Bioelectromagnetics
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Cleopatra said:
Cleopatra - you are such a wise woman - i can see now what i missed earlier - you are a seer - dispensing your wisdom on us mere mortals.
I will calm down, although I must admit to feeling exceptionally calm but did make a genuine error in leaving the caps on. Oh dear, perhaps I should not confess to that because it will make your 'hit' rate look bad!!!
Lorri said:
So the national wage in the UK is not £4.50? You should contact the DTI as they seem to believe it is.
Hellbound
Merchant of Doom
Lorri said:
Oh, it's backwards day, is it?
Or is Twaddle some sor tof code word for logic?
Great jazz! I see you girls have been having fun in my absence. Tomorrow very a.m. I have to test a cancer patient's blood so I am off to bed, but if anyone is interested I will take you through the process of how we do this in our lab. If anyone wants to know about this let me know here, meanwhile goodnight, sweet ladies, goodnight.
Lorri, would you be favorably disposed to participating in a discussion on this topic? I would like to start a thread on it, but your presence would be, I think, a big boost to the discussion, as you are proposing that the testimony of her clients is a good indicator of her effectiveness, and (quite legitimately) asking the question (I will paraphrase) "what gives skeptics the right to judge these services when they have not themselves received them?" (I trust that you will correct me if I have not phrased your concern adequately.)Lorri said:
I would prefer to start a new thread because A) the topic deserves its own thread, and B) so that we do not continue to derail this one. Of course, anything we say in the new thread that applies to this one can be quickly chucked this direction.
If you have any sources you might want me (or any other interested skeptic) to read, the better to understand your view, please list them. I have one suggestion for your own reading, a nice review of the cold reading literature by Denis Dutton. I hope you do not take offense; you will note that much (the vast majority, actually) of the concern with Barnum Effect and Cold Reading that applies to mediumship applies equally well to mainstream psychological testing. In fact, Forer's original work on subjective validation (that is, claiming a test is valid because clients say it works for them) is on personality tests.
In another thread, in discussion with a poster named Freda (Freda, if you are still lurking here, hi!), I argued that the possibility of speaking with the spirit world is so incredibly important that we must, because we are so eager to believe, be extra careful with our experimental methodology. If there is anything to mediumship (note, I am not saying there is or is not--my own personal beliefs on the matter are irrelevant), then it will show up even after we control for the things we do know about cold reading and barnum effects.
So...please...take a look at the article, if you wish. I invite you to join me in a discussion; I will not start the thread until and unless you (or another suitably qualified person) agrees to it.
And now....back to the non-derailed original topic...
Cleopatra said:
Hmmm! Er Cleopatra, what would you think of a large group of people who invoke and talk to the dead on a weekly basis? I came across this outfit when I was visiting a large Cathedral somewhere to look at the architecture, and heard them saying:
Father, who art in heaven...
and they went on to confess something about believing in the "forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everafter".
I was even more amazed to hear them openly talking to some guy called Mr J. Christ and asking him to help them out with their personal problems. It seems they think this guy actually came back to earth as a living person after he died. You call these people woo woos don't you?
I found the whole idea a bit bizarre, since they seem to make some other amazing claims like he was born from from a virgin and so on, and only had some crude cot in the back room of a dosshouse. It seemed that eventually a bunch of establishment skeptics didn't like what he was saying and bumped him off in a way even more cruel than BillHoyt (aka airhead). They hung the poor guy up by his writing hands as a message to maverick self-publishing authors. (His book is still in print however). Anyway, what finally knocked me right out was it seems this group of people constitute around 20 percent of the world's population.
They are quite brazen about this communion with the dead: they even call it Communion outright, just like that!
All those necromancers out there! Would you belieeeeeive it!? (Don't bother to answer that, because like any other sensible person you obviously don't)
Wow. Cleopatra, please forgive me for hijacking but...cogreslab said:
I was in Tibet a while ago and I came across a large group of people who believe that life is an illusion and we are only here to make good what we have done in the past. They don't believe in any god, they just want everyone to live in peace. I found this to be bizarre but it seems a good 50 percent of the population believes it! Wow, can you imagine it??!?
cogreslab said:
That's jazzy!
Well sir you might be a guest in this skeptic lounge and we might have gathered here to listen to your solos but do us the favor to play some of our favorite tunes; answer to our questions please.
You know since I belong to the group you described above allow me to correct you. We don't talk to the dead when we gather in churches but we claim that we communicate the non existent since we cannot provide evidence for His existence. The difference is huge.
I believe because I need to--that makes me a fideist--others believe because they have taken the story for real and they believe in its historical truth, others believe because they have realized that religion is a good way to manipulate people, your friends the necromants are included in this catefory.
In any case the belief in God serves a purpose.
I cannot think why we should believe in what Roger Coghill says without his providing any evidence.
Unless you imply that ...
To BillHoyt et al., We are testing a new way of treating secondary cancers. A clinical trial of the reagent we are working on was published in BJC (Brtitish Journal of Cancer) last August (authors Jakab et al) . In a case control clinical trial with 66 colorectal cancer patients this reagent significantly reduced metastasis. We are seing how it operates in vitro to determine dose and a number of other factors. We don't get paid even the national rate for this work btw: it takes fifteen hours hours for each analysis including the glucose oxidase and hexokinase assays needed (which are performed blind) and we are kindly given £50 towards the diagnostic kits by the contributing doctors, which works out at a net £20 for the exercise, or £1.33 per hour.
Cleopatra said:
That's jazzy!
Well sir you might be a guest in this skeptic lounge and we might have gathered here to listen to your solos but do us the favor to play some of our favorite tunes; answer to our questions please.
You know since I belong to the group you described above allow me to correct you. We don't talk to the dead when we gather in churches but we claim that we communicate the non existent since we cannot provide evidence for His existence. The difference is huge.
I believe because I need to--that makes me a fideist--others believe because they have taken the story for real and they believe in its historical truth, others believe because they have realized that religion is a good way to manipulate people, your friends the necromants are included in this catefory.
Cleopatra
Now I am understanding where you are coming from. The penny has dropped. You are one of those who have a need. Forget the fact that others might have a need and their needs bring them to a different level of understanding - it is your need that leads the way. You are one of those. You have religion. There are many different religions in this world, most of them preaching that theirs is the true faith. Wars and other inhuman happenings are usually found to have their roots in religion. They all fight for dominance.
I am not religious. I am spiritual. I believe in a universal power that is there for all of us, no matter what colour, creed or religion others might be. I believe in personal responsibility - an inner knowing of what is right or wrong, and don't look to any church and or leaders to show me the way.
I am not derailing this thread (I can hear you cyring it) just responding to your posting because now the penny has dropped -you have religion. Of course, you would deride mediums and the such because your mentality belongs with a pack and if your not in that pack - then your out!!!
RamblingOnwards
Critical Thinker
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Lorri said:
My beliefs correspond roughly to what you call spirituality. So what? I find it perfectly reasonable to assume that someone who charges for a service, when no evidence exists that the service is possible, is a fraud.
The people offering it may be self-deluded. They may think they're simply providing grief consoling. But making profit from something when it has not been established to work is immoral, regardless.
RamblingOnwards said:
Hi Rambling
I have had superb evidence from a medium that certain of my family have survived death. She gave me the full name of my grandmother, including a second name that I knew nothing about. I contradicted the Medium and she said that she could only tell me what came to her. I went to my mum and she said no that was not my grans middle name. However, an aunt found my grans birth certificate and there it was - her second name!
My gran went on to give me guidance via this Medium and told me that with a decision I had to make I should take the hard road, as the easiest thing would have been to slip back in to a situation that was very comfortable for me. I was given very precise information as to my situation and to cut a long story short - I took the hard road, completely changed my life and since then things have been awesome.