Why trust science when they can't test properly?!

Iamme

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In today's paper is this international news story where the University of London and the University at Stockholm, Switzerland (not Sweden), are conducting this joint experiment in trying to learn how OBE's work.

Now we all know what those are, and have had our fun debating these things in our own Paranormal forum here. Someone is in the OR at the hospital and during surgery they look from above down at their body and see doctors working on their own body. Stuff like that.

So what do these dopey researchers do? They hire that Schwartz guy from the U of A and.... (just kidding, ha, ha, but they may as well have)...

...anyway, they seat the test subject in a seat and fit them with virtual reality goggles. Then they have a camera behind them shooting images of the subject's back. Then the researcher holds one probe in one hand and has the camera (that the subject can see because of the camera/goggles) and with the visible hand ACTS like he is touching the subject's back, while at the same time REALLY touches the subject's chest (he was male, in the paper) with another probe that is held out of sight. The subject then experiences the 'sensation' that the probe was touching their back.

Um...duh...anybody home?...duh...with real OBE's, your own eyes are always in your sockets! Not out of yor body. What the heck does THEIR test do that has ANYthing to do with OBE'S?...duh! And such experiments were already known by other similar 'fool the brain tests' in grade school. Optical illusion AND sensory tests that can fool the brain have been known for years!)

And if they can't even get a test like THIS right...or the psychic-medium tests done right, at U of A...then why should *I* believe scientists, who claim left-over radiation is being detected from the Big Bang that occured billions of years ago, if they don't even know how to conduct a test like this in a way that can replicate an OBE?
 
Because, as you admit in your post, they are not doing good science. A scientist's opinion on matters such as OBE's and the big bang is only as good as his/her science.

Of course the believer's opinion on those matters is only as good as his/her science as well. It just tends to be that people who focus on science are better at it than people who focus on belief.
 
Iamme said:
In today's paper is this international news story where the University of London and the University at Stockholm, Switzerland (not Sweden), are conducting this joint experiment in trying to learn how OBE's work.

Now we all know what those are, and have had our fun debating these things in our own Paranormal forum here. Someone is in the OR at the hospital and during surgery they look from above down at their body and see doctors working on their own body. Stuff like that.

So what do these dopey researchers do? They hire that Schwartz guy from the U of A and.... (just kidding, ha, ha, but they may as well have)...

...anyway, they seat the test subject in a seat and fit them with virtual reality goggles. Then they have a camera behind them shooting images of the subject's back. Then the researcher holds one probe in one hand and has the camera (that the subject can see because of the camera/goggles) and with the visible hand ACTS like he is touching the subject's back, while at the same time REALLY touches the subject's chest (he was male, in the paper) with another probe that is held out of sight. The subject then experiences the 'sensation' that the probe was touching their back.

Um...duh...anybody home?...duh...with real OBE's, your own eyes are always in your sockets! Not out of yor body. What the heck does THEIR test do that has ANYthing to do with OBE'S?...duh! And such experiments were already known by other similar 'fool the brain tests' in grade school. Optical illusion AND sensory tests that can fool the brain have been known for years!)

And if they can't even get a test like THIS right...or the psychic-medium tests done right, at U of A...then why should *I* believe scientists, who claim left-over radiation is being detected from the Big Bang that occured billions of years ago, if they don't even know how to conduct a test like this in a way that can replicate an OBE?
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You are free to believe whatever you want. You could read the papers regarding CMB and see if the evidence they present convinces you or not. The quality of this experiment does not affect the quality of all experiments. If you just want to dismiss things you don't understand, don't make up silly excuses.
 
Giggywig said:
If you just want to dismiss things you don't understand, don't make up silly excuses.
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I think I raised a really valid point. If they aren't even conducting relevant tests in an easy field, where subjects are inches away...how is it that we should believe so-called evidence that involves light years and billions of years of time, where there are so many variables? Why do we debate whether the breakdown in carbon 14 is an accurate test of time?, for example. We don't debate that 1 + 1 = 2. Or that the Earth is round. But there are many things that even scientists argue with each other about. How come if science has the answers, that for years we have doctors throughly washing their hands and not touching anything, and everything is sanitized and yet people get more lethal doses of infection in a hospital than they do if they had wrapped a wound with duct tape?! We just think we are so smart, but are really stupid, that's what I think.

How come we know so much about our universe and it's origin, yet know little about Mars!!! They don't understand dark matter, ...lots of stuff. They don't even quite understand all there is about a tornado on Earth, that we can almost go right up to and observe and send equipment into and monitor with equipment! And do they fully understand how you can have a dead tabletop of wood that has spinning electrons in atoms whirling around in there non-stop, or comprehend how magnets keep working the way they do? Yet they KNOW that this Big Bang caused everything? And I'm supposed to take their word for this as gospel?

I made a post a number of days back, somewhere (I can't keep track of all where I post) where I raised the question that if there all these billions of stars out there, how on earth can they see to where some Big Bang came from, as I likened that to trying to "see" the country road out beyond the trees in the forest. How?!
 
Iamme said:
I think I raised a really valid point. If they aren't even conducting relevant tests in an easy field, where subjects are inches away...how is it that we should believe so-called evidence that involves light years and billions of years of time, where there are so many variables? Why do we debate whether the breakdown in carbon 14 is an accurate test of time?, for example. We don't debate that 1 + 1 = 2. Or that the Earth is round. But there are many things that even scientists argue with each other about. How come if science has the answers, that for years we have doctors throughly washing their hands and not touching anything, and everything is sanitized and yet people get more lethal doses of infection in a hospital than they do if they had wrapped a wound with duct tape?! We just think we are so smart, but are really stupid, that's what I think.

How come we know so much about our universe and it's origin, yet know little about Mars!!! They don't understand dark matter, ...lots of stuff. They don't even quite understand all there is about a tornado on Earth, that we can almost go right up to and observe and send equipment into and monitor with equipment! And do they fully understand how you can have a dead tabletop of wood that has spinning electrons in atoms whirling around in there non-stop, or comprehend how magnets keep working the way they do? Yet they KNOW that this Big Bang caused everything? And I'm supposed to take their word for this as gospel?

I made a post a number of days back, somewhere (I can't keep track of all where I post) where I raised the question that if there all these billions of stars out there, how on earth can they see to where some Big Bang came from, as I likened that to trying to "see" the country road out beyond the trees in the forest. How?!
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And yet you post to the Internet? Ah those nutty scientists. They don't know nothing. :boggled:
 
Iamme said:
How come if science has the answers,
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You do know that no one claims that science has all the answers, don't you? That's how dogmatists get the "truth". For science, it's always a process, and if we did know everything, there would be no need for science.

that for years we have doctors throughly washing their hands and not touching anything, and everything is sanitized and yet people get more lethal doses of infection in a hospital than they do if they had wrapped a wound with duct tape?!
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Do you have any proof that wrapping a wound in duct tape in a hospital would result in lower incidence of lethal infection than using conventional practices? I would be astounded by proof of that outrageous claim.

Or, are you comparing the incidence of lethal infections in a hospital (where really sick people go) to the incidence of lethal infections somewhere else? If so, don't you see the obvious answer to your question?
 
I think I raised a really valid point. If they aren't even conducting relevant tests in an easy field, where subjects are inches away...how is it that we should believe so-called evidence that involves light years and billions of years of time, where there are so many variables?
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Actually, cognitive science isn't really easy. Seems like it should be, but it's not. It's a 'soft' science where there are lots of guesses needed, compared to astrophysics, which is "hard". Math works and always will work. 2+2 will always be 4, for forever, and ever, and ever...and no one's going to come back and reinterpret how that works.
Which is why "math sciences" work so well. That's why we can put people on the moon, and you're talking on the internet right now, and TV's work, etc. It's based on "hard science".

How come if science has the answers, that for years we have doctors throughly washing their hands and not touching anything, and everything is sanitized and yet people get more lethal doses of infection in a hospital than they do if they had wrapped a wound with duct tape?!
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Hospital bugs are tricky. It's biology, and biology will sneak up on you and throw you for a loop every time. Life forms in an ecosystem don't play by hard rules all of the time. Well, actually, technically they do...but the habitat is so complex and ever changing, it's hard to predict what will always happen.
Also, it's not that you get a more lethal dose of a bug in a hospital...it's just that IF you get a bacteria that goes wild, there's a good chance it's evolved to be able to survive antibiotics.

Yet they KNOW that this Big Bang caused everything? And I'm supposed to take their word for this as gospel?
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No, you're not supposed to take it as gospel. It just appears to be highly likely that that's what happened.

I made a post a number of days back, somewhere (I can't keep track of all where I post) where I raised the question that if there all these billions of stars out there, how on earth can they see to where some Big Bang came from, as I likened that to trying to "see" the country road out beyond the trees in the forest. How?!
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Trees are still. (basically). Galaxies are moving.
It's more like looking at fireworks in the sky. Even if you miss the initial explosion and catch one half-way through, you can see that all the spark are moving away from each other. From that point on, it's logical to assume that probably all came from one point.
 
kellyb said:
No, you're not supposed to take it as gospel. It just appears to be highly likely that that's what happened.
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Highly likely? More than God giving a command and it happened? Maybe I DO really believe in the Big Bang theory... where God said, "BANG!... (and there it was.)"
 
Iamme said:
Highly likely? More than God giving a command and it happened? Maybe I DO really believe in the Big Bang theory... where God said, "BANG!... (and there it was.)"
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Uh...you can believe whatever you want to.
If you think that's what the evidence points to, then whatever. That's your right.

If you want to see why astrophysicists think there was a big bang, you can look into it. If you...just don't want to, then ok.
 
kellyb said:
.
It's more like looking at fireworks in the sky. Even if you miss the initial explosion and catch one half-way through, you can see that all the spark are moving away from each other. From that point on, it's logical to assume that probably all came from one point.
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So does that mean that if there was a forest fire in the woods and there was sparking embers, that then I'd know that the country road was beyond the trees, because of this?
 
Iamme said:
So does that mean that if there was a forest fire in the woods and there was sparking embers, that then I'd know that the country road was beyond the trees, because of this?
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No.
:confused:
 
kellyb said:
Hospital bugs are tricky.
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Hmmmm. And the workings of the entire universe is not? Hmmm. That we cant' figure out so many aspects withIN the universe (even on our Earth)(or heck..men can't even figure out women...or their own wife within the same house on Earth!)...yet we have the beginnings of it (universe/source of energy?) all figured out, eh?
 
IAmMe, do you ever do even the first bit of research before writing your posts?

I think you seriously believe that you're in group.


On a related note, vote for me in the Pith Poll.
 
Iamme said:
Hmmmm. And the workings of the entire universe is not? Hmmm. That we cant' figure out so many aspoects withIN the universe (even on our Earth)(or heck..men can't even figure out women...or their own wife within the same house on Earth!)...yet we have the beginnings of it (universe/source of energy?) all figured out, eh?
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Yet, the painful irony is that so many will accept claims and stories at face value.

If you don't trust science, then you might as well pack it up and live in a cave. Everything that went into your home, from designing it to be structurally sound to your alarm clock, required science. Doctors, they're right out, too, as are most medicines, especially a little something for a headache.

Would you trust someone to operate on you because they said they'd been a surgeon in a past life, and through regression had remembered how to perform complicated operations? I suspect you'd want proof he could do that. And well, how would you go about proving his claims?
 
Originally Posted by Iamme
So does that mean that if there was a forest fire in the woods and there was sparking embers, that then I'd know that the country road was beyond the trees, because of this?
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Kellyb quote:
No.
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If this comparison of mine, to your example to the sparks and the Big Bang, went over your head, sleep on it. :)
 
Iamme said:
Hmmmm. And the workings of the entire universe is not? Hmmm. That we cant' figure out so many aspects withIN the universe (even on our Earth)(or heck..men can't even figure out women...or their own wife within the same house on Earth!)...yet we have the beginnings of it (universe/source of energy?) all figured out, eh?
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Biology is a "softer" science than physics.
Psychology (human interactions) is even softer still.

Not all science is equally reliable.
 
Iamme, you've yet to answer me about your bizarre claim that hand washing and sanitary practices results in fewer infections than wrapping a wound in duct tape.

Where did you dream that up?

Also, as I mentioned, science doesn't claim to "have the answers". Knowledge gathered through science is always treated as provisional.

I think even cosmologists would tell you that the Big Bang is just the name of the theory that the current state of evidence (rather strongly) points to--not some sort of revealed unchanging truth that is not subject to review.

Frankly, I'm not sure what you even mean when you ask "why trust science". Science really isn't a matter of trust.

So rather than giving us your apparently uninformed criticism of science, can you say where you would prefer the advancement of knowledge and technology should come from?

In fact, doesn't your lifestyle benefit greatly from the achievements of science? The current state of technology--where did all that come from, divine revelation?
 
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