Why trust science when they can't test properly?!

JoeTheJuggler said:
Also, as I mentioned, science doesn't claim to "have the answers". Knowledge gathered through science is always treated as provisional.

I think even cosmologists would tell you that the Big Bang is the just the name of the theory that the current state of evidence (rather strongly) points to--not some sort of revealed unchanging truth that is not subject to review.
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Indeed.
It wasn't really that long ago that it was assumed that the universe was not expanding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_universe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_state_universe

But the whole red shift thing was discovered, and people changed their minds in light of the new evidence.
 
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Iamme said:
But there are many things that even scientists argue with each other about. How come if science has the answers, that for years we have doctors throughly washing their hands and not touching anything, and everything is sanitized and yet people get more lethal doses of infection in a hospital than they do if they had wrapped a wound with duct tape?!
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Yeah. And it's a well known fact that more people die in hospitals than just about anywhere else. I thought hospitals were supposed to make you get better, so I guess everyone would be better to never go to a hospital and increase their chances of dying!!!

Iamme said:
Highly likely? More than God giving a command and it happened? Maybe I DO really believe in the Big Bang theory... where God said, "BANG!... (and there it was.)"
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So next time you're sick or dying I suggest you avoid hospitals and just pray. Or is that what you've been doing all your life?

Iamme said:
We just think we are so smart, but are really stupid, that's what I think.
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Who is this "we" of whom you speak? Is it only you, or do you have a mouse in your pocket?
 
Iamme, can you see every radio station you listen to? Are there not trees, buildings, hills, etc between you and them? You know radio waves are light, don't you? Are you getting it yet?
 
Iamme said:
And if they can't even get a test like THIS right...or the psychic-medium tests done right, at U of A...then why should *I* believe scientists, who claim left-over radiation is being detected from the Big Bang that occured billions of years ago, if they don't even know how to conduct a test like this in a way that can replicate an OBE?
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This reminds me of a story, from when I was in scientist school. I was sitting in class one day, learning science-y stuff. I was next to a cognitive scientist, an evolutionary biologist, an oceanographer, and a particle physicist (because, you know, we all had to take the exact same classes). Our professor, himself a medical doctor, was telling us about how to fudge the error bars, and about monsters that live under bridges, etc. Then he told us this gem:

"Remember class, it's been scientifically proven 100% that if even one of us scientists messes up somehow, then that means we have all messed up, even if the screw-up was in a different field than our own."

Dazzled, we all chimed in unison: "Ia! Ia! That's logic, professor!"

Just thought I'd share.

~goodguyseatpie~

ps. I'll also never forget when I graduated from scientist school. I had to sign a document saying that I would be an atheist forever and that I would actively try to disprove God with my science at every opportunity.
 
goodguyseatpie said:
This reminds me of a story, from when I was in scientist school.
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Hey, you and I went to the same school! What year were you? I think I kinda remember you. Did you sit next to that curvaceous alchemist? I was stuck in the back with the geologists. (What a crazy bunch they were. Lots of fun!)
 
Slimething said:
Hey, you and I went to the same school! What year were you? I think I kinda remember you. Did you sit next to that curvaceous alchemist? I was stuck in the back with the geologists. (What a crazy bunch they were. Lots of fun!)
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If you thought scientist school was fun, you should have went to mad scientist school like me. :D

Edited to add; Didn't our chess club turn your chess club into lab rats?
 
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Iamme said:
Highly likely? More than God giving a command and it happened? Maybe I DO really believe in the Big Bang theory... where God said, "BANG!... (and there it was.)"
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If you investigate reality, you will tend to get reality. If you investigate feces you will tend to get fecal material all over you. :)
 
Iamme said:
I made a post a number of days back, somewhere (I can't keep track of all where I post) where I raised the question that if there all these billions of stars out there, how on earth can they see to where some Big Bang came from, as I likened that to trying to "see" the country road out beyond the trees in the forest. How?!
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To extend the analogy, It would be like standing alongside the road as it enters the forest, and seeing cars drive out of the forest. It would be more logical to assume that the road extends to the other side of the forest than it would be to assume that inside the forest there is a factory that makes all models of cars, ages them to look used, and then gives them a driver and some baggage, and sends 'em on their way.

Your continuation of the analogy was like something I'd expect from a third grader.
 
I think the original poster has a point. Let's throw out science and start over.

I propose we live on a large flat spinning disk supported by a large column of turtles....

Charlie (apologies to Terry Pritchard) Monoxide
 
Iamme said:
I made a post a number of days back, somewhere (I can't keep track of all where I post) where I raised the question that if there all these billions of stars out there, how on earth can they see to where some Big Bang came from, as I likened that to trying to "see" the country road out beyond the trees in the forest. How?!
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This demonstrates that you have no grasp of the Big Bang Theory. You seem to think that a great volume of space existed, and something blew up in the middle of that space filling it with galaxies and such.

In fact, the theory says that the Big Bang took place everywhere in the universe. It did not occur in a place inside the universe. Our "view" of the Big Bang is not something that can be obstructed by stars and so on getting in the way.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
This demonstrates that you have no grasp of the Big Bang Theory. You seem to think that a great volume of space existed, and something blew up in the middle of that space filling it with galaxies and such.

In fact, the theory says that the Big Bang took place everywhere in the universe. It did not occur in a place inside the universe. Our "view" of the Big Bang is not something that can be obstructed by stars and so on getting in the way.
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Um, JoeTheJuggler, would you mind taking off your hat? I'm trying to watch the Big Bang here, and it is blocking my view. Thanks.
 
Iamme said:
In today's paper is this international news story where the University of London and the University at Stockholm, Switzerland (not Sweden), are conducting this joint experiment in trying to learn how OBE's work.

Now we all know what those are, and have had our fun debating these things in our own Paranormal forum here. Someone is in the OR at the hospital and during surgery they look from above down at their body and see doctors working on their own body. Stuff like that.

So what do these dopey researchers do? They hire that Schwartz guy from the U of A and.... (just kidding, ha, ha, but they may as well have)...

...anyway, they seat the test subject in a seat and fit them with virtual reality goggles. Then they have a camera behind them shooting images of the subject's back. Then the researcher holds one probe in one hand and has the camera (that the subject can see because of the camera/goggles) and with the visible hand ACTS like he is touching the subject's back, while at the same time REALLY touches the subject's chest (he was male, in the paper) with another probe that is held out of sight. The subject then experiences the 'sensation' that the probe was touching their back.

Um...duh...anybody home?...duh...with real OBE's, your own eyes are always in your sockets! Not out of yor body. What the heck does THEIR test do that has ANYthing to do with OBE'S?...duh! And such experiments were already known by other similar 'fool the brain tests' in grade school. Optical illusion AND sensory tests that can fool the brain have been known for years!)

And if they can't even get a test like THIS right...or the psychic-medium tests done right, at U of A...then why should *I* believe scientists, who claim left-over radiation is being detected from the Big Bang that occured billions of years ago, if they don't even know how to conduct a test like this in a way that can replicate an OBE?
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Well first of all... this sort of experiment with proported psychics and OBE's and such is not really the same science as the bigbang. This is the sort of area where they may try to do good objective science, but it's really modivated by some preconceived notions and some desires to reenforce beliefs.

That having been said, science is not always right. Compared to other things though, it has a damn good track record. And it's accelerating more and more and constantly getting better. All indications are we understand the world better now than ever before and we will understand it even better tomorrow.

Science makes errors because scientists are human. Efforts are made to prevent subjective and belief based ideas from causing problems, and they do a damn good job, but not always perfect. They always get better though.


If you want a good reason to trust science?

Well, I don't know what your reasons would be. But as far as I am concerned, it rocks pretty damn crazy that I can be assured I won't ever get polio. I really like the fact that I'm in very little danger of death or injury while I sit in a metal tube and get hurled around the world at just under the speed of sound. Hmmm... the internet is cool. I like my HDTV. The fact that I can look at saturn or jupiter and have a pretty good understanding of what it is and how far away it is and why it looks that way is kinda rockin too. I also like my central heat. And refridgeration for that matter is hella awesome (thanks Lord Kelvin). Hmm...

I dunno... I could go on for a while.


There's still a lot of stuff that isn't there yet, but I tend to think that if you want to put your money on who has the best chance of an all-out cure for cancer or clean limitless energy from avaliable materials, then I'd put my money on science way before philosophy or religion.... they actually have a track record of making stuff that crazy happen.
 
Iamme said:
In today's paper is this international news story where the University of London and the University at Stockholm, Switzerland (not Sweden), are conducting this joint experiment in trying to learn how OBE's work.
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Stockholm is in Sweden, not Switzerland.
 
Oh, and you were asking what they were on about. They were testing if they could induce a feeling of detachment from the body (the feeling associated with OBEs) with the virtual reality thingies. And yes they could. Other, similiar experiments have been done in the past, where, for example, fake arms were attached to people and tortured with forks or something, to see if they'd react.
 
If we were to extend the logic of the OP to other fields, it would mean that as soon as a circuit of appeals court reversed a decision, we should automatically doubt the validity of all other laws ever made.
 
Iamme, the whole thrust of your "argument" is ludicrous. You imply that a single bizarre experiment in the field of psychology somehow casts doubt on the volumes of work done in astronomy. First off, these scientific disciplines are about as far removed from each other as you could get. Second, the implication that a fault in one discipline renders the other invalid is nothing short of insane.

That's like saying, "I don't like the taste of pickles. Since pickles are food, all food must be bad and I shouldn't eat anymore."
 
I think this is the experiment we are talking about? If so the work was done at University College London, but the neuroscientist involved now works at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
 
All the historical evidence I've seen (and I've researched this quite a bit) seems to indicate to me that mixing science with paranormal or religious investigation is, at best, a dicey situation.

If you apply common scientific logic and controls to these things, they fall apart, which depending on your point of view is reason to assume they are invalid or just "inconclusive."

When you get investigators with strong convictions or pre-existing beliefs things can turn to bad science fast. Basically as long as the results do not agree with what they believe or "know" or simply want, they will tweak the experimental procedures and such until it does. This may not even be a conscious thing. But in any case, most of it devolves to pseudoscience.

Scientists are people. They're imperfect. Most of the "paranormal investigators," even those with some good credentials are not always the most objective and often have a vested interest or are just lost in the grand implications.

There's a reason why this sort of thing is not usually investigated by the mainstream. It had been investigated by the mainstream since the mid 1800's at least and it was not long before some things became apparent. Thus, unless there is "extraordinary proof" this area is just too prone to abuse and such.
 
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