuzzball  I assure you that there is no validatable evidence whatever for ANY claimed supernatural event. Try ... amuse me please!

Ma smuktu, can we try to keep the tone here civil please?  If people can manage to be polite in the thread on homosexuality, i'm confident we can do the same in here.

Personally, i don't believe that ghosts are wayward souls wandering the Earth, but i'm sure there is "something" going on that we've not yet fully explained that accounts for why across cultures people have highly consistent "paranormal" experiences.

Also, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.  You can't prove a negative.  My $0.02.

[Yayo]

None? Okay then.

Laugh it up fuzzball  I assure you that there is no validatable evidence whatever for ANY claimed supernatural event. Try ... amuse me please!

Ma smuktu, can we try to keep the tone here civil please?  If people can manage to be polite in the thread on homosexuality, i'm confident we can do the same in here.

Personally, i don't believe that ghosts are wayward souls wandering the Earth, but i'm sure there is "something" going on that we've not yet fully explained that accounts for why across cultures people have highly consistent "paranormal" experiences.

Also, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.  You can't prove a negative.  My $0.02.

Like anything that sounds absurd, you must have faith in what you believe in.

[Lolet]

Let's pretend that I'm sitting on my sister's bed, listening to some Lady Gaga, when I hear something. I turn off the tunes and look up. There's a ghost! To be specific, it's a young Puerto Rican with red shoes who is slightly transparent. He fades away and all is good. But what did I experience? I certainly was't hallucinating. 

This never actually happened btw  Just being specific.

[Seykxetskxe te Vawm 'Ewan'ite (Kalin Kato)]

A young Puerto Rican guy with red shoes? How do you know he was that...

[Lolet]

Just being specific! 

I've never experienced any phenomana, but two of my friends have. No apparitions, just sounds. 

[Roiki]

But what did I experience? I certainly was't hallucinating. 

The trick about hallucinations is that you never know if they're real without someone you telling you to. Most of the cases of hearing sounds, seeing something from the corner of ones eye and so forth are just simply mild hallucinations that the mind produces, but since people think only mentally ill have hallucinations and they possibly couldn't have them, they make up some other more plausible reason. The reasons for believing in ghosts and such are the same as a belief in some higher power, finding a simple explanation to something that the person in question can't understand/explain.

When a credible scientific study is made, the community will accept it but those who "believe" are blinded by confirmation bias that anything they write can't really be accepted as credible reports.

I believe there are things that happen that we can't explain or don't understand (yet) I just don't think it's dead people haunting us.

Yep, gravity.

[Kekerusey]

Ma smuktu, can we try to keep the tone here civil please?  If people can manage to be polite in the thread on homosexuality, i'm confident we can do the same in here.

What was uncivil about it ... quite apart from the grinning smiley it was a quote from Star Wars Episode V. I thought it was fairly appropriate

Personally, i don't believe that ghosts are wayward souls wandering the Earth, but i'm sure there is "something" going on that we've not yet fully explained that accounts for why across cultures people have highly consistent "paranormal" experiences.

Consistent? In what way? Only with hindsight ... under proper test conditions these things tend to be anything but. Of course such phenomena (if they can even be demonstrated to occur which they usually can't) may be explained in time but until then it is, as I have been saying, nothing but unsupported claims. Of course the Catch 22 is that when such phenomena are demonstrated (the phenomena themselves, at that point, being validatable one presumes) they then automatically become a part of the natural world and no longer supernatural which is why I agree so much with Dawkins ...

"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence"

... and let's be honest here this is just another form of faith.

Also, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.  You can't prove a negative.  My $0.02.

Don't you think the "can't prove a negative" argument is kinda ludicrous? If we went by that kind of logic then we would also have to accept as seriously credible the claims that Santa Claus, leprechauns, Superman and faeries at the bottom of the garden are all real, that there is a teapot floating between the orbits of Earth & Mars and that the moon is made of green cheese. Sure I can't prove them wrong but that's because the "phenomena" in question don't make themselves available for study and it is notable that the amount of evidence supporting such claims is exactly equivalent to the amount of evidence required for them to not be at all.

Why not (and I stress this isn't aimed at you specifically) take the rational view and assume that such things don't exist until actual evidence demonstrates them to be real?

Keke

[Kekerusey]

Let's pretend that I'm sitting on my sister's bed, listening to some Lady Gaga, when I hear something. I turn off the tunes and look up. There's a ghost! To be specific, it's a young Puerto Rican with red shoes who is slightly transparent. He fades away and all is good. But what did I experience? I certainly was't hallucinating.  

Let's assume you told someone that (like me) ... how would I be able to distinguish it from hallucination or lies?

Keke

[Kì'eyawn]

Ma smuktu, can we try to keep the tone here civil please?  If people can manage to be polite in the thread on homosexuality, i'm confident we can do the same in here.

What was uncivil about it ... quite apart from the grinning smiley it was a quote from Star Wars Episode V. I thought it was fairly appropriate

Apologies for not getting the reference.  Nonetheless, it struck me as rather patronizing in tone, and i'd prefer if we avoided that in the forums.  And on that note, please tell me (and ngaytxoa) if i stray into unfriendliness, as it's not my intention.

Personally, i don't believe that ghosts are wayward souls wandering the Earth, but i'm sure there is "something" going on that we've not yet fully explained that accounts for why across cultures people have highly consistent "paranormal" experiences.

Consistent? In what way? Only with hindsight ... under proper test conditions these things tend to be anything but. Of course such phenomena (if they can even be demonstrated to occur which they usually can't) may be explained in time but until then it is, as I have been saying, nothing but unsupported claims. Of course the Catch 22 is that when such phenomena are demonstrated (the phenomena themselves, at that point, being validatable one presumes) they then automatically become a part of the natural world and no longer supernatural which is why I agree so much with Dawkins ...

I mean consistent in that, across times and cultures, people describe the experience of encountering ghosts.  These generally include visions of semi-corporeal, recognizably "human-shaped" things that then vanish without explanation, often in a way suggesting that the apparition in question could not be a normal human body (e.g., dissolving into thin air or appearing to pass through walls).  That's fairly consistent to me.  Compare, by contrast, culture-bound syndromes like "running amok," which are far less universal.

"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence"

... and let's be honest here this is just another form of faith.

As far as i can tell, that quote succeeds in expressing your disdain for faith as you define it.  You're entitled.  but that's not an argument.

Also, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.  You can't prove a negative.  My $0.02.

Don't you think the "can't prove a negative" argument is kinda ludicrous?[/quote]

If i thought the statement were ludicrous, i wouldn't have made it.  I think it's a foundational assumption of proper science.  You cannot prove the null hypothesis; you can only fail to reject it.

If we went by that kind of logic then we would also have to accept as seriously credible the claims that Santa Claus, leprechauns, Superman and faeries at the bottom of the garden are all real, that there is a teapot floating between the orbits of Earth & Mars...(etc.)

Hardly.  Science readily rejects plenty of things in spite of not being able to disprove them.  Hence why, regrettably, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not accepted in the scientific community as a credible explanation for the origins of the universe  

The point i was trying to make with my statement is that a little less certainty in one's right-ness often goes far in the free pursuit of knowledge.

Why not (and I stress this isn't aimed at you specifically) take the rational view and assume that such things don't exist until actual evidence demonstrates them to be real?

To call this view rational is to imply that anyone who believes in the supernatural is, by extension, irrational.  If i may, i would advise you to take the route that one of my philosophy profs recommended:  Assume that all human beings are usually rational beings who make decisions based upon the evidence they have encountered in their personal lives.  I do not believe in spirits walking the earth; but obviously some people do.  But i never assume that therefore they are playing with a less than full deck; instead, i will assume that they have had experiences in their lives such that they are working from a very different data set, if you will, from mine.

...when such phenomena are demonstrated (the phenomena themselves, at that point, being validatable one presumes) they then automatically become a part of the natural world and no longer supernatural which is why I agree so much with Dawkins...

Sorry, i know i took this quote out of context, but i wanted to save it for last, because i wanted to point out that this is thin ice to tread upon, dividing up the world into "natural" and "supernatural."  I think it might be best to avoid these loaded terms and instead say this:

There is only the natural world; and within that natural world, there are the phenomena which we have encountered and believe we understand completely (like the fundamentals of inheritance), the phenomena we have encountered but do not yet understand completely (the experience of ghosts would fit here, as would less "spooky" things like some of the details of certain animal behaviors), and phenomena we have not yet encountered (there are, after all, innumerable things out there in the cosmos still waiting for us, i think).

Sound fair, ma tsmukan?

[Kekerusey]

What was uncivil about it ... quite apart from the grinning smiley it was a quote from Star Wars Episode V. I thought it was fairly appropriate

Apologies for not getting the reference.  Nonetheless, it struck me as rather patronizing in tone, and i'd prefer if we avoided that in the forums.  And on that note, please tell me (and ngaytxoa) if i stray into unfriendliness, as it's not my intention.

Nor is it mine but, if you saw that as patronising, it was not my intent (to my mind that's fairly obvious from the use of the smiley) but, let's just say you are right and assume it was ... why pick on me? You could as easily interpret Lolet's reply (to which I was responding) as cynical or patronising ... that you didn't is surely down to you and not me?

I mean consistent in that, across times and cultures, people describe the experience of encountering ghosts.  These generally include visions of semi-corporeal, recognizably "human-shaped" things that then vanish without explanation, often in a way suggesting that the apparition in question could not be a normal human body (e.g., dissolving into thin air or appearing to pass through walls).  That's fairly consistent to me.  Compare, by contrast, culture-bound syndromes like "running amok," which are far less universal.

I think it is very, very hard to say that because these things are being looked at with hindsight, being re-interpreted by the "witnesses" to fall in line with what they think they know (we all do it) and so on ... IOW, this kind of popular argument (sometimes referred to as the "argumentum populum" or the argument from popularity) has exactly as much to do with fact as the same kind of view did when virtually everyone alive thought the world was flat. That's why we need proper, objective, validatable data upon which to base our understanding of the universe around us ... that's why we need science!

You see the problem is that science doesn't often turn it's eye to these kind of claims rightly regarding them as the pseudo-mythological rubbish they appear to be to any halfway rational observer but when it does ... the claims always (and I mean without exception) fail. It's for that reason that I feel fairly safe in dismissing these kind of claims ... I don't do so with surety but I do so in the knowledge that these claims, falling well outside our current understanding, are extraordinary and as such anyone (myself included) is well within their "rights" to request significant supporting evidence and not mere hearsay (no matter how much of it there is). If such evidence is not supplied (and let's be brutally honest, it never is) then it is completely fair to dismiss those claims as the fairy tales they appear to be.

"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence"

... and let's be honest here this is just another form of faith.

As far as i can tell, that quote succeeds in expressing your disdain for faith as you define it.  You're entitled.  but that's not an argument.

I could as easily argue the same of your response especially as I believe that quote is largely fair ... I'm not saying that one cannot be a scientist and have faith, I am saying that it is irrational for an intelligent person to believe in something without evidence, that somehow things like "god" get excepted (a "get out of jail free card" as Dawkins calls it) from the normally accepted standard of reasoning and I do not see why that should be. I'll give a simple example ... when arguing the claimed existence of "god" a theist claims that everything has a cause and that, as such the universe must have a cause, and that cause must therefore be "god". My response to that is to raise the question of what caused "god" to which the response is invariably something like "god" has no cause to which my response is to advance a universe without cause and at that point my argument is declared null & void (by said theist) because the universe (they would say) must have a cause, to which I respond that "god" must also have a cause ... see what I mean? The monotheistic creator god is somehow excepted from the usual standard of reasoning and I am expected to accept that ... everything MUST have a cause but not that "god".  This applies in various ways to other ideas, often variations on "the gap arguments" (e.g. God Of The Gaps) ... why should I accept such reasoning?

As it happens it is now commonly accepted amongst cosmologists that the universe was "caused" but they are talking of a natural (though external to our universe) cause and not a supernatural one but that, as I'm sure you realise, only pushes the initial assumed creation further "back".

If i thought the statement were ludicrous, i wouldn't have made it.  I think it's a foundational assumption of proper science.  You cannot prove the null hypothesis; you can only fail to reject it.

You cannot theorise (in the scientific sense) on that which does not make itself available for testing it's true but science works wholly on probability, nothing in science is ever 100% proven (nothing is held to be absolute) therefore nothing (in principle) is impossible but that also means that some things can be highly unlikely, can be so unlikely as to cause science a *serious* problem if they turned out to be true and non-corporeal existence would, for reasons already stated, be one of them.

If we went by that kind of logic then we would also have to accept as seriously credible the claims that Santa Claus, leprechauns, Superman and faeries at the bottom of the garden are all real, that there is a teapot floating between the orbits of Earth & Mars...(etc.)

Hardly.  Science readily rejects plenty of things in spite of not being able to disprove them.  Hence why, regrettably, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not accepted in the scientific community as a credible explanation for the origins of the universe 

And so, at the present moment, is non-corporeal existence.

The point i was trying to make with my statement is that a little less certainty in one's right-ness often goes far in the free pursuit of knowledge.

You're reflecting on open-mindedness and, in your view, my lack of it ... I think it was Dawkins who said that there's this thing called being so open-minded your brains drop out. So no, I do not accept your assertion (implied or otherwise) ... in science the proper attitude to adopt is one of scepticism (skepticism to you Yanks, LOL)

Why not (and I stress this isn't aimed at you specifically) take the rational view and assume that such things don't exist until actual evidence demonstrates them to be real?

To call this view rational is to imply that anyone who believes in the supernatural is, by extension, irrational.  If i may, i would advise you to take the route that one of my philosophy profs recommended:  Assume that all human beings are usually rational beings who make decisions based upon the evidence they have encountered in their personal lives.  I do not believe in spirits walking the earth; but obviously some people do.  But i never assume that therefore they are playing with a less than full deck; instead, i will assume that they have had experiences in their lives such that they are working from a very different data set, if you will, from mine.

No, it is EXACTLY the view someone of science should take ... as I say above the proper stance to adopt in science is one of scepticism.

With the greatest respect to your professor I would have to say that modern day philosophy (alone) is not science ... yes, it can lead to empirically testable concepts but alone it is nothing more than a reasoning tool (and please don't start me on its bastard progeny, metaphysics). I'm in the late Isaac Asimov's camp here when I say that real philosophy, the genuine search for knowledge, is actually synonymous with science.

Please note that the word "bastard" (which I suspect you're going to pick me up on as some form of uncouth or loutish behaviour) is, in addition to being a swear word, actually a real word and entirely appropriate within the context of the idea I am trying to advance.

As for people with full decks or otherwise to some degree I agree ... intelligent people defend stupid ideas intelligently. But here's the thing, such beliefs are anti-rational because the rational stance is to adopt the most parsimonious explanation and sceptically assume such things don't exist. So no, it's not an indictment per se but, I've debated a lot of people over a lot of years some of them advancing the most whacky ideas (including non-corporeal existence) and it is my considered opinion that, even if it isn't inherently stupid, the belief in such things is a step towards the irrational.

...when such phenomena are demonstrated (the phenomena themselves, at that point, being validatable one presumes) they then automatically become a part of the natural world and no longer supernatural which is why I agree so much with Dawkins...

Sorry, i know i took this quote out of context, but i wanted to save it for last, because i wanted to point out that this is thin ice to tread upon, dividing up the world into "natural" and "supernatural."  I think it might be best to avoid these loaded terms and instead say this:

There is only the natural world; and within that natural world, there are the phenomena which we have encountered and believe we understand completely (like the fundamentals of inheritance), the phenomena we have encountered but do not yet understand completely (the experience of ghosts would fit here, as would less "spooky" things like some of the details of certain animal behaviors), and phenomena we have not yet encountered (there are, after all, innumerable things out there in the cosmos still waiting for us, i think).

I don't believe in the supernatural world at all, I don't accept Gould's non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) which he designed to heal the rifts between science and religion and that's exactly why I am the way I am. I think ghosts (true experiences) are simply mental aberrations (hallucinations, temporary or permanent to be determined).

Sound fair, ma tsmukan?

I don't think we're actually that far apart (except possibly on philosophy), I just think you're slightly less willing to be "up front" (or in-yer-face) as I am about it. Since the advent of modern day creationism, when it became clear that science had taken its eye off the ball, people like me have had to defend science and I do so in my own unique way ... I am not a fundamentalist but often give that impression because I am willing to stand toe to toe with any and all comers and debate however necessary in pursuit of my passion for logic, reason and science.

If you can accept that then fair enough (especially as it took me ages to write the above)

Keke