What do you REALLY believe?

[Cramulus]

If you want a more contemporary example, take a look at parapsychology. There are some phenomena which have been very meticulously documented by parapsychologists. Things like like psychokinesis can be repeatedly reproduced in a lab. Does that mean PK is real? It still depends on who you ask.

I have never heard of such a case that satisfies any type of standard
If there is a case then link me up
and I will link you up to the hundreds of peer reviewed physiological journals that did such experiments and found NO correlation on what the person was claiming and what was the results

gladly. The citations are in a book which is at home, so you'll have to hang on.

If you've never heard of a parapsychology case which satisfies scientific standards, you probably haven't read up on Parapsych much. It's hotly contested territory and there is strong evidence supporting both sides of the fence.

Parapsychologists are really serious about rigorous methodology and statistics. They operate at a much stricter level than the significance tests used elsewhere in psychology.

Most debate about parapsych surrounds the explanation, not the phenomenon. We can reproduce PK effects pretty reliably. But we still don't know how they work or what's really going on.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

See above. Sceintists have made many useful predictions from time to time, with peer review... and new information will entirely invalidate the old. Science at its best is about documenting and studying observations... observations, by nature of being humans... is subjective. Further, successful predictions may still have a false assumption as to WHY the prediction was successful.

again you have claims
PROVE IT

Scientists for centuries, even with experiments and observations held that spontaneous generation was the Cause for maggots on meat, mice in old rags and rats on the nile river bank. Only after new equipment and instruments did such ideas change. The instruments were better than the sense organs of the humans.

Yet, we don't know if our current instruments are True, or just better. 1000 years from now, perhaps a new Ratatosk will be arguing that 1000 years ago people believed crazy shit because they didn't understand *insert newly observed phenomena here*.

Causation and Correlation are not the same. Scientific Methods are excellent for documenting correlation and making educated guesses about causation. However, that doesn't mean they're right... just that the data can be correlated.

[Thurnez Isa]

@ BH

no - they are double blind fold tests which eliminate that possibility

do you even know how an experiment is run?

If not, Im actually starting to see the problem. People just don't understand how science works.

Also scientists don't reject a notion outright... if it was true we want to know... and there a lot of people would love if it was true. I know NO scientist that rejects a notion outright before there is evidence of it being false or ture.

[LMNO]

That's partly due to the insistence that belief must be irrelevent.  If the experiment is done with the intent of disproving the results, you disprove the results.  Someone who assumes magic doesn't work makes an incredibly poor magician (and a relatively poor scientist since someone who assumes anything makes a relatively poor scientist)

I'm amazed at your ability to see inside the heads of all those scientists, were able to glean their assumptions, and then correlate them with their results.

[Thurnez Isa]

If you want a more contemporary example, take a look at parapsychology. There are some phenomena which have been very meticulously documented by parapsychologists. Things like like psychokinesis can be repeatedly reproduced in a lab. Does that mean PK is real? It still depends on who you ask.

I have never heard of such a case that satisfies any type of standard
If there is a case then link me up
and I will link you up to the hundreds of peer reviewed physiological journals that did such experiments and found NO correlation on what the person was claiming and what was the results

gladly. The citations are in a book which is at home, so you'll have to hang on.

If you've never heard of a parapsychology case which satisfies scientific standards, you probably haven't read up on Parapsych much. It's hotly contested territory and there is strong evidence supporting both sides of the fence.

Parapsychologists are really serious about rigorous methodology and statistics. They operate at a much stricter level than the significance tests used elsewhere in psychology.

Most debate about parapsych surrounds the explanation, not the phenomenon. We can reproduce PK effects pretty reliably. But we still don't know how they work or what's really going on.

Cool
link me up when you can

Im not a physiologist obviously, but my sister is, and did several parapsychologist courses...

[Thurnez Isa]

See above. Sceintists have made many useful predictions from time to time, with peer review... and new information will entirely invalidate the old. Science at its best is about documenting and studying observations... observations, by nature of being humans... is subjective. Further, successful predictions may still have a false assumption as to WHY the prediction was successful.

again you have claims
PROVE IT

Scientists for centuries, even with experiments and observations held that spontaneous generation was the Cause for maggots on meat, mice in old rags and rats on the nile river bank. Only after new equipment and instruments did such ideas change. The instruments were better than the sense organs of the humans.

Yet, we don't know if our current instruments are True, or just better. 1000 years from now, perhaps a new Ratatosk will be arguing that 1000 years ago people believed crazy shit because they didn't understand *insert newly observed phenomena here*.

Causation and Correlation are not the same. Scientific Methods are excellent for documenting correlation and making educated guesses about causation. However, that doesn't mean they're right... just that the data can be correlated.

modern science didn't even come to be till the last couple of 100 years
the ground work was laid in the middle ages but during the renaissance there was a crack down

[BabylonHoruv]

That's partly due to the insistence that belief must be irrelevent.  If the experiment is done with the intent of disproving the results, you disprove the results.  Someone who assumes magic doesn't work makes an incredibly poor magician (and a relatively poor scientist since someone who assumes anything makes a relatively poor scientist)

I'm amazed at your ability to see inside the heads of all those scientists, were able to glean their assumptions, and then correlate them with their results.

Thank you thank you

*bows*

And for my next trick I'll get pissed off about something Thurnez said and make a complete ass of myself again.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

See above. Sceintists have made many useful predictions from time to time, with peer review... and new information will entirely invalidate the old. Science at its best is about documenting and studying observations... observations, by nature of being humans... is subjective. Further, successful predictions may still have a false assumption as to WHY the prediction was successful.

again you have claims
PROVE IT

Scientists for centuries, even with experiments and observations held that spontaneous generation was the Cause for maggots on meat, mice in old rags and rats on the nile river bank. Only after new equipment and instruments did such ideas change. The instruments were better than the sense organs of the humans.

Yet, we don't know if our current instruments are True, or just better. 1000 years from now, perhaps a new Ratatosk will be arguing that 1000 years ago people believed crazy shit because they didn't understand *insert newly observed phenomena here*.

Causation and Correlation are not the same. Scientific Methods are excellent for documenting correlation and making educated guesses about causation. However, that doesn't mean they're right... just that the data can be correlated.

modern science didn't even come to be till the last couple of 100 years
the ground work was laid in the middle ages but during the renaissance there was a crack down

Yes, and many of the points I made were from the past 200 years. Before Louis Pasteur figured a couple things out, we had all sorts of causes... which were really correlations.

As humans, we rely first and foremost on a brain, which, if scientists are to be believed, evolved over thousands of years particularly adapted for surviving on this planet. To presume that such a thing can also understand the Real Universe seems possibly a bit off. When we add to that, an sensory system that only pulls in a small subset of information available... every observed picture is, by default incomplete. To claim that we have machines to observe for us, presumes that somehow we KNOW what we can't observe, we can conceive of all the stuff we can't sense and somehow we can make a machine that will give us precise observations... forgetting that if we made the damn thing, its as relative as we are.

That for me is key. I think science provides us with an awesome toolset for observing repeatable phenomena, making predictions, testing those predictions and examining the results and making more observations, more predictions, more tests etc... but, when we step from that to AND CAN FIGURE OUT THE REALLY REAL CAUSE FOR REAL.... well we're in lightning from your fingers and faeries on the back porch realms as far as I'm concerned.

[Thurnez Isa]

again the conclusion I reached today is I don't think people understand how science works

its probably scientists fault that they don't
but they don't

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

again the conclusion I reached today is I don't think people understand how science works

its probably scientists fault that they don't
but they don't

A conclusion is just where you stopped thinking... or at least that's what I've heard... 

[Thurnez Isa]

just a choice of words cause i don't know the words to use there

"I think" usually means to me that I have not made up my mind

[Thurnez Isa]

ok it comes to my attention that I misquoted something
that i wanted proof in objectiveness or something like that

that is not what I meant - sorry

I want to know what you claim you could do
to what degree of accuracy
and what, if any, effect it can have in a testable environment

that is the proof I want

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

ok it comes to my attention that I misquoted something
that i wanted proof in objectiveness or something like that

that is not what I meant - sorry

I want to know what you claim you could do
to what degree of accuracy
and what, if any, effect it can have in a testable environment

that is the proof I want

Could you restate that, I'm not sure I understand what you're asking.

[Thurnez Isa]

its not so much directed at you rat...  more BH
but you could answer to

what your magic can do?
to what degree of accuracy?
and how it can actually effect the physical world?

now its just an internal world we get into something much different... then just describe the effect

[BabylonHoruv]

ok it comes to my attention that I misquoted something
that i wanted proof in objectiveness or something like that

that is not what I meant - sorry

I want to know what you claim you could do
to what degree of accuracy
and what, if any, effect it can have in a testable environment

that is the proof I want

To what degree of accuracy, magic doesn't make things happen, it effects probability.  I am also not pretending to be an incredibly powerful mage, just a reasonable one.  It depends on the likelihood that whatever I am trying to make happen will happen without magic, so the level of accuracy is pretty subjective, but I'd say I have a level of accuracy of about 25% more or less.

What I can do, effect the likelihood of something happening.  That applies to anything, but it is most effective in things that are 2/3 to 3/4 likely to happen already, So shooting lightning bolts is generally a waste of time and energy, even if it were possible for someone to do so.  

What effect it can have in a testable environment.  Give me my tarot cards (the tools I use for prediction the most often) then have me make guesses about something going on on the other side of a wall.

Don't let me use them and have me make guesses.

So long as my guesses are weighted between 2/3 and 3/4 right (for instance, I guess if a roll on a die is on the high side (3-6) or the low side (1-4) I'll get a statistically significant number more right with my cards than without them.  

If you want to run this experiment I welcome it.  The internet makes a pretty nice wall.