Is there a place for woo in science?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Magical Realist, Aug 17, 2014.

  1. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    That picture top left, with the arm raised in a salute.
    Could it be........?
     
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  3. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Why wouldn't a mere statement, ANY statement, prove their existence scientifically? We have many cases where an investigator asks questions and the EVP they record answers. This should be adequate evidence for the intelligence of the ghost rather than just a residual replay of the past. Besides, we don't really know how clearly they perceive our world. It may be just as ambiguous from their standpoint as their world is from our own.
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2014
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  5. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    That just looks like a light source from beyond the room the window is in.
     
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  7. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Actually Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptical Inquirer, was a guest during a paranormal show spinoff of Ghost Adventures. He proposed telling the 3 investigative teams a made-up tale of someone with a name who died a certain way to see if the teams would then gather evidence confirming the story. Turns out they didn't. Shermer's experiment failed miserably. He also couldn't explain the results they obtained.
     
  8. river

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    I've been reading the Pickwick Papers by , Charles Dickens

    Its a scence where an apparition is present , the tenet then asks the question of the apparition

    On page #269 , and I quote

    " I shall give up possession ( of his residence )with the greatest pleasure ; but I should like to ask you one question, if you will allow me." Say on. Said the apparition sternly. " Well", said the tenant, " I don't apply the observation personally to you , because it is equally applicable to most of the ghosts I ever heard of; but it does appear to me somewhat inconsistent, that when you have an opportunity of visiting the fairest spots on Earth- for I suppose space is nothing to you- you should always return exactly to the very places where you have been most miserable." " Egad, that's very true; I never thought of that before," said the ghost. " You see, Sir," pursed the tenant , " this is a very uncomfortable room. From the appearance of that press, I should be disposed to say , this it is not wholly free from bugs; and I really think that you might find much more comfortable quarters: to say nothing of the climate of London, which is extremely disagreeable." " You are very right ,Sir," said the ghost politely, " it never struck me till now; I'll try change of air directly" - and, in fact, he began to vanish as he spoke; his legs, indeed, had quite disappeared." And if, Sir," said the tenant, calling after him, " if you would have the goodness to suggest to the other ladies and gentlemen who are now engaged in haunting old empty houses , that they might be much more comfortable else-where, you will confer a very great benefit on society." " I will", replied the ghost; " we must be dull fellows- very dull fellows, indeed; I can't imagine how we can have been so stupid." With these words , the spirit disappeared "

    Interesting , in the 1830's that this came up , never expected it , but there you are

    You can see the humour as well

    And just as interesting is that the , tenant , TALKED , to the spirit

    river
     
  9. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    @MR
    That is the only evidence required by a believer,
    but a scientist requires scientific evidence.
    These things are a matter of faith, not science.

    You have not made your case yet, that there is anything scientific in woo.
     
  10. river

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    Of course though when will a scientist actually have the courage to investigate any hauntings at all

    They fear the results I imagine , that hauntings are a real phenomena
     
  11. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    If the ghosts will not behave predictably, there is no place for them in the scientific realm.
     
  12. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    When will you have the courage (and the intelligence) to check the facts before posting crap?
    approximately 70 Fellows (including three Nobel laureates)...
    numerous Scientific and Technical Consultants...
    astronomer Carl Sagan, physicist Murray Gell-Mann, biophysicist Francis Crick, nuclear chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, evolutionary scientist Stephen Jay Gould, zoologist Richard Dawkins, philosopher W.V. Quine, physicist and historian of science Gerald Holton, cognitive scientist and author Douglas Hofstadter, philosopher Stephen Toulmin, physicist Richard Muller, planetary scientist David Morrison, aeronautical engineer Paul MacCready, sociologist of science Dorothy Nelkin, anthropologist Eugenie Scott, Russian physicist/engineer Sergei Kapitza, psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, philosopher Mario Bunge, philosopher Paul Edwards, psychologist David Marks, Dutch astrophysicist Cornelis de Jager, mathematician John Allen Paulos, folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand, space scientist Jill Tarter, psychologist Milton Rosenberg, and psychiatrist/consumer advocate Stephen Barrett. Polymath science writer Isaac Asimov, psychologist B.F. Skinner, astronomers Bart Bok and George Abell, and philosophers Sydney Hook and Ernst Nagel

    Just as a typical example.

    And why they "fear" that?
     
  13. river

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    If thats true then the Universe and the galaxies within it should hold no unpredictable actions but they do constantly
     
  14. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Yes!
    Proof that ghosts attend AC/DC gigs - I can just make out the raised Bic lighter.
     
  15. river

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  16. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    "At one time, it was assumed in the physical sciences that if the behavior observed in a system cannot be predicted, the problem is due to lack of fine-grained information, so that a sufficiently detailed investigation would eventually result in a deterministic theory ("If you knew exactly all the forces acting on the dice, you would be able to predict which number comes up").

    However, the advent of quantum mechanics removed the underpinning from that approach, with the claim that (at least according to the Copenhagen interpretation) the most basic constituents of matter at times behave indeterministically. This comes from the collapse of the wave function, in which the state of a system upon measurement cannot in general be predicted. Quantum mechanics only predicts the probabilities of possible outcomes, which are given by the Born rule. Non-deterministic behavior upon wavefunction collapse is not only a feature of the Copenhagen interpretation, with its observer-dependence, but also of objective collapse theories."---http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminism
     
  17. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Unless you have actual evidence that they don't then you don't have a point.
    So far all you've got is an unsupported (and incorrect) assertion.
    (And, in point of fact, neither do many of the believers in ghosts and "paranormal phenomena").
     
  18. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Presumably there's some sort of point intended here?
     
  19. river

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    In all that I have read and seen , there has never been a reputable scientist that has gone out into the field , to investigate these hauntings at all , period

    If I'm wrong name me just one , just one that has
     
  20. Balerion Banned Banned

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    He's attempting refute Kremmen's (weak) argument by insinuating that paranormal crankery is no different than real science.
     
  21. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Been done many, many times by scientists, paranormal investigators and documentaries. Harry Houdini was a famous ghost debunker; he'd go to spirit guides and the like, watch their "show" and then demonstrate how it was done. As a magician himself he knew most of their tricks.
     
  22. river

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    Well until proven different , give the evidence that the paranormal is false

    Then the paranormal is a legitimate , scientific branch of serious study
     
  23. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    So what you're saying is is that YOU (with your demonstrated selectivity, and general ignorance, of facts) are unaware [sup]1[/sup] that any scientist that is deemed by YOU to be reputable has done such an investigation.
    And that translates, somehow, into no scientist ever has done such an investigation.

    Were you expecting to be taken seriously at all?

    Claims like this make me doubt your rationality.
    It's certainly confirmation that you don't have a clue as to what science or how it works.

    1 Given that you showed, in a different thread, that you don't even read the sources you do subscribe to sufficiently well, I wonder - genuinely - if you even bother to look at anything from the sceptical side of things.
     

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