175. Author Steve Volk on Skeptical Arguments Designed to Mislead (Podcast)

[Michael Larkin]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

I think conventional science has set itself up to take an incredible hit on "climate science"! When a few facts come out , they won't have a leg to stand on, and even some of their own gurus - such as James Lovelock are admitting it was an awful mistake:

Gaia' scientist James Lovelock: I was 'alarmist' about climate change | Mail Online

David

Here's my bet, David. If and when the truth on any of the major controversial issues of science come out in favour of the unorthodox view, scientists, the media and elites will try to disappear like cockroaches when the light is switched on. They're all implicated, and no one likes to have to admit to making a gigantic cock-up.

But they'll still be the powerful and the controlling. And nor will there be an end to future cock-ups. Human evolution still has some way to go before we can dispense with religionism in whatever form is currently in vogue. I'm optimistic that eventually we'll get there, but not that even a seemingly major turnaround like that would fundamentally change things in the short term.

[Michael Larkin]

Has sceptical science provided any explanatory model, and if so how would we evaluate its results?

In the field of paranormal phenomena, no coherent model has been provided, as far as I can determine. I think Sheldrake does an incomparable job of spelling out why in The Science Delusion.

Hence, at the moment, there doesn't seem to be any meaningful results to evaluate.

The (incoherent) "model" that has been provided seems to consist in fitting any and all evidence into a metaphysical framework of materialism. To be fair, I also think that some of the believers tend to fit evidence into a preferred metaphysical framework. But having said that, I think the evidence for certain phenomena, particularly NDEs, is very compelling: there is more out there than can ever be explained by the current materialist metaphysic.

[Michael Larkin]

Originally Posted by alextsakiris

IMO the trend seems to be heading in the opposite direction... manipulation, disinformation and public deception seems to be on the rise (Skeptiko – Science at the Tipping Point Blog Archive 142. Jim Marrs On Donald Rumsfeld and ?What is Building 7??)

Yes. I'd agree, but cracks are beginning to appear, maybe not so much in paranormal research, but certainly in climate science, where manipulation has been and continues to be exposed. I don't want to expound at length on that as it's O/T. But as I've pointed out to David, that doesn't make me confidently optimistic quite yet.

[sbu]

Originally Posted by alextsakiris

maybe we ought to rip all the science books apart and give half their pages to the religion department and the other half to engineering... science can be restated as that which:

a. gets up closer to God

or

b. makes the iPhone better

And your "NDEs prove that consciousness is outside the brain" signature, is that a or b then?

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by alextsakiris

maybe we ought to rip all the science books apart and give half their pages to the religion department and the other half to engineering... science can be restated as that which:

a. gets up closer to God

It certainly goes beyond the local laws of nature assumed by materialism ... which is a step towards super-nature, nearer the 'supernatural' which is probably atheists and humanists biggest bogeyman term. Humanism emerged from opposing 'the supernatural' or paranormal - beyond the nature we see or measure. Yet if science can one day understand this, it will be viewed as natural and normal .... and materialism becomes unnatural and abmormal

The political humanists/atheist/materialists have joined forces and are creating a media 'propaganda war' - as Steven Volk labelled it. They have redefined spiritual experience as a self-delusion, denied 'free will' exists and thrown out lab evidence of real psi ... not only are they unwilling to accept lab evidence against the materialist dogma, they want to teach 'anomalistic psychology' to children in schools to oppose evidence against metaphysical materialism. It seems our future generations are to be brainwashed (or mind-washed) they are just biological robots ... and if technology speeds up (as some singularity materialists believe) and parapsychological sciences remain suppressed, where will their worldview go next? Trans-humanist experimentation?

Dear political materialists, perhaps a materialistic mankind can imprison it's consciousness with a future digital immortality ...NDEs versus brain interfaces? Personally I'd rather remain in the holistic, natural one, that extends beyond brain death.

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Michael Larkin

Here's my bet, David. If and when the truth on any of the major controversial issues of science come out in favour of the unorthodox view, scientists, the media and elites will try to disappear like cockroaches when the light is switched on. They're all implicated, and no one likes to have to admit to making a gigantic cock-up.

But they'll still be the powerful and the controlling. And nor will there be an end to future cock-ups. Human evolution still has some way to go before we can dispense with religionism in whatever form is currently in vogue. I'm optimistic that eventually we'll get there, but not that even a seemingly major turnaround like that would fundamentally change things in the short term.

You could be right, but I sense that at some point, the media at large will grab this story and turn on the scientists, who won't have a leg to stand on. I was amazed the other day, I went to pay a bill at the garage, and I got chatting to the semi-retired guy who does the books for them. Somehow climate change got mentioned, and he knew the whole story, and we laughed at how chasing a trend of tenths of a degree per decade in extremely noisy data, collected with thermometers that are mostly not even calibrated to that level of accuracy, would be considered utterly stupid, even in a school physics lesson.

Maybe I am being optimistic, but I think the media and the politicians are going to want someone to blame - and soon!

David

[David Bailey]

I want to comment on this excellent interview.

What does the X factor mean for science?

Clearly if there is an experimenter effect operating in physics, it will be most damaging in large experiments, where almost all the physicists are rooting for one outcome - such as a higgs boson, and where the signal is abslutely buried in noise - think of it, it takes months or years to accumulate 5 standard deviations worth of evidence (the established standard)! If the experimenter effect operates on the actual experiment, there will be no opportunity for a skeptical physicist to disprove the higgs - he would have to build another LHC to replicate the experiment!

The search for fluctuations in the background radiation (from the big bang), would be another likely candidate to be disrupted by the experimenter effect!

Has sceptical science provided any explanatory model?

To me, the fascinating thing is that they don't even try. I mean, if someone really believed presentiment (say) was a statistical error of some sort, they would set up the experiment, and publish a blow by blow account of how it is that the body seems to get information about a forthcoming shock before it arrives. Established science would absolutely faun over someone who could do that for any of the popular experiments. Note that this doesn't mean debunking from the sidelines, but reproducing any of the prominent psi experiments, and discovering what really happens.

As for the explanatory models of NDE's - well they are absurd, and seem to contradict a lot of what is understood about the brain. Above all, they just ignore the extraordinary relevance of the supposed hallucination, even when the person did not anticipate any danger before the event.

David

[Hjortron]

Originally Posted by alextsakiris

I recall Andy's interview where the old Jewish doctor who was angered by the mere mention of "God"... "6 million dead" he murmured. As much as we might identify with anyone's individual pain, this kind of reasoning is a terrible way to try and answer theses questions.

Yeah, people really are emotional about these issues (even when they think they're not), which makes a coherent dialogue so hard to achieve.

Originally Posted by alextsakiris

I get the point, but don't agree... I often poke at my wife about psychology (Joni E. Johnston, Psy.D. | Psychology Today)... wouldn't almost every psychology study have to be reexamined in the way I'm talking about?

Exactly, psychology would be impacted the hardest, followed by philosophy. Nearly everything therein would have to be re-examined. But the methodologies that are in place when doing psychology, neuroscience and philosophy would not necessarily change at all, just how we interpreted the results we find.

Sciences like, say, inorganic chemistry or aerodynamic engineering wouldn't be affected at all. So some sciences would have to go through a revolution, while others wouldn't be affected.

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

The political humanists/atheist/materialists have joined forces and are creating a media 'propaganda war' - as Steven Volk labelled it. They have redefined spiritual experience as a self-delusion, denied 'free will' exists and thrown out lab evidence of real psi ... not only are they unwilling to accept lab evidence against the materialist dogma, they want to teach 'anomalistic psychology' to children in schools to oppose evidence against metaphysical materialism. It seems our future generations are to be brainwashed (or mind-washed) they are just biological robots ... and if technology speeds up (as some singularity materialists believe) and parapsychological sciences remain suppressed, where will their worldview go next? Trans-humanist experimentation?

I agree... and agree that we have to resist this nonsense... then again, I don't know where psi, consciousness research and technology in general, is taking us. I'm not against trans-humanism in principle because I don't know what the principles are. I just know that Materialism is a crock... and I'm very suspicious of those pushing such an over-the-top mind-dead model.

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Clearly if there is an experimenter effect operating in physics, it will be most damaging in large experiments, where almost all the physicists are rooting for one outcome - such as a higgs boson, and where the signal is abslutely buried in noise - think of it, it takes months or years to accumulate 5 standard deviations worth of evidence (the established standard)! If the experimenter effect operates on the actual experiment, there will be no opportunity for a skeptical physicist to disprove the higgs - he would have to build another LHC to replicate the experiment!

great example.

Has sceptical science provided any explanatory model?

To me, the fascinating thing is that they don't even try. I mean, if someone really believed presentiment (say) was a statistical error of some sort, they would set up the experiment, and publish a blow by blow account of how it is that the body seems to get information about a forthcoming shock before it arrives.

great point... a lot of folks don't seem to understand the difference between experimentation and debunking.