The Purpose of the Pseudoscience sub-forum

y'know, employing the scientific method. falsification/repeatability/etc

 

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UFO reports are far too diverse to be able to categorically ascribe any one theory, though weather phenomena was an admirable attempt.

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I'm more interested in the gas-chamber technique of mass-ridicule.

 

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And the purpose of the Parapsychology forum is what?

Still pseudoscience?

 

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I think this area on the Forums offers useful speculation about otherwise unacceptable topics. Scientifically speaking evidence exists in the form of experience and other such things.

 

Aptly put.

I said something similar a little while back in this thread about the automatic dismissal and ostracization of any topic deemed to be "pseudoscience".

You are also very correct about experience being evidence. But once it receives the Occam treatment, it ceases to be evidence of anything, though certainly not always deservedly.
As one person recently said to me

All too often, William of Ockham's helpful guideline instills a fiery zeal to simplify things in an uberskeptical manner, and the razor ceases to be a razor, but becomes an axe. Or sometimes an axe to grind.

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Fox Mulder said that only people who lack imagination, use Ockham's Razor.

 

Fox Mulder is an imaginary character... but then imaginary characters hold a lot of weight with some. Does Casper speak to you too?

Experience is a fine way to obtain evidence, as long as you can objectifiy your experiences with verification and testing. Some used to believe that the experience of an eclipse was evidence of a giant lizard eating the sun. Continued observation and testing revealed to the objective and skeptical minds the true nature of the eclipse.

There is only one way to "know." Making shit up and calling it scientific is pseudoscience.

 

An experience is not something you made up.
An experience is something that happened whether or not we have the level of technology to reproduce it in the laboratory.
Believing that a giant lizard ate the sun was a wrong explaination for something that happened but because the explanation was wrong did not mean that for a brief time the sun disappeared from view.

 

I agree. The hunter who is startled by a log that resembles a bear has the experience of stumbling on a bear in the woods. But that doesn't make the log a bear.

If that hunter returns to town and talks about his "experience" with the bear, he becomes a liar or deluded. Perhaps he thinks it was a bear... he ran without taking the time to actually notice the log. Perhaps he noticed the log after shitting his pants. But the "experience" was so moving he retells it it as if it were actually a bear.

Human perception is fallible. This is a fact demonstrated time and time again. "Experience" that cannot be verified, tested or reproduced is worthless. Those experiences are a dime a dozen and don't mean shit. The weak-minded; the mystery-mongers; and the significance-junkies will make up shit to go with them. Critical thinkers: the open-minded and the skeptical will see through these experiences and either find answers or simply admit an explanation isn't forthcoming rather than make shit up.

 

Human perception is indeed fallible, as is human reasoning.
What then, can be said of the perceptions and reasoning of a person such as yourself? You think yourself above such errors and flaws? You think yourself able to judge the merits of another's observations? To declare them incompetent, on moral grounds?

Experience that is experienced by the one experiencing has been verified by that person as having actually occured. Once over that minor hurdle, the person should be able to test it and find a probable cause if that person suspects something more unusual may be at work, ruling out the more prosaic solutions. And in my case, for example, of the precognition, it was reproduced, although not at my discretion. And who says it has to be at my discretion? YOU?

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Your armchair observations and pronouncements and yea, even condemnations, are also a dime a dozen and don't mean shit. Your religious beliefs are shaky, and I don't quite dig, man.

Was there a mirror near to you when you wrote this?

A prediction?
You haven't convinced me of your "god" so don't declare victory so soon, kay?

Thou shalt not murder.

Sounds good to me.

Do unto others as you would have them to do unto you.

Agreed.

Man shall not lie with man as with a woman, it is an abomination. Both of them shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Now you're making shit up. Try again. I am not counted among the converts to your silly cult.

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Sincerely.

 

I have no gods. Simply saying, "you're wrong" doesn't make me wrong. It just makes you as full of shit as the next woo-woo. You can believe in your pre-cognitions and aliens all you want, but until you have verifiable evidence, its just delusion or deception. Your personal experiences are fine, but without corroborating evidence that can be verified, they're just logs that look like bears.

Absolutely not. As one who is able to think critically, that I would be subjected to such a miss-perception would be one of my first hypotheses. It is the woo-woo that ignores this hypothesis and favors the sensational.

 

I am a person, who has rather high standards. I have verified personally these events I was talking about. I do NOT need YOU to tell me one way or the other whether they happened, nor do you have any authority to tell me whether they are valid or not.
And that's fine. I wouldn't expect you to take my word as being truth. But I AM telling the truth, and I know that as fact, so what YOU think about my position really means very little.

I am in a better position than you will ever be to determine whether I have misperceived something or not, and whether or not I was thinking critically when I was coming to a conclusion about something..

Is that a threat?
Or a thread? I can't quite tell.

I know the veracity of my own story, so if you want to say that I'm full of shit, then you're going to have to prove it to me. And I'm afraid that's going to be awfully difficult!

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Though, you have such spirit!

 

I wouldn't expect anything less from a believer.

Its pity.

Ah... the "burden of proof" argument, eh? Why would I bother trying to prove that which you are doing already demonstrating? Then again, the proof you are providing is to us all and not yourself, so I see your point. Sorry, I'm not interested in de-programming believers. I only want to deconstruct and criticize them in public to influence the critical thought of those that are still open-minded enough to think for themselves. It would seem that you are too far gone.

 

what is "sensational"? an et spacecraft in our vicinity? an et spacecraft anywhere? a sentient and sapient et?

 

The same can easily be said for yourself. Really.

Open-minded? Describing something that you apparently are not?

No. Scratch apparently. You aren't.

Good! Continue to insist then that I am a liar or somehow deluded by what I have (mis)perceived, though you were not there, and cannot prove one thing or the other. Just talk. Just say so. And maybe some gullible idiot will take your words as gospel!

I wouldn't expect anything less from a disbeliever.

It really does work both ways, doesn't it?

 

All of the above, dear Gustav, and beyond.

 

In your bear story you assumed that the hunter did not see a bear but mistook a log for a bear. Unless you were there to witness the event it is equally possible that the hunter did see a bear instead of mistaking a log for a bear.

 

It seems the Pseudoscience forum is beholden to Skinwalker and his diatribe.

Not any longer.
Skinwalker has a little problem(NO! not that! that's his wife's problem)
He has a problem with reality and FRESH thought.

 

The Forum should really allow untested theories that need testing to be preposed, however it's difficult for anyone to use such a peer review method with the number of people posting "crap". (yes, the definition of wasted database space)

The main problem is trying to work out what "Crap" is and what is "untested", since everybodies personal view is different (Thats what makes individuals, individual).

In the instance of this "Artificial Architecture on Cydonia" posts you could suggest it's "Crap" mainly due to the number of years that science fiction writers "imagined" life on other worlds, picking Mars as the basis for many novels. (H.G.Wells - 'War of the worlds')

Since the Multiple robotic landings on Mars and the Multiple satellites that have mapped it's surface, concensus and burden of proof would suggest there has never been any life on Mars and there is no Artificial Structures.

Now that thread could of had that arguement put forwards and left, but it would of been lost below mountains of reposts of "crap" by the thread starter with the potential reason to make it move towards their favour.

I just don't think allowing a Science forum get filled with complete crap is acceptable. I know some of you complain about too much science scareying you away, and that making sciforums different from other forums, however the problem is we end up with every other forums rejects from not acting when they act up.

 

And then people leave.