News you won't see in controlled mainstream media.

This isn't really a creation/evolution topic, but it does touch on the limits of what scientific investigation can reveal, and how a phenomenon is deemed to be worthy of scientific investigation. Since spiritual and religious matters sometimes enter the equation (e.g. with near-death experiences, or those who believe that ghosts are the souls of the dead), then this seems as good a forum as any for this discussion.

What I am hoping is that those who post here can stick to discussing how phenomena typically classed as "paranormal" can be investigated in a scientific way. Statements of what people believe on faith, without reference to any evidence for these beliefs, will not move the discussion forward.

Speculation about what causes these phenomena could be interesting as well, but what we first need to establish is that certain phenomena actually exist and are not 100% due to hallucinations, mistakes, wishful thinking, or lies.

What's more, I would personally like to exclude use of the word "supernatural" because this implies something above and beyond nature which cannot be understood in a scientific way. I admit myself that such areas can and do exist, but there are many other areas which entail physical manifestations and these can be studied; in which case we are looking at something "normal" but not yet understood. For example, it may be difficult to study ghosts directly, but we might be able to study the conditions in which they appear, we could study the people involved in the sightings or manifestations (e.g. poltergeist foci, psychic mediums), and we could study the substantial body of anecdotal evidence and look for patterns which could point to useful avenues of investigation.

I'm not sure where this thread will go and I'm not going to be able to post here very frequently because of other commitments, but I wanted to move the existing conversation from the other thread where it began so that there could be a focus on it here and it would be easy to find. I will begin by pasting the conversation I have had with Russell2 and Mordred so far and I will add to this as I find the time. Anyone else is of course also welcome to contribute.

Hi Russell,

Quote:What supernatural things? Show me one, anything, a ghost, a spirit, esp, anything. Show me that it exists before you ask me to explain it. I do not believe there is any such thing as ‘the supernatural’.

What about natural phenomena which are currently unexplained?

You seem to be suggesting that you will not accept the existence of something unless you experience it yourself. Yet we both have said here that while some things cannot be directly experienced, we can study the clues that point to their existence. There is an enormous anecdotal body of evidence, stretching back thousands of years, that ghosts exist. What they actually are, we don't really know, but how can you be so sure that all of these people are simply mistaken or deluded? My husband and his entire family would be included on that list. I've spoken to some skeptics who absolutely insisted that they all must have been mistaken about what happened, though it's difficult to see how. I can give you details if you'd like, though I hope we'd be able to avoid repeating the same boring argument about how such things are simply impossible. Says who?, would be my response.

Quote:We are living souls? News to me. I don’t believe that we are living souls.

Again, why are you so sure? What would your evidence for this statement be?

Hi Mordred,

Quote:how can one accept the existence of something if they haven't experienced it?

I accept the existence of the planet Neptune but I've never experienced it. I accept that the earth has an iron core which produces its magnetic field but I've never been to the earth's core. We look at evidence for and against to weigh the likelihood of something. This, in my opinion, is true skepticism, which requires an open mind. Dismissing everything lumped into the category of "the supernatural" out of hand isn't skepticism, it's dogmatism. I myself am an agnostic, as I think you are too, so often my own beliefs about the nature of the world are on a spectrum of uncertainty and subject to change depending on the emergence of new evidence.

Quote:If someone has a near death experience and claims they've seen God how can I fully accept this?

Near death experiences have been so commonly reported that I think it's logical to accept that the phenomenon occurs. Like I said about ghosts, we don't understand much (if anything) about what's really happening, but something is happening, or else all of these people are mistaken or deluded. Some would have us believe that it's nothing more than neurons and electricity in the brain. It's comforting, scientific, completely anti-mystical. But can we know that this is any more the truth than that someone really has seen God if they claim they have? And how would you explain experiences people have had where they can describe what other people were doing in the room, and in other rooms as well, when their body was lying prostrate on the bed? There's just a lot we don't understand and I would be careful about coming to premature conclusions.

Quote:I cannot fully accept that (a) God exists until (S)He proves it to me. And the key word here is me. If someone else has experienced a revelation I do envy them for their enlightenment but it hasn't happened to me, so how can I?

I think that if a person sits back and tells the world to come to them, they will be sorely disappointed. Spirituality seems to be an aspect of life which offers its rewards to those who go looking for them. I myself have never had an "enlightenment," I've never physically seen angels or been offered a revelation or anything like that, but then it's not always that dramatic for many people. My own way is through meditation. I'm not even Christian anymore, but I still believe there are things we can get in touch with which transcend mudane sensory experience.

Quote:I think the concept of ghosts is more plausible than, say, Big Foot or the Lochness Monster.

I enjoy considering the possibility that bigfoot might exist. Not helped, of course, by the frozen rubber suit recently in the news Hoaxers like these ensure that serious science doesn't get done because people don't want to risk their reputations.

You seem to be more open-minded than most rational people, which I think is a very positive thing. Like I said, I think this is the true spirit of skepticism and the scientific method even, because it requires you to set aside what may seem impossible and consider the evidence. Plate tectonics is one theory that went through this process.

from Mordred

Originally Posted By: LindaLouHi Mordred,

Quote:how can one accept the existence of something if they haven't experienced it?

I accept the existence of the planet Neptune but I've never experienced it. I accept that the earth has an iron core which produces its magnetic field but I've never been to the earth's core. We look at evidence for and against to weigh the likelihood of something.


But it is infinitely easier for me to deduce that Neptune exists or the earth has an iron core and so on with available connecting information. There is no connecting information, or any information or evidence which makes me conclude that ghosts and such exist. I can only say that I think these things are a possibility. I would never say that I believe in them. From where I stand, saying I believe in ghosts means only one of two things: either a) I have seen one first-hand and that's why I believe or b) I am deluded or simply want to believe in them. However, I have not seen one and I do not believe I am deluded, so I say that I have no reason to accept the belief in ghosts (I simply don't deny them as a possibility).

Though from the rest of what you said regarding agnosticism, etc., it sounds like you agree with me on that. I know what you mean about deducing the possibility just as we can deduce things not directly visible to us (earth's core, or Neptune's core for that matter) but I do wish to differentiate certainty from logical deduction with accepting something as possible. I can perform tests to conclude what the core of our planet must be comprised of, I can't do anything beyond acruing anecdotal evidence to conclude the existence of ghosts.

Quote:Some would have us believe that it's nothing more than neurons and electricity in the brain. It's comforting, scientific, completely anti-mystical.

I see nothing comforting about explaining away mystical experiences with neurons and brain activity. I don't think scientists, even, feel comforted by these conclusions. (That isn't to say it makes me uncomfortable, however, it's just that I think religion and belief in the supernatural fall under the category of comforting, if you follow me.)

Anyway, interesting topic

from Russell2

Hi LindaLou

What about natural phenomena which are currently unexplained?

What about them? There are plenty of things we don’t understand, phenomenon by the million that we can’t explain but leaping to conclusions beyond all evidence seems to be an approach to such problems that is fraught with danger especially with such emotionally charged questions as this. I prefer to say that I simply don’t know though I am yet to see any reason to believe there is any truth to any claimed supernatural phenomenon. Maybe I’ll be shown to be wrong in the future but that day is not now I would suggest. So till some good evidence appears the only reasonable position is to not believe but leave open the option to change your mind if ever some evidence for the supernatural comes to light.

You seem to be suggesting that you will not accept the existence of something unless you experience it yourself.

No I accept many things I have not experienced myself from the idea that it’s not fun to be run over by a bus to the idea that black holes exist and that our universe is very very old, even the idea that America exists. I’ve never experienced any of these things but there are good logical reasons to accept them and none of them breaks any of the laws of physics, though black holes stretch them to their limits, unlike the supernatural.

Yet we both have said here that while some things cannot be directly experienced, we can study the clues that point to their existence.

That’s very true but we are stepping into an area that is inherently uncertain when we approach the likes of ghosts. The best evidence presented so far is anecdotal yet we both know I’m sure that people lie, are deceived, apply wishful thinking and flawed reasoning to the things they experience. That they suffer from delusions and hallucinations, that they fall for illusions purposeful and accidental, that they make up stories and that they are very bad at remembering details accurately. Given all that we must treat all ghost stories with at least a good grain of salt, add to that the problem that ghosts appear to break the laws of physics which is unprecedented and that they don’t produce any good physical evidence and you are left with a very shaky foundation for any belief.

There is an enormous anecdotal body of evidence, stretching back thousands of years, that ghosts exist.

Of course and there is an enormous body of anecdotal evidence stretching back at least as far that the earth is flat and that the sun moves over it, does that make it true? That people have believed something for a very long times has no bearing on it’s truth. Many of our longest held beliefs are wrong.

What they actually are, we don't really know, but how can you be so sure that all of these people are simply mistaken or deluded?

I don’t know what your family have experienced so I can’t really comment.

Again, why are you so sure? What would your evidence for this statement be?

For the same reason that I don’t believe in Zeus or Santa Claus, there is no evidence in favour of these hypotheses and they all break the laws of physics which is something that has never been shown to occur in properly controlled and monitored conditions. I stand to be corrected on any of the above if someone can provide some good evidence of course. It seems plainly clear that, wishful thinking aside, when we died we’re gone, our bodies rot and our brains, which were the source of our minds, are irrevocably destroyed. I wish it were otherwise but I’d rather the truth to a comforting fairytale so I don’t accept that it is so.

All the best LindaLou

Russell

from Russell2

Hi All

The first question I think we should all ask when someone tells us of something supernatural is to get them to prove that it really happened before we try to explain it. I have no idea how the Buddhist monks could do what is claimed for them but then I have no idea if they actually did do it. There is much hype on TV, ghost stories that are faked but made to look real, amazing feat stories which appear to border on the impossible but in fact owe more to TV magic than any real amazing or supernatural abilities on the parts of those involved. Just because the reporter tells you he’s freezing his toes off in a -30 rated thermal suite while the Monk is steaming in wet blankets in a sub zero wind doesn’t mean that’s what’s really going on.

Near Death Experiences (NDEs) are a fascinating area, they can be induced artificially chemically or by GLoading the body when there is no danger of death so being near death is optional in them and what is seen by the experiences comes form their own minds, Hindu’s commonly see Hindu gods, Christians see Christian figures, sceptics have even been know to see famous historical sceptics. One reasonably common thread is meeting your dead relatives except in children when the people they meet are generally living friends as most don’t know any dead people. There’s no clear evidence here that NDEs are anything but the misfiring of an anoxic brain I would suggest though again I stand to be corrected. That being said I fully believe that these are real experiences, that many at least of these people really experienced what they claim to have I just suspect that it comes from within their own misfiring mind with no external source.

In Reason

Russell

from Mordred

Originally Posted By: Russell2Near Death Experiences (NDEs) are a fascinating area, they can be induced artificially chemically or by GLoading the body when there is no danger of death so being near death is optional in them and what is seen by the experiences comes form their own minds, Hindu’s commonly see Hindu gods, Christians see Christian figures, sceptics have even been know to see famous historical sceptics. One reasonably common thread is meeting your dead relatives except in children when the people they meet are generally living friends as most don’t know any dead people. There’s no clear evidence here that NDEs are anything but the misfiring of an anoxic brain I would suggest though again I stand to be corrected. That being said I fully believe that these are real experiences, that many at least of these people really experienced what they claim to have I just suspect that it comes from within their own misfiring mind with no external source.

I have to agree with this sentiment as well. For the sake of argument these NDEs people are reporting could very well be what they claim. Yes. However, for the sake of argument these NDEs people are reporting could very well be functions of the brain. It's easier to prove something like string theory than to prove what's really happening in the instance of NDEs. And given the way nature works, given that all things expire (including planets, stars and the universe itself), I see no evidence or even suggestion within the natural world which would lead me to believe NDEs are what many claim them to be. Again, if I were a betting man I'd have to say these are brain reflexes/responses. It'd be neat if they were otherwise, but the likelihood of such a thing seems dim.

And even if we do have a soul, why should we be under the impression that it is immortal if everything in nature expires? What evidence in the natural world do we have that would even suggest such a thing is true?

Hi Russell,

Quote:leaping to conclusions beyond all evidence seems to be an approach to such problems that is fraught with danger

With respect, what conclusions do I seem to be leaping to? I think it's safe to say that if a phenomenon like ghosts has been reported regularly for thousands of years, something is going on here. That doesn't mean we can be sure we know what ghosts are or what physical rules are involved in their manifestation. They could simply be psychic imprints on some kind of invisible medium which sensitive people can "pick up." (Though personally I think there's more to it than this because a number of manifestations are interactive.) I would like to see scientific investigations into this area but it's a tricky one because you can't make a ghost appear inside a lab at will.

I've attempted to do my own part by going on "ghost hunts" with small, serious groups of people, hoping to get physical evidence. I personally did not succeed with that and in fact it honed my skepticism because I learned that "orbs" and "vorteces" which are reported on some websites as paranormal phenomena, are dust specks and camera straps respectively. It's going to take cleverer and more technically-minded people than me to study these things properly.

Quote:there are good logical reasons to accept them and none of them breaks any of the laws of physics, though black holes stretch them to their limits, unlike the supernatural.

I would claim that black holes break the rules as we understand them. No one is able to describe what a singularity is, and all equations break down when one is reached. I don't see many people claiming that black holes are therefore impossible though. And heck, string theory -- where's the evidence for that? Why do some people accept string theory as a possibility yet reject something like the possibility of the existence of ghosts?

Maybe ghosts would help us understand more about how the world works. Maybe our picture isn't complete. Science has often advanced by doing this -- adding to the picture of what we already know. I don't believe ghosts are magical any more than I believe that the rotation of the earth is magical. They are a natural phenomenon which we do not understand. I don't have a problem with saying this because I've spoken to people I know well or can trust about experiences they've had, and I've done research, and I do not believe that 100% of these people are mistaken or deluded. Even if all of them but one are . . . that one should be enough to spark serious investigation.

Quote:there is an enormous body of anecdotal evidence stretching back at least as far that the earth is flat and that the sun moves over it, does that make it true?

I've also spoken with self-styled skeptics who think that accepting the existence of ghosts, or NDEs, or telepathy, is on a par with believing in Santa Claus or purple unicorns. It's frankly an insult to people's intelligence. There is evidence that the former three things occur and they don't have to involve magic, scattered and strewn laws of physics, or wishful thinking. I've heard it all and what it seems to boil down to is that some people will not accept even the possibility of these phenomena being real. And I don't think I can say anything to persuade them otherwise. For my own part, I'm simply happy to watch and learn and hope that some open-minded scientists will get some answers.

Rupert Sheldrake has done some interesting work on telepathy in humans and animals. He is a scientist and a fellow of Cambridge University. Dawkins and other self-styled skeptics hate what he does. I think he has the necessary open-mindedness to make some interesting contributions to science. I recently wrote to him regarding his morphic resonance idea, because I thought that the local synchronisation of flying ants emerging from their nests might be an example of it. Funny little things like this, which are difficult to explain, could end up telling us a lot. I got a reply from him, which I didn't expect, and he said it was an interesting phenomenon which to his knowledge has not been investigated.

Quote:Many of our longest held beliefs are wrong.

What I'm talking about, though, is the simple acceptance of reported phenomena as genuine and not all hallucinations or mistakes. If you wanted to claim that a ghost was the spirit of a dead person, then that is a belief. A flat earth was also once a belief, but the observations this mistaken belief were based upon were empirical, e.g. it's difficult to see the curvature of the earth without rising high above it, and it's impossible to measure the curvature without the right mathematical and geographical tools. The earth really did look flat, and that is not a mistake because it still does look flat to an ordinary person on the ground.

In other words, in the days when this belief was common (and no one had yet circumnavigated the globe or looked through a telescope), it was not the observations but the interpretation of those observations which was at fault.

Quote:It seems plainly clear that, wishful thinking aside, when we died we’re gone, our bodies rot and our brains, which were the source of our minds, are irrevocably destroyed. I wish it were otherwise but I’d rather the truth to a comforting fairytale so I don’t accept that it is so.

I thought like this for a time. It wasn't wishful thinking that changed my mind. That's the nice thing about life, it's all about change and learning.

By the way, what interests me about NDEs is that some people who have had them have accurately described what people in the room were doing, and others have also been able to describe what people in other rooms were doing. These claims were confirmed by the people present, who also confirmed that the person experiencing the NDE was unconscious with their eyes shut. Even if they were "peeking," they would not have been able to describe events in adjoining rooms. The only way you can "get around" this interesting phenomenon is to dismiss it as delusion or lies in 100% of cases. I do not believe that is logical.

from Russell2

Hi LindaLou

With respect, what conclusions do I seem to be leaping to?

To the conclusion that natural phenomena which are currently unexplained are supernatural. I have no problem with leaving open the possibility that there may be some ‘supernatural’ things going on in the world but we need to keep in the front of our minds that such a finding would be absolutely without precedent. There are many phenomenon that we don’t understand at the moment but to date not a single phenomenon has ever been shown, by good evidence, to be of supernatural origins. Maybe that will change in the future but if history is any guide it’s at least highly improbable. The more likely outcome of this research will be that we find new natural phenomenon that we did not formerly understand.

Just as in the past lightning was shown to have nothing at all to do with angry god’s we will probably find that what underlies so many potentially supernatural phenomenon today will turn out to have a mundane cause that we simply don’t understand yet.

My experience with ghosts is about as productive as yours; the source of the phenomenon seems to be located within the heads of those describing the phenomenon IMHO at least among all of the ghost believers I have yet come into contact with.

I think it's safe to say that if a phenomenon like ghosts has been reported regularly for thousands of years, something is going on here.

I’m sure there’s something going on the question is is it going on in outside the heads of those reporting such encounters? I’d like to see some evidence for that before I put much time into exploring the idea of ghosts.

That doesn't mean we can be sure we know what ghosts are or what physical rules are involved in their manifestation.

I would suggest that is a massive understatement of the limitations of our knowledge of ghosts.

They could simply be psychic imprints on some kind of invisible medium which sensitive people can "pick up."

Does that statement actually mean anything? What is a ‘psychic imprint’ and what sort of medium do you suspect could be involved that can’t be detected by any instrument we have ever invented?

I would like to see scientific investigations into this area but it's a tricky one because you can't make a ghost appear inside a lab at will.

That’s true, it is difficult but if ghosts exist there must be some method by which they interact with our space time dimensions if they exist outside them or some way in which they hide their presence in it if they cohabit it with us. All of these are areas in which science (physics in particular) could be brought to bear but someone has to find some rational framework on which to base these investigations before they can even start. Do you have any idea how it could work?

I would claim that black holes break the rules as we understand them. No one is able to describe what a singularity is, and all equations break down when one is reached. I don't see many people claiming that black holes are therefore impossible though.

Beyond the event horizon they exceed the abilities of modern physics to explain in any great depth though we have some insights from the likes of Hawking on what goes on behind that mask. Outside the event horizon their behaviour is well modelled and understood, we can and have modelled them, observed and measured them. Ghosts on the other hand have no theoretical framework what so ever to explain them. While with black holes there are well defined limits beyond which we can’t explain their behaviour with ghosts it’s all outside the limits of our models and our understanding. That is a major difference I would suggest.

And heck, string theory -- where's the evidence for that? Why do some people accept string theory as a possibility yet reject something like the possibility of the existence of ghosts?

String ‘theory’ is a hypothesis, it has not been proven though people are working on it. People accept it as possible because it does accurately describe observable phenomenon though at this stage it doesn’t do so in enough detail to be tested verses the currently accepted theories. Ghost theory does not make any predictions that I have ever heard of and it certainly doesn’t explain the observations any better than many alternative theories based in human psychology. And psychology has the distinct advantage (ala Sir William) that we know people exist, that they are subject to illusions and delusions, that they lie and invent stories and that they like to believe in scary things that go bump in the night regardless of whether there’s any truth to them at all.

Maybe ghosts would help us understand more about how the world works. Maybe our picture isn't complete.

That’s true but science has often wasted a great deal of effort chasing crackpot ideas that have no basis in reality what so ever. How can we be sure that ghosts are not such an idea without first finding some evidence?

I’ve read a little of Sheldrake’s work and I suspect that there is a much simpler reason why he finds so much opposition to his work among main stream scientists. I don’t believe in the mega conspiracy theories that so many suggest are behind the opposition to such work, I don’t even buy the bias against supernatural angle, I think the real reason is far simpler, I suspect that the majority of scientists disagree with him because the evidence does not support his conclusions. Good scientists are very picky about such things.

What I'm talking about, though, is the simple acceptance of reported phenomena as genuine and not all hallucinations or mistakes. If you wanted to claim that a ghost was the spirit of a dead person, then that is a belief.

Let’s take NDE’s as an example for a moment and let me explain my position. I believe that people who claim to have experienced NDE’s really had the experiences they claim in at least many cases. I believe that the evidence clearly shows that the origins of these experiences is internal to the brain of the experiencer. They are not lying, they are not attempting to deceive us, they genuinely had an experience just not the one they may believe they have had.

Likewise with ghosts in many cases at least. Those people really believe what they tell you but then so do those who report orbs etc yet you know that these are, at least sometimes, of mundane origins. I have yet to see any good evidence that any ghost experience is of supernatural origin though the exact source of many is difficult to tie down.

The point of the flat earth example was simple, commonly held beliefs are not necessary based in truth. You are correct that people were reasonable to conclude, from the evidence they had to hand, that the earth was flat, but they were still wrong.

Many people have concluded that ghosts are real over a very long time, today we have some powerful scientific tools available to add evidence to these ideas. Many such tools have been employed yet no evidence is forthcoming. Like the gods of the gaps ghosts now inhabit less and less accessible realms as they attempt to hide from scientific scrutiny as more and more tests show that there is no evidence for them.

By the way, what interests me about NDEs is that some people who have had them have accurately described what people in the room were doing, and others have also been able to describe what people in other rooms were doing. These claims were confirmed by the people present, who also confirmed that the person experiencing the NDE was unconscious with their eyes shut. Even if they were "peeking," they would not have been able to describe events in adjoining rooms. The only way you can "get around" this interesting phenomenon is to dismiss it as delusion or lies in 100% of cases. I do not believe that is logical.

It is not illogical to suggest that a rarely reported phenomenon that would have to break many well established laws of physics if it were found to be real probably does not exist and those who claim otherwise are probably deluded or worse. I’ve read of a number of studies in which secret objects were hidden in emergency rooms out of sight of the people in the room but in plain sight of any disembodied spirits taking up the typically described top down viewing position. No one has ever correctly identified one of those objects. I’ve seen many claimed NDE viewings debunked by accurately looking at the circumstances and what was claimed. I’ve never seen any good evidence for people remote viewing the goings on in another room while they were apparently experiencing an NDE so I’ll have to leave that one till someone can show me the evidence. Do you have any good evidence for any of these claimed phenomenon?

All the best Linda

Russell

Hi Russell,

I've had this exact conversation before. What it seems to boil down to is what someone is willing to consider as worthy of scientific investigation. I also believe there is a degree of closed-mindedness in some people which can be fronted with every skeptical argument in the book, thus explaining all "paranormal" experiences away as wishful thinking, delusion, etc. And to an extent this is necessary because yes, wishful thinking and delusion do happen. Interestingly, I often see these attitudes in ex-creationist-turned-atheists: people bitter about the pseudoscience they were taught all their lives and who want to distance themselves from that as far as possible. IMO it is the area between both polarities which tells us the most about the world we live in.

Notice you will not see me using the word "supernatural." I pointed out in my previous post that I think phenomena like ghosts are natural but unexplained. IMO the "supernatural" is a term which applies to the spiritual -- gods, souls of dead people, etc. I don't know if ghosts are the souls of dead people, I don't know what they are, but I think there's plenty of evidence of their existence, and that is something physical which can be studied. It's possible that at least some of the phenomena are generated by the minds of living people in some unconscious way, and it would be interesting to find out how that might occur.

Quote:My experience with ghosts is about as productive as yours; the source of the phenomenon seems to be located within the heads of those describing the phenomenon IMHO at least among all of the ghost believers I have yet come into contact with.

I'm sure they must have appreciated being told that it's all in their heads and that you cannot accept their testimony

My husband's family's account is an interesting one. Unfortunately when I describe it to self-proclaimed skeptics, after some discussion they all decide that they won't accept the possibility that this is what really happened and they use all old excuses on the list, which is OK for them if they don't know the people involved. I do, and I've listened to all of their accounts, and I think something unusual did happen. I would probably be told I'm being too gullible or that I am employing wishful thinking. I would in turn say that an absolute denial of the possibility of such things is closed-minded dogmatism. At the end of the day, though, if a few people are allowed to study these phenomena seriously and without ridicule, it will do no harm and could possibly enhance our understanding of the world. People like James Randi and his own agenda don't help matters.

Quote:They could simply be psychic imprints on some kind of invisible medium which sensitive people can "pick up."

Does that statement actually mean anything? What is a ‘psychic imprint’ and what sort of medium do you suspect could be involved that can’t be detected by any instrument we have ever invented?

If such a phenomenon could not currently be detected by scientific instruments, this would not be proof of its non-existence. It is also entirely possible that the intruments we do have could give us some helpful information if they were actually in use when a ghostly experience occurred. Unfortunately, when someone experiences a ghost, it is usually an unexpected event and they usually don't have scientific instruments to hand to grab and use.

"Recordings ghosts" have been reported for millennia. These are cases where different people witness non-interactive ghostly scenes which are the same time after time, like a film being played back. One of my favourites is the Roman army observed in the York Treasurer's House. The young man who saw them most recently described their uniforms and his claims were initially dismissed by historians who said that he'd made some mistakes. Upon further research, it was discovered that the uniforms of the soldiers in that particular area were unusual, and that the description given by the young man actually was accurate. You could easily explain it away if you wanted to, you could claim that the young man knew all along what he was doing and that he was out to deceive. I think that's unlikely, but at any rate I would not hold up a single case as definitive proof. When you get thousands of similar cases, then it's maybe time to admit that something interesting is going on and that someone should try to study it.

How to study? It's a difficult one, and I'm not a scientist so I'm not the best person to ask. I did what I could myself, by going out and trying to find physical evidence -- but these kinds of phenomena don't tend to appear on demand.

I wouldn't mind seeing an old-fashioned table-turning seance set up in a lab. Under controlled conditions you could observe what happens, maybe measure people's brain waves, take EMF readings. I'd also be interesting in what happens to the body and brain of a poltergeist "focus" in their own house, while events are occurring. Also, the areas in which hauntings have repeatedly been reported could be investigated. They may have some similarities. Again, an idea of mine is that EMFs could somehow be involved, and possibly water. It's a shame I don't have the means or the knowledge to investigate these things myself. I am not mechanically inclined.

Quote:I’ve read a little of Sheldrake’s work and I suspect that there is a much simpler reason why he finds so much opposition to his work among main stream scientists. I don’t believe in the mega conspiracy theories that so many suggest are behind the opposition to such work, I don’t even buy the bias against supernatural angle, I think the real reason is far simpler, I suspect that the majority of scientists disagree with him because the evidence does not support his conclusions. Good scientists are very picky about such things.

OK, accusations that he is a "crackpot" because his research is not mainstream, aside, it is incorrect to say that the evidence does not support his conclusions. He is a methodical and thorough scientist and has published all of his results and how he arrived at them. If you like I can give you some links to look up. He has had to be as transparent and painstaking as possible, in his randomization methods for instance, because he knows that he will be under intense scrutiny from "debinkers" wanting to rubbish anything "paranormal." All "paranormal" researchers deal with this kind of scrutiny and few other fields endure it in quite this way.

Why don't you look into one of Sheldrake's longest-running bodies of research: animal telepathy, the best known one being "dogs that know when their owners are coming home." Robert Wiseman, a self-proclaimed skeptic, has repeated the experiments himself and has come up with similar results to Sheldrake. He denied it at first and publicly lied that this was so -- which he retracted only a few months ago, after the world had already heard him declare loudly that it was all nonsense.

As for NDEs, that is an area I don't know a lot about, but again why dismiss it out of hand if there's a possibility of something to be learned? Maybe, maybe not, but we don't know until we investigate. Upon doing a search this morning, I found this site, which I thought was interesting. It mentions the idea of memories possibly being stored outside the brain and doesn't reference Sheldrake directly, but this is one of his studies as well, which ties into the morphic fields idea.

I have a bad habit of making these kinds of conversations get longer and longer until they are unwieldy for all involved, so I will stop there. I suspect we're never going to agree on this but what I would at least ask is to see a little bit of open-mindedness, a willingness to entertain the possibility that some of the phemonena often referred to as "paranormal" might be worthy of serious investigation, even if the result of the investigation is only to confirm that nothing unusual at all is happening and everyone involved really was deluded (which I freely admit can happen).

from Mordred

Originally Posted By: LindaLouMy husband's family's account is an interesting one. Unfortunately when I describe it to self-proclaimed skeptics, after some discussion they all decide that they won't accept the possibility that this is what really happened and they use all old excuses on the list, which is OK for them if they don't know the people involved. I do, and I've listened to all of their accounts, and I think something unusual did happen. I would probably be told I'm being too gullible or that I am employing wishful thinking. I would in turn say that an absolute denial of the possibility of such things is closed-minded dogmatism. At the end of the day, though, if a few people are allowed to study these phenomena seriously and without ridicule, it will do no harm and could possibly enhance our understanding of the world.

Hey hey, LindaLou.

I think the real problem comes in when other people are asked to accept the experiences of another. IMO even if what your husband experienced was a bona fide ghost visitation, the only people who can believe/accept your story, logically speaking, are people who simply want to believe/accept it. Having not been witness to the event myself I cannot accept your claims (I can only say maybe) any more than I can accept some other random story from anyone else. At the end of the day it's all anecdotal. Studying things like black holes on the other hand is a lot more tangible (by comparison) and the decision to study these things has a clear direction: that is, if I want to know more about them I have a credible outlet with which to pursue that avenue.

Ultimately none of it is a denial that ghosts and other such phenomenon may indeed exist and it's interesting that some branches of scientists actually make an effort to learn about these things. But as a personal rule I would rather explore things which have at least some answers and some measure of credible research supporting it (such as black holes).

One question to consider might be: in the pursuit of studying the phenomenon of ghosts and NDEs, based on what does a person decide to either research it as factual events or mere psychological delusions? (Arguably one could do both but they're two very different branches of science.)

Some interesting questions here, Mordred.

Anecdotal evidence . . . it's developed a bad name. It is, of course, fraught with difficulties. People might be hallucinating, they might be mistaken, they might remember incorrectly what they actually saw or heard. And even an entire group of people who insist they all saw, e.g. a statue of Mary weep blood, could be hallucinating or wrong about what it was they saw.

However -- that is not good enough reason to dismiss it out of hand, as many people do. This is because anecdotal evidence can also contain the truth. And if you dismiss all of it, you could be ignoring the truth as well. As tricky a business as it might be, I think it could well be worthwhile sometimes go to through that sifting process and try to find what might be the actual facts in the case. And indeed we do this in other areas. Witness testimony is accepted in court. The "soft" sciences such as sociology and psychology must also accept a degree of anecdotal evidence or else they would not be learning about the people they're supposed to be studying. It certainly has the potential to be worthwhile.

What's more, when the anecdotal evidence grows over a large period of time into a sizeable body with a great deal of internal consistency, that is potentially some very useful evidence. There's a website I like to refer to which refutes some of the usual claims of uber-skeptics and it contains a list of criteria you can use to judge whether anecdotal data might be valid. I can link if you like, or paste the list here. There's also a really good podcast on the subect, and they interview paranormal researchers and people from CSICOP. Fair warning, the host shares my opinions.

People also tend to claim that anecdotal evidence is the only evidence we have for certain "paranormal" phenomena, which is not true. There have been many studies done on the topic of human consciousness, ESP, telekinesis, that kind of thing. The Ganzfeld experiments are a good example. The usual CSICOP crowd have tried very hard to debunk these and like to fall back on their favourite card, not randomized well enough. However, if you look at the claims and counter-claims, you will see that no one has been able to poke a big hole in the findings of the experiments (that human telepathy exists).

Quote:One question to consider might be: in the pursuit of studying the phenomenon of ghosts and NDEs, based on what does a person decide to either research it as factual events or mere psychological delusions? (Arguably one could do both but they're two very different branches of science.)

If all you have to go on is anecdotal evidence, then the reliability of the witnesses is something you have to take into consideration. One reason why I believe my husband and his family when they tell me about what happened in this house years ago is because they are unassuming, down-to-earth, reasonable people. My sister-in-law is a geology professor. None of them tend to talk about these things unless you ask them, and then they will tell you that it was simply "odd."

The problem with not accepting the possibility of any "paranormal" phenomena until you experience them yourself is that many people do not experience them, and it does seem that it requires a degree of open-mindedness at the outset in order to do so -- maybe it helps a person have a receptive mental state. Is it then OK to ignore everyone else's experiences and say there's nothing worth studying because you personally have not had similar experiences yourself?

from Russell2

Hi LindaLou

Yes I’ve had this conversation before too Linda. For the record I have no problem with anyone investigating anything at all that takes their fancy the problems I see appear when they present findings and ask for their acceptance while the evidence is lacking. Don’t present finding that appear for all the world to break the foundational laws of physics with limited evidence or worse yet mostly wishful thinking and complain when people reject your ideas. If you have solid evidence then please go right ahead and present it. I am always open to good evidence.

No I don’t put much stock in anecdotal tales as evidence for extraordinary claims and I won’t comment on individual anecdotal claims as that tends to upset people but show me the evidence and it’s a different story.

I’ve never been a YEC, I have nothing against them or their ideologies other than that their ideas contradict the evidence yet they want to present them as if they are actually valid.

The idea often presented is that the ‘supernatural’ is too weird for sceptics and scientists but I think those who say it have really missed the boat. Have you looked at just how weird some of the findings of Quantum Physics are? They make ghosts look positively ordinary in comparison.

So leaving out the word supernatural and simply putting in unexplained is reasonable. I just think we all need to avoid interpreting any such things in any way until we have enough evidence to formulate a real theory of how they work. That’s where the supernatural crowed falls down IMHO, they leap to conclusions beyond the evidence because they’d like it to be true while the real explanations are probably mundane as you have suggested just beyond our current understanding.

I'm sure they must have appreciated being told that it's all in their heads and that you cannot accept their testimony
True believers in ghosts don’t accept such as even a possibility at least those I’ve spoken too don’t. They are unphased by my comments they just think I’m crazy to think that way.

People like James Randi and his own agenda don't help matters.
I am impressed by what James Randi does though I know he can be abrasive but he really does put the money on the line for anyone who actually believes they can demonstrate something supernatural. And remember that they get to make up the rules so long as they can be tested. They get to say what exactly they can do and how someone could know that they can actually do it. Have you read through the results of his testing? The Australian water diviners tests were just brilliant for example.

They could simply be psychic imprints on some kind of invisible medium which sensitive people can "pick up."
Does that statement actually mean anything? What is a ‘psychic imprint’ and what sort of medium do you suspect could be involved that can’t be detected by any instrument we have ever invented?
If such a phenomenon could not currently be detected by scientific instruments, this would not be proof of its non-existence.
True but you are spelling out a theory of how it might work though I can’t fathom what your explanation actually means. Can you explain it in more detail? What exactly is a ‘psychic imprint’ and how do you envisage this ‘invisble medium’?

It is also entirely possible that the intruments we do have could give us some helpful information if they were actually in use when a ghostly experience occurred. Unfortunately, when someone experiences a ghost, it is usually an unexpected event and they usually don't have scientific instruments to hand to grab and use.
That’s possible though many claimed ghost hunters have taken a huge array of instruments to haunted places and have tried very hard to get readings, some even claim success though I’ve never seen any good evidence of it. Can it be that ghosts don’t want us to look at them with scientific instruments? Or is it more a god of the gaps problem that the more places we look and the more ways we look the smaller the niches in which they are claimed to hide from us. More and more the very very hard to find and the non existent look very alike.

What is EMF?

If you are talking about magnetic fields all you need is a volt meter (about $20 from most electronic stores) and a coil of wire (about $5 from the same store) and a few minutes to wind a coil onto a toilet roll or similar former. Then set it up somewhere and watch the readings as your ‘ghost’ passes or does whatever it does.

I’ve read a little of Sheldrake’s work and I suspect that there is a much simpler reason why he finds so much opposition to his work among main stream scientists. I don’t believe in the mega conspiracy theories that so many suggest are behind the opposition to such work, I don’t even buy the bias against supernatural angle, I think the real reason is far simpler, I suspect that the majority of scientists disagree with him because the evidence does not support his conclusions. Good scientists are very picky about such things.
OK, accusations that he is a "crackpot" because his research is not mainstream, aside, it is incorrect to say that the evidence does not support his conclusions. He is a methodical and thorough scientist and has published all of his results and how he arrived at them.
I visited his website and read a bit on his ideas of morphic fields and their evolution and inheritance in parallel with DNA and the first thing that struck me was that he’s using the word ‘morphic fields’ to account for the quite well understood chemical gradients that guide embryology and the building of nerve pathways within organisms. These are not fields they are simply chemical signatures produced in one part of the forming body and guiding the development of the rest. We can even alter them artificially and predict in detail what effect it will have on the resultant organism. Why does Sheldrake think we need to give a new name to this well understood chemical system and why does he think it requires a morphic field when proteins and DNA can already explain this. It’s not a good start when he misrepresents or misunderstands evolutionary biology 101.

He goes on to claim that morphic fields are heritable yet he has yet to even show that they exist and has given no hints as to how they could be detected or tested. Sir William would be turning in his grave IMHO.

‘fields’ that hold information are a common characteristic of ‘supernatural’ theories but the existence of any field that holds information in the sense it is used here has never been proven nor has any theoretical framework ever been invented to explain how such a field could work. In fact fields may carry information from one place to anther, radio waves are an example of this, but the information does not evolve, it is not active and it does not hang around in any sense waiting for some later events to allow it to return and do something, anything at all. If a morphic field is a true field then the information it contains would be leaving the earth at the speed of light never to return unless it has a physical repository but then we already have physical repositories for such information in main stream science, DNA, neurons etc which seem perfectly capable of holding all such information that we are currently aware of.

Will you do one thing for me Linda, get into some physics literature, not deep stuff just the layman’s stuff or introductory college level stuff, there’s plenty available on the web, and look for a field, any field, that can store in place information without a physical medium in anything like the way that morphic fields are supposed to according to Sheldrake? See if you can find anything that could do the job. I’m not suggesting that you will find Sheldrake morphic field rather I’m suggesting that you will find that no fields know behave anything like the ‘fields’ Sheldrake postulates. What he describes is woo woo in a box designed to flesh out his wild speculations not a field in any meaningful sense of the word.

I’ll keep reading but from the little I’ve done so far it seems very clear that the reason he is rejected by main stream science is because his ideas are not science. He ignores well understood explanations for some phenomenon and posits the existence of undetectable fields that defy the well understood laws of physics and behave in an unprecedented way to explain them. Does that seem a logical position to you Linda?

I have only briefly read through his telepathy experiments and the protocol’s seem very loose to me though I’d be interested to see any well controlled trials of such though all of those I’ve read to date, and it’s a long list, have been disappointing with the results being more and more negative the better controlled and larger the trials which is to me a very telling result. In smaller, less well controlled trials you would expect to get more false positives due simply to the effects of random chance but as the trials get larger and better controlled you would expect to get fewer and fewer false positives and so, unless the effect were real, you would expect the results to head towards zero which is indeed exactly what you find.

The modus operandi of such ‘investigators’ seems to be to run lots and lots of low quality trials then ignore all of those which produced no results and trumpet the findings of those which did. Given that in low quality trials you will get positive results from random chance alone and that you have ignored all of the negative results it starts to look like there really is something to it but this impression evaporates when you reinstate all the trials and weight trials based on the rigor inherent in their designs. It has always been the case with psychic research that the harder you look the less an effect you find in my experience.

I’ve read quite a bit of Dr Morse’s work in the past. There are many problems with his methods and findings I have to say. He finds some very interesting things though such as people who have experienced NDE’s are more generous and loving that those who have not but then that could easily be explained by coming close to death alone. That would surly make most people think harder about what’s important in their lives. Add to that the feeling that many report of the nearness of god and the power of this effect would be magnified many fold even if NDE’s are exactly what they appear to be, the misfiring of an anoxic brain. It’s interesting that many other scientists could produce NDE’s artificially in patients who were not near death yet Morse could not. It suggests to me that his controls were not good controls in that they did not closely mimic the condition of the test subject. Still you are correct, if there’s anything to NDE’s it would be interesting indeed to know what it was.

It mentions the idea of memories possibly being stored outside the brain
Though it cites no evidence at all in favour of this idea just the vague notion that it could fit into the framework that Morse is trying to put together for NDE’s.

and doesn't reference Sheldrake directly, but this is one of his studies as well, which ties into the morphic fields idea.
And of course Sheldrake too could not produce any real evidence for this idea though I’m sure he believes it is true.

Open studies of these phenomenon have already been done, tones of them all with ambiguous or negative results. None to date have shown solid positive results which to me is very suggestive but I have no problems with people doing more research along those lines so long as they do them with true scientific rigor and they are not using my money to do so.

All the best Linda

from Russell2

Hi Linda

The usual CSICOP crowd have tried very hard to debunk these and like to fall back on their favourite card, not randomized well enough.
Randomization failures cause false positives so if the trials were not randomized correctly then the results are as expected. Is it not reasonable to point out such a glaringly obvious and fatal flaw in a trial?

However, if you look at the claims and counter-claims, you will see that no one has been able to poke a big hole in the findings of the experiments (that human telepathy exists).
Well except to point out that the experiment was run in such a way that it would produce false positives and Blackmore’s observations of direct tampering with the results in one lab and the fact that duplicate experiments failed to produce the same findings in fact they produced the expected 25% hit rate that chance alone predicts. For a scientific paper that’s damning and would get you thrown out of any reputable scientific publishers office.

Russell

from Mordred

Linda, hi there.

Originally Posted By: LindaLouAnecdotal evidence . . . it's developed a bad name. It is, of course, fraught with difficulties. People might be hallucinating, they might be mistaken, they might remember incorrectly what they actually saw or heard. And even an entire group of people who insist they all saw, e.g. a statue of Mary weep blood, could be hallucinating or wrong about what it was they saw.

I understand what you mean. Much like conspiracy theories earning a bad name. It's probably a lot easier to launch a conspiracy when most of the world will think you're a quack for exposing them. But I think it's a sheer case of numbers. Most instances of ghost sightings are false claims (be they due to delusions or hoaxes) just as most conspiracy theories are false claims. Because of this, any real claims which come into existence already have an uphill battle. When and if it happens to me I'd like to think I would steer my anger in the direction of the hoaxers and the deluded before I get angry for people not believing me.

Quote:People also tend to claim that anecdotal evidence is the only evidence we have for certain "paranormal" phenomena, which is not true. There have been many studies done on the topic of human consciousness, ESP, telekinesis, that kind of thing. The Ganzfeld experiments are a good example. The usual CSICOP crowd have tried very hard to debunk these and like to fall back on their favourite card, not randomized well enough. However, if you look at the claims and counter-claims, you will see that no one has been able to poke a big hole in the findings of the experiments (that human telepathy exists).

I'll check it out. Admittedly it's something I know nothing about. Do feel free to drop me the other link you mentioned.

Quote:The problem with not accepting the possibility of any "paranormal" phenomena until you experience them yourself is that many people do not experience them, and it does seem that it requires a degree of open-mindedness at the outset in order to do so -- maybe it helps a person have a receptive mental state. Is it then OK to ignore everyone else's experiences and say there's nothing worth studying because you personally have not had similar experiences yourself?

I understand what you mean. Often times it's clear who the basket cases are when claiming alien visitations, bigfoot sightings and so on just by watching them during their interviews. Then when someone completely rational and level-headed shows up with a similar claim it does indeed make one want to consider it.

But that's all I can do is consider. I cannot say "Yes, you are right. I believe you 100%." How can I? Anger and vehemence permeates the world of belief because nobody wants to be told they are wrong. If someone close to me told me (in person) a story like the one above I would have a hard time saying I think they are wrong or I think it was something else which is perfectly and scientifically explainable. The reason being, I don't want to insult them or hurt their feelings. But just as doubts that they are wrong linger in my head, doubts that they are right will also be there too. And I think that's the most open minded approach. For me to blindly accept someone's claims that they were abducted by aliens, regardless of how rational a person they may be, would be as closed minded as blindly denying them.

This is a busy thread!

Things have suddenly got very busy for me too. I'm getting through stacks of marking that are taking 4 hours each because we are being made to do a lot of paperwork -- that makes a lot of sense doesn't it. At any rate I'll reply to some of the posts here when I get a chance, though this is the problem when others and I respond thoroughly to each other's posts -- they get so unwieldy that large chunks of time have to be devoted to writing them.

Russell2, your credibility as an open-minded person has evaporated with the use of the derrogatory terms "true believer" and "woo woo." These terms say a great deal about the person who uses them.

And for a different view of Randi, his degree of professionalism and his agenda, have a look here at #43, "From the desk of James Randi."

from Russell2

Hi LindaLou

“True Beleiver” is a derogatory term? I guess you learn something new every day. I’ve never heard of it being considered such. It does suggest a degree of close-mindedness but that’s about it.

Woo woo also is not a derogatory term though it does belittle his ideas. I’m sorry if that offends anyone but reading his website I think that is the only rational position to take. That may sound uncharitable and close minded but it’s certainly not intended to be derogatory. The point I was making is that we have detailed knowledge of the behaviours of quite a few fields, electrical/magnetic, gravitational, strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force, electrostatic fields etc. What Sheldrake describes when he describes his morphic field is not a field in any sense of the word. He’s misusing a well defined term to describe something that is totally un-field like. His morphic field sounds more like an invisible, non physical form of DNA that can travel mystically from one organism to another. Fields don’t behave that way, not one of them that has ever been observed. Is it irrational to point that out? Fields simply do not hold information in the way he is suggesting and they do not act on information. At best he’s coopting the term field to something that is very un-field like to try to convey a foreign idea to his audience, at worst well I’ll let others decided what the worst ;possibility is lest I be charged again with being closed minded or unskeptical. If he can come up with some, field like, descriptions for his ‘morphic field’ then we’ll have something to work with but at the moment it really does sound a lot like woo woo designed to suck people into the idea that his thoughts are scientific. Now maybe much of the rest of his work is scientific but on this count he fall far short of it IMHO. If it’s unskeptical of me to look rationally at what he says and to point out that it’s illogical then so be it. Being open minded has to have limits; we don’t want our brains falling out do we.

I’ve read quite a few similar exchanges from Randi, he’s certainly a grumpy old man and more so in recent years but look at it form his point of view. The million dollar challenge has been running for many years now, it is looked after by a dedicated team not by Randi, and gets lots and lots of applicants, there are some very simple but specific rules around applying for the challenge the first of which is to fill in and submit an application form. From there it leads on through the steps of agreeing on the judges and designing the tests, setting up and conducting the simple, initial tests then going on to the full challenge test which carries the million dollars at the end. Many people have managed to get through this process and be tested though few have made it to the second round of testing. It’s not a very difficult process. Then we see people who believe they have a better way and demand that Randi run their test their way because they are too important to fill in the paper work and go through the process. Why does it surprise you that Randi is short with people who can’t fill in the application form and go through the standard procedure set down for the challenge?

In Reason

Russell

Because if you looked carefully, Alex was not applying for the challenge. He was offering to pay for the experiment himself and was inviting Randi to take part, since he'd been actively disparaging Sheldrake in the media.

Even some of Randi's fellow skeptics do not take the challenge seriously. You can read more about this here; just scroll down to Randi. Challenges like this in any field are very often nothing more than publicity stunts, and the inventors are usually the ones who get to make the rules and the judgements. There's another challenge out there that I'm aware of, for a doctor to drink a concoction containing all the adjuvants in common vaccines. This, too, is a publicity stunt, as is Kent Hovind's challenge to "prove" that evolution is a fact. Interestingly, while skeptics would be quick to point this out, they in turn tend take Randi seriously.

Secondly, about morphic fields. I have Sheldrake's seminal book which illustrates the subject, "The Presenece of the Past," but I have not yet completed it. I am not well and one of my symptoms is brain fog, and the book being a bit ponderous, has caused me some problems. I'm going to ask if we can postpone discussion of this particular area of his work until I can learn more about the specifics myself. What I do know about, however, is his "dogs that know" experiments. If you would familiarise yourself with the details of that, we could talk about it. If you would like some links, I will sort some out shortly.

Hi LindaLou

Yes I gathered they were trying to get Randi involved and I gathered he didn’t want to be suggesting that they should just sign up for the challenge if they wanted to involve the JRef or Randi. Like I said he’s a grumpy old man these days and definitely set in his ways. As a personality I don’t like the man but I think there is merit in what he does. Have you read the transcripts of some of the tests the JRef has conducted over the years? Interesting work.

And I have to agree with the Sceptics site you linked too. The Randi challenge is not a valid scientific test but then I don’t know of anyone who claimed that it was. The rules demand that the tests are set up to be rigorously scientific but, as was pointed out, science does not settle such questions on one test even if it is well conducted. That’s a show biz approach and Randi is a showman. I would suggest that the sceptics, at least those sited and the ones I am aware of take the Randi Challenge seriously but they take it for what it is and it’s not designed to be a scientific test of these claims. To suggest that the JRef challenge is a publicity stunt is overstating it, it is a showbiz styled contest not a scientific test but it is run with scientific rigor and it does present the very real possibility that someone who actually has ‘supernatural’ powers could claim the prize. That is not the case with many such challenges such as Dr Dino’s challenge to prove evolution which is worded in such a way that claiming it is physically impossible regardless of the validity of your claim. That makes Dr Dino’s ‘challenge’ a publicity stunt, I don’t believe the JRef’s challenge is. If you read the details no one from the JRef gets to judge, independent experts get to do that, and the rules for a given test are jointly written by the claimant and the agreed experts with controls added by the JRef to avoid cheating, that’s where the magician’s expertise comes in.

I’m interstate for work at the moment, have been for a couple of months, so I don’t get much time to put into this discussion but I’d be interested to see some details on the “Dogs that know” experiments. I’ve seen a couple of “dog’s that know experiments” run here with apparently positive results until the scientists got involved and pointed out the flaws in the methodology and it all fell to pieces. I’d be interested to see how Sheldrake’s experiments handle the issues raised here.

If you need time to get over whatever bug you’ve got please take it and get back to me. I’m not going anywhere and I know what a pain it is trying to get your head around difficult topics when your head is fuzzy.

All the best Linda

Russell

Russell2, the soonest I will be able to add to the "unexplained" discussion in detail will be Tuesday. I'm thinking the posts are going to get swamped here in "Evolution The Big Joke," which is more like a night at the pub at the moment. Can you see another area of this forum where a specially dedicated thread could fit? I'm not sure if it's really got anything to do with evolution and creationism, the core of it to me is more to do with epistemology and the nature of skepticism.

Thank you though for your more tempered recent response. I've spoken to some very acerbic people who were calling me a "true believer" full of "woo woo ideas" before I even knew what on earth they meant. It looks like we can at least have a reasoned discussion here (or somewhere).

Quote:If you need time to get over whatever bug you’ve got please take it and get back to me. I’m not going anywhere and I know what a pain it is trying to get your head around difficult topics when your head is fuzzy.

4 years of depression . . . not too likely it's going to suddenly lift, though it isn't for lack of trying. Actually I'm clear-minded enough to read Sheldrake's book now but I don't have the time because of school and family commitments. I have read "The Sense of Being Stared At" (gotta love these titles), though that discusses more general aspects of the extended mind, and evidence for that. I'll have a look for some links about the "dogs that know" experiments. There are Skeptico podcasts about Sheldrake's own work, as well as the experiment going on without Randi's help -- though I can understand if asking you to listen to one of those is on a par with asking me to listen to Stephen Novella.

I'll pick back through the posts here in a few days' time, LOL.

Hi LindaLou

You seem to be suggesting that you will not accept the existence of something unless you experience it yourself.

No personal experience is not necessary but good evidence is. I have never experienced a black hole or a black swan but I have good evidence for both and neither break any well founded laws of physics so I believe in both. I have no equivalent good evidence for ghosts for example.

Yet we both have said here that while some things cannot be directly experienced, we can study the clues that point to their existence. There is an enormous anecdotal body of evidence, stretching back thousands of years, that ghosts exist. What they actually are, we don't really know, but how can you be so sure that all of these people are simply mistaken or deluded?

I can’t but I know that many people are deluded about all sorts of things every day. It’s not hard to accept that people are deluded or lie or confabulate, that doesn’t break any of the well established laws of physics, ghosts as described to me to date do which makes their existence an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary proof before we should accept them as real.

My husband and his entire family would be included on that list.

Without particulars I can’t comment and I don’t want to insult anyone so don’t give me any details unless you are prepared for negative comments.

Again, why are you so sure [that we are living souls]? What would your evidence for this statement be?

This is called the null hypothesis, in the absence of evidence for some claimed phenomenon it is reasonable to withhold belief. I have never seen any evidence to suggest that we are ‘living souls’ so I see no reason to believe that we are. I know that many people disagree but they too have, as far as I know, no evidence to support this belief at least none that they have ever been able to show me. If I did not hold this position how could I reject the beliefs of those who believe in the Easter bunny or Thor or any of the literally hundreds of thousands of other improbable and unsupported beliefs that some people hold.

All the best Linda

Russell

You don't accept anecdotal evidence yet you say "show me the evidence." I've given some criteria in earlier threads here for accepting some anecdotal evidence as valid. Where is the logic in dismissing all of it out of hand? What if even one report out of 100 is honest, accurate, and shows that something interesting is happening?

YEC claims are in a different league. They tend to be made by people who are either ignorant of science or in denial. I am neither and I do not claim that anything classed as paranormal contradicts physical laws. I think it's entirely possible that we simply don't fully understand yet how the world works and that a greater understanding would comfortably contain many of these phenomena.



I read a book by a quantum physicist last summer in an attempt to learn more. I learned some basic quantum physics in high school chemistry. My mind doesn't quite work that way but I do my best. I accept information at face value from people who do understand these things, but I also think that even the most brilliant minds in the world don't understand a lot yet. The astronomy podcast I listen to touches on quantum physics from time to time and one of the podcasters is a professor of astronomy. She says that many people don't take quantum physics as their physical science course at uni because it's just too weird. Yet, this field is getting at the fundamentals of how everything works. I truly wish I had a scientific brain so that I could learn about this myself. Heck, we don't even understand how gravity works at a quantum level.

My point being, why do things like telepathy and ghosts have to be so unbelievable? I could be equally incredulous about how we get from quarks and gluons to the physical macroscopic world. No one can explain that. No one can tell me precisely how a quantum stew becomes that table and that chair and me (though of course I know about atoms and chemical bonds). Yet I accept this because that's what scientists tell me, even though sometimes the only existing evidence comes from mathematics. I don't see why something like telepathy is so outlandish either, especially since the explanation for that might well lie in the quantum world as well, who knows?



Yes, I mean electromagnetic fields.

I don't know enough about this to know which frequencies to monitor. I also imagine that you'd have to have the kit set up for a long time in one place, along with video recorders, in order to get some readings when a phenomenon was occurring. Unfortunately, weird things seem to happen to electrical equipment with unusual frequency in haunted locales. I've had it happen to me -- newly bought or charged batteries suddenly drained. Odd electrical faults that rarely occur, suddenly occurring. I know exactly what you'd say, LOL -- a handy get-out clause for why people don't get results. Personally I think that ghosts are partially an electromagnetic phenomenon and maybe this is linked to electrical malfunctions too, it would be interesting to find out more about this. As you can see, I'm full of curiosity, but sadly I don't have the practical mind to be able to put some gadgets together and investigate myself. I wasn't even taught how to change a plug at school; I suppose they thought "girls don't do those things."

About Sheldrake: note that I have not said anywhere that I "believe in" morphic fields. I don't know enough yet about his ideas to really say anything one way or another. That's why I bought his book. It requires a lot of concentration and no insult to him, but I couldn't manage it at the time and kept falling asleep LOL. I will try again when I get the time. I accept quite readily that the phenomena on which his ideas are based are very probably real. But is this a good explanation of them? I honestly don't know, and I'm quite willing to say "I don't think so" once I learn more. However, we don't currently have any other explanation for any of these things so why rule it out without evaluating it?

For a list of the phenomena which Sheldrake thinks would make a good test of the morphic fields idea, see Seven Experiments that could Change the World. The idea I had about studying the synchronisation of flyings ants was loosely inspired by the termites experiment. Whether morphic fields is the answer to all of these or not, aren't they intriguing?

Which telepathy protocols of Sheldrake's were you reading, and can you tell me specifically what you thought was wrong? Was it "the sense of being stared at"? That's the one I had an in-depth discussion about last summer, when I had more time, and I typed some passages from one of Sheldrake's books. I have quite a lot more info about that one than "dogs that know," and discussing the latter would probably require asking you to listen to a podcast featuring Sheldrake and his critic Wiseman. We could talk about "the sense of being started" at instead if you want. I believe his protocols were impeccable and the experiments have been repeated many times in other countries, and the results have consistently been statistically significant, but I'm certainly willing to listen to what you have to say about them.

This was one particular experimenter she was observing, out of dozens of experiments done by different people. What's more, the full story doesn't seem to be entirely clear. I found this conversation on the subject; it makes an interesting read.

I would not use Blackmore for an appeal to authority. Her track record as an experimenter isn't a shining one, and like other skeptics of this kind, she approaches anything with the preconceived notion that paranormal phenomena do not exist. In my book that's as bad as openly believing everything everybody tells you. In bewteen lies true open-minded skepticism.

Can I ask what your source is for the 25% hit rate due to chance? This is new to me.

One last comment for now:

Thank you for honestly admitting that "true believer" and "woo woo" are derrogatory. They are labels given to people in order to ridicule what they are saying, i.e. suggesting that they are fantasising, do not take evidence into account, are wishful thinkers, are irrational and easily deluded.

Do you like it when creationists use terms like "evolutionism," "evogoggles," "evo age," etc? All of these terms are meant as sneers and they are poor debate tactics. It would be nice to leave them out of the discussion if you don't mind.

The blindly believe that scientists are morally infallible is as much a faith as evolution itself is.


"The creation account in Genesis and the theory of evolution could not be reconciled. One must be right and the other wrong. The story of the fossils agreed with the account of Genesis. In the oldest rocks we did not find a series of fossils covering the gradual changes from the most primitive creatures to developed forms, but rather in the oldest rocks developed species suddenly appeared. Between every species there was a complete absence of intermediate fossils."

—D.B. Gower, "Scientist Rejects Evolution," Kentish Times,
England, December 11, 1975, p. 4 [biochemist].

Hi Linda

Can I ask what your source is for the 25% hit rate due to chance? This is new to me.

When you raised Sheldrake I did some research on him and found that figure. I'll have to dig around for it now, I should have bookmarked it but didn't. The gist of it was that his research, which gave four options so chance would dictate 25% hit rate by chance alone, when replicated produced no positive results and failed to support his findings, in other words they returned the 25% success that chance predicts. I'll have a dig around and see if I can find the couple of articles that discussed this and I'll post the links.

Russell

Hi Linda

The terms "evolutionism," "evogoggles," "evo age," etc do nothing for me. They are meaningless terms and so only weaken the arguments put IMHO. Woo Woo is used in a very specific way, though maybe I have to spell out just exactly how in more detail. The term very specifically means, at least as I understand and use it, taking scientific sounding words and stringing them together in such a way as to make an unscientific idea sound scientific. Sheldrake used the words field to describe something that had virtually no field like characteristics but the term field is one that the public knows to be scientific. Morphic fields are anything but fields, fields do not hold information, they do not operate on information yet Sheldrake talks as if this is something that fields can do to make his idea sound plausibly scientific. No known field has ever behaved anything like the way Sheldrake suggests his morphic field does. He’s spinning scientific sounding words into a story that makes his idea sound scientific. He appears to be doing so to help make it sound convincing to his readers yet he would, quite rightly, be thrown out of any reputable science journal if he did the same in a paper.

Spinning scientific sounding words together to convince people your ideas are well founded is the basis of the term woo woo IMHO. Do you know of a more apt term for it? Or can you show me how a morphic field is actually a field in any sense of that word?

True believers again is not meant in a derogatory way though it does describe a trait in some people that many would see as negative. But if they behave in that way, that they truly believe things in face of contrary evidence what other term would you use? Maybe I could just call them wilfully deluded but is that really a nicer term for this trait? Should I just ignore what they are doing and change the subject?

So in short I’m happy to use other terms if you can provide less confronting terms of equivalent meaning. Can you think of terms that convey these meanings that are more PC?

All the best Linda

Russell

Hi Russ

Have you ever heard of the Steve’s list? It’s true that there are some scientists who reject evolution, Dr Gower is apparently one of them but they number only about one in a thousand. Gower makes some interesting statements here and I must agree with him on his first point, it is not possible to reconcile genesis with ToE. The vast majority of christians have come to the conclusion that Genesis is a fable with an important message not a scientific work. That’s tenable I would suggest.

Gower is simply wrong when he says that there is no support for evolution in the fossil record. Maybe this was believed in 1975 though even then I think most of the evidence showing that this is false was already known. Most cite the Cambrian explosion as an example of sudden appearance without precursors yet today we know of many soft bodied precursors for the Cambrian fauna. That these creatures were soft bodied and so not easily or often fossilized accounts for their late discovery and the belief among some many years ago that it was an instant appearance event rather than an evolutionary event. But lets put this into perspective and in a modern light. Today we know that the Cambrian explosion took upwards of thirty million years and the fossil record shows a great deal of detail in the changes that took place from the earliest part of that period to the latest part. Today we also have fossils of many precursor species from before the Cambrian so it was neither without precursors nor instantaneous.

So when Dr Gower says that there is an absence of intermediate fossils he is simply wrong, when he says that species developed suddenly he is simply wrong. Maybe that was the best information available to him at the time but that was over thirty years ago. We’ve learned a lot since then.

Dr Gower is also wrong when you examine the order of creation compared to the appearance in the fossil record. Genesis has the creation order totally wrong when you examine the details and that fact was well known even in 1975.

How did Dr Gower get it so wrong? I have no idea, I’ve never heard of the man until today and I can only find him cited on YEC websites. He is a young earth creationist and an emeritus professor of biochemistry. He is not credentialed in any field of evolutionary study and so he is commenting outside his field of expertiese in the piece you cite.

In Reason

Russell

Good to see this acknowledgement that biochemestry isn't a "field of evolutionary study". Hope to see further. Ideally, they'd start their own seminaries and stop trying to mix the religion in with legitimate sciences.

Hi CTD

Good to see this acknowledgement that biochemestry isn't a "field of evolutionary study". Hope to see further.

I’m sorry if you have been operating under the delusion that biochemistry was a field of evolutionary biology, it’s not. Biochemistry uses many evolutionary concepts in its work and its findings do often add to our understanding of evolution but the field is not directly a component of evolutionary biology. Much of the work of biochemists is the chemical/mechanical study of how organisms work rather than how they are related and how the evolve.

There is a sub discipline of biochemistry that deals with DNA, this field is called molecular biology. This field does directly deal with inheritance and so with Evolution and has provided much strong evidence for ToE but this was not Dr Gower specialty.

Russell

CTD and Russ, please have a look at the title of this thread. I started it because I was having this conversation with two people and wanted to keep it separate from the many other conversations going on in the thread. If people posting here could attempt to stay on topic it would be much appreciated, thank you. You might try reading the opening post for a start.

Hi Linda

Have you had any more thoughs on my last post to you? Have you had any thoughts on how we might scientificaly explore the 'suprenatural'.

Russell

I don't have time at the moment, Russell, which is why I put the discussion into a separate thread so that it would not be impossible to find. When I'm not working a full day and taking marking home with me in the evening I'll let you know.

NP
CYA then

Russell