Physician Turned Podcaster Skeptical of NDE (Podcast)

[Yafi]

Originally Posted by GaSS PaNiCC

Why is this not real evidence? Please read the literature before making such absurd accusations. This book clearly demonstrates empirically and scientifically the problems with mainstream materialistic consciousness. Or better yet, just listen to the podcast presented on skeptiko. It is possibly one the best episodes of the show in which these scientists present their viewpoint in a comprehensive and respectable fashion.

It's not evidence - it's a book by someone who wants to sell books. If there were any real, replicable-in-a-lab results, scientists would be all over it trying it for themselves. The fact that this isn't happening tells me all I need to know and it *should* be raising red flags with you, but it won't because you swallow it all without a thought. Have you ever seen the evidence for yourself (and I don't mean reading what someone else *says* they saw in a book)? Doesn't the lack of solid evidence trigger any kind of curiosity in you about *why* there's no solid evidence?

[GaSS PaNiCC]

Originally Posted by Yafi

It's not evidence - it's a book by someone who wants to sell books. If there were any real, replicable-in-a-lab results, scientists would be all over it trying it for themselves. The fact that this isn't happening tells me all I need to know and it *should* be raising red flags with you, but it won't because you swallow it all without a thought. Have you ever seen the evidence for yourself (and I don't mean reading what someone else *says* they saw in a book)? Doesn't the lack of solid evidence trigger any kind of curiosity in you about *why* there's no solid evidence?

lol, i'm sorry but what about every possible science book out you see in stores? How else are scientists going to educate the public about their ideas? If you are implying these well qualified scientists are just out there to make a buck, then i must ask you what about Richard Dawkins and the infamous God Delusion? I'm sorry but your logic there is just completely flawed, every new idea and concept in science deserves a chance to be investigated and presented, and sure skepticism is healthy but it depends on the approach in which it is applied, without making any conclusions yourself unless you can provide a thorough explanation for the phenomena presented. Which seems to be the case with you, for some reason you are resisting further investigating the evidence of this viewpoint. Which leads me to ask, do you even know what concepts are being presented in irreducible minds? These scientists are presenting a well balanced argument backed with sufficient empirical evidence reasoning why mind might not necessarily=brain.

[Yafi]

Originally Posted by GaSS PaNiCC

lol, i'm sorry but what about every possible science book out you see in stores? How else are scientists going to educate the public about their ideas? If you are implying these well qualified scientists are just out there to make a buck, then i must ask you what about Richard Dawkins and the infamous God Delusion? I'm sorry but your logic there is just completely flawed, every new idea and concept in science deserves a chance to be investigated and presented, and sure skepticism is healthy but it depends on the approach in which it is applied, without making any conclusions yourself unless you can provide a thorough explanation for the phenomena presented. Which seems to be the case with you, for some reason you are resisting further investigating the evidence of this viewpoint. Which leads me to ask, do you even know what concepts are being presented in irreducible minds? These scientists are presenting a well balanced argument backed with sufficient empirical evidence reasoning why mind might not necessarily=brain.

Real scientists don't publish their work in "book in stores" - they submit the work to reputable journals. If the work of Radin and others was producing useful results, they'd be doing the same. Popularizers, like Dawkins and others, may write books so that non-scientists can understand what it's all about. Don't set up a straw man.

Yes, new ideas deserve to be investigated. But when they've been investigated for 20, 30, 50 years with no positive results, do you just keep on trying?

[GaSS PaNiCC]

Originally Posted by Yafi

Real scientists don't publish their work in "book in stores" - they submit the work to reputable journals. If the work of Radin and others was producing useful results, they'd be doing the same. Popularizers, like Dawkins and others, may write books so that non-scientists can understand what it's all about. Don't set up a straw man.

Yes, new ideas deserve to be investigated. But when they've been investigated for 20, 30, 50 years with no positive results, do you just keep on trying?

I agree scientists do submit their work in reputable journals, but if their idea's are rejected then part of the process in promoting the idea is writing books to inform the public and their scientific colleagues. Just because you might not necessarily find these works published in a scientific journal, because they are unconventional, one should not assume they should be dismissed. Reasoning why you might not necessarily find this work in a scientific journal, is because the majority of the population of scientists dismiss it because it is a controversial area, but that does not mean there has been no progress. If there is a positive statistical outcome resulting from an experiment in parapsychology, then it deserves to be investigated then it should not be declared as bunk. And concerning your point which you suggest there has been no positive results in parapsychology, read again. Now, can you tell me why parapsychologists aren't real scientists, as you claim?

Here's the blog:

In a recent article in Skeptical Inquirer magazine, physicist Stanley Jeffers (Department of Physics and Astronomy, York University) reviews the results of the PEAR (Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research) Laboratory research with random number generators (RNGs). His opinion is that PEAR's claims that intention influences randomness is not supported. He concludes: "Despite the best efforts of the PEAR group over a twenty-five-year period, their impact on mainstream science has been negligible. The PEAR group might argue that this is due to the biased and blinkered mentality of mainstream scientists. I would argue that it is due to the lack of compelling evidence."

We are all entitled to our opinions. But when it comes to evaluating evidence, one would think it more than a mild oversight to fail to mention that literally hundreds of similar RNG experiments have been published by other researchers, and many of those studies were reportedly successful (and discussed recently in a meta-analysis and two commentaries published in Psychological Bulletin).

Failing to mention that the PEAR work is part of a larger body of studies is one thing, but Jeffers also forgot to mention that he participated in an RNG experiment he helped to design that was supposedly (and arguably) better than the PEAR design, and that it successfully supported the PEAR claim! (That paper can be accessed here.)

A case of "biased and blinkered mentality"? Or a case of preaching to the converted (since Jeffer's article appeared in the confirmed debunker's bible).

Entangled Minds: Biased and blinkered mentality

[mcromer]

Yafi,

If you are not even going to look at the evidence when it is pointed out to you (reading Irreducible Mind would be a good start, and it cites many of the sorts of controlled studies which you seem to believe are the only possible evidence for psi), then you really have nothing to contribute to this discussion, just as a fundamentalist Christian who refused to read the evidence that the earth is more than 10,000 years old simply has very little to bring to the evolution debate.

[Yafi]

Originally Posted by mcromer

Yafi,

If you are not even going to look at the evidence when it is pointed out to you (reading Irreducible Mind would be a good start, and it cites many of the sorts of controlled studies which you seem to believe are the only possible evidence for psi), then you really have nothing to contribute to this discussion, just as a fundamentalist Christian who refused to read the evidence that the earth is more than 10,000 years old simply has very little to bring to the evolution debate.

It seems that the only reason you consider I'm not contributing is that you don't want to hear from someone who doesn't agree with you. It's plainly obvious that you have no idea what the words "science" and "skeptic" really mean; and there no point me or anyone else trying to help you out on that front, because you don't want to listen.

[GaSS PaNiCC]

Originally Posted by Yafi

It seems that the only reason you consider I'm not contributing is that you don't want to hear from someone who doesn't agree with you. It's plainly obvious that you have no idea what the words "science" and "skeptic" really mean; and there no point me or anyone else trying to help you out on that front, because you don't want to listen.

I could say the same about you, except your the only one who fit's your own definition. And you haven't answered my question.

[Yafi]

Originally Posted by GaSS PaNiCC

I could say the same about you, except your the only one who fit's your own definition. And you haven't answered my question.

Naah, really, you couldn't. In any case it ain't my definition, and you probably don't know what that definition is anyway.

As for your question, the answer has already gone before but in case you missed it: you can only really call yourself a real scientist if you do real science, i.e. you follow the process so that others can see that your results actually mean something. Too many working in parapsychology fail to meet that claim.

[GaSS PaNiCC]

^^^prooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo of from people who actually know what their talking about?

[mcromer]

Originally Posted by Yafi

It seems that the only reason you consider I'm not contributing is that you don't want to hear from someone who doesn't agree with you. It's plainly obvious that you have no idea what the words "science" and "skeptic" really mean; and there no point me or anyone else trying to help you out on that front, because you don't want to listen.

No, the reason you are not contributing is that you haven't read the literature and indicated that you don't intend to read the literature.

That means you don't know what you are talking about when you attack the literature. And that your opinion is worth very little on this subject. Of course, there is an easy way for you to remedy that -- become informed of the subject that you are attacking. Read Irreducible Mind. Read Ghost Hunters. Read some of the actual studies, instead of just the summaries, and come up with reasonable explanations on why the studies are wrong. But don't come here spouting bullet items from the "skeptical" sources when you haven't read the evidence.