faith healing,astrology

[Mobyseven]

Design an realistic experiment that will test shamanic healing.

Then have an objective party conduct the experiment.

Then publish your findings in a peer-reviewed journal.

Then you may gain some credibility.

As Mojo said,

If something can be experienced, it can be detected, unless the experiences are purely imaginary.

 

[Mojo]

Design an realistic experiment that will test shamanic healing.

What you need to do is to take a sample of patients and split them into two groups. Then, without telling them which group they're in, you have one group treated by a shaman and the other treated by a sham shaman. After treatment, you get someone who also doesn't know whether they've been treated by the shaman or the sham shaman to assess their condition.

If the shaman is producing an effect that the sham shaman is not producing, then there should be an observable difference between the group treated by the shaman and the group treated by the sham shaman.

If there is no difference between the group treated by the shaman and the group treated by the sham shaman then we can conclude that the shaman is not producing any effect not produced by the sham shaman; in other words, the shaman is a sham, man.

 

[Mashuna]

What you need to do is to take a sample of patients and split them into two groups. Then, without telling them which group they're in, you have one group treated by a shaman and the other treated by a sham shaman. After treatment, you get someone who also doesn't know whether they've been treated by the shaman or the sham shaman to assess their condition.

If the shaman is producing an effect that the sham shaman is not producing, then there should be an observable difference between the group treated by the shaman and the group treated by the sham shaman.

If there is no difference between the group treated by the shaman and the group treated by the sham shaman then we can conclude that the shaman is not producing any effect not produced by the sham shaman; in other words, the shaman is a sham, man.

I've followed this protocol all the way through, without getting confused. I now know that there are measurable effects to shamanism, as evinced by Cardiff City managing to reach second place in the Championship. They'd never have done it without the backing of their chairman, Sam Hammam.

It's so powerful, it even works through (near) anagrams.

He's left the club now though, there's almost certain to be a swift decline.

 

[Mojo]

Well, look what happened to Wimbledon Milton keynes Dons.

 

[idunno]

Do these "personal experiences" have any effect on the real world? For example, does "shamanic healing" actually make people recover from illness better than they would without the "shamanic healing"? If it does, then this will be obsevable by scientific methods. If the effects aren't observable, they might as well not exist.

They are probably either charlatans or woo-woos putting up a strawman argumant. No reputable scientist would claim that science has all the answers or is always right.

No it doesn't.

Science does not evaluate things that cannot be detected. And neither can you.

If something can be experienced, it can be detected, unless the experiences are purely imaginary.

No it doesn't.

No it doesnt?
Then explain please?

 

[Anacoluthon64]

If something can be experienced, it can be detected, unless the experiences are purely imaginary.

Just a thought: if experiences can be traced back to brain activity of some kind, then your proviso is not necessary because a purely imaginary experience would still be accompanied by detectable phenomena.

'Luthon64

 

[Mojo]

No it doesnt?
Then explain please?

I'm not sure which "no it doesn't" you're referring to, but:

1) the sentence "no one is claiming that science has all the answers or is always right" is not, as you claim, contradicted by the sentence "however, science has proved to be the most reliable method we know for evaluating claims and figuring out how the universe works", and;

2) Biology does not "[try] to find the secret of life by looking at dead tissue". Even ignoring the "secret of life" bit, which looks like a little strawman on its own, much of biology involves looking at living organisms.

 

[Mojo]

Just a thought: if experiences can be traced back to brain activity of some kind, then your proviso is not necessary because a purely imaginary experience would still be accompanied by detectable phenomena.

Point taken. What I was really trying to say was that things that are imaginary do not manifest in the real world other than as phenomena internal to the imaginer's brain. I think...

 

[RichardR]

>Well if he can't prove or disprove it with science, how does anyone know that shamanic or spiritual actions even exist?

Only through personal experience.

Please list the discoveries that were conformed by “personal experience” as opposed to science. Please justify how these experiences are valid evidence although science cannot measure them.

From the website that was referred to:
>No one is claiming that science has all the answers or is always right.

Well, most people I know do claim so.

Not on this board, I think.

>However, science has proved to be the most reliable method we know for evaluating claims and figuring out how the universe works.

This contradicts the other sentence that stands just before it.

No it doesn’t. Science is “the most reliable method we know for evaluating claims” is consistent with “No one is claiming that science has all the answers or is always right”.

And it is simply not true. Because science can not evaluate the parts of the universe that they cannot measure.
What does science say about love, meaning, wisdom, healing etc.?

Are you saying those things can’t be measured by science? How are you defining science?

- but until he demonstrates his better method for evaluating claims, and provides evidence that it is indeed a better method, the appeal to other ways of knowing is vacuous and fallacious.

Those "claims" don't need to be evaluated, only experienced. Personally.
Scientist are cowards you shy away from personal experience that would turn them into living beings. Like "biology" tries to find the secret of life by looking at dead tissue.

Still waiting for you to demonstrate that “personal experience” is a better method.

 

[Bronze Dog]

Some people get a personal experience of getting better from a condition like cancer thanks to quackery. Then they typically die of cancer.