Faith, Materialism, Evidence and Layers

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

Warning

I can not bluff that I know even a tangible amount of knowledge on philosophy, faith, materialism, and quantum physics/mechanics, and the scientific method.

this post will be irrational, lacking focus, and full of irrational, illogical, and fallacious statements... forgive me

There are several things that have just recently begun to be quantified and explained using science: just to name a few for example

love
attraction
the make up of the universe
quantum physics

Apparantly these can be measured, quantified, and observed in one way or another. I can read sources and do the math (rarely) and follow the breakthroughs that are happening to understand out natural world and the universe.

I find that I have to take much of this proof, sources and measurements on faith. I do not have the instruments, tools, and lab equipment to repeat the experiments. I can not observe that which the scientists and researchers can with the sensitive, expensive instruments they have.

A lot of the natural world is being deconstructed. For example, there are "behaviours" of sub-atomic particles I have never heard about being explained. There are layers upon layers of our universe being revealed, but many of these layers I can not observe. These insights are refered to as natural explanations of the natural world. If I am to accept these explanations and measurements as evidence, I have to do so on faith, because I can not repeat the experiments and have no access to the equipment to observe the "behaviours" of, say, matter or energy on a quantum level.

I have taught elementary science, taught scientific procedure, the use of the senses to observe the natural world. All that I can, and students can observe and demonstrate, I accept as evidence to support an hypothesis. But as I have stated there are limits to the layers of the natural world we (my students and I) can observe.

I do understand that many experiments I can repeat with students today, were not repeatable with the resources available 50, or 100 years ago to laypersons and school districts.
50, 100, or 200 years ago these experiments would have revealed the layers of the natural world that could be observed with the technology available to a small group of people. The laypersons of the time would have to take the findings of this small group of people on faith.

I have seen it stated many times, that faith has no place in understanding the natural world, or in using scientific procedure to understand the natural world, but I take much on faith many times when I read and examine the results or tests done on levels that I can not observe. I have faith that science is self correcting, that scientific procedure is the best tool we have of examining the natural world.

Does this put me in danger of being credulous of every new claim, outcome and test result that is forwarded that I as a lay person may read about? I suppose it does.

I will consider many explanations about the natural world that I see in periodicals, and press releases, articles in Scientific Amercian, Popular Science, National Geographic, in physics text books. Why? I am more inclined to consider these natural explanations than supernatural explanations.
I guess I am willing to consider the natural explanations because I believe science is self-correcting, it is progressive, it is rarely stagnant, and scientists come to a temporary agreement based on evidence.

Now this may be disturbing to many, as I have chosen to accept, on faith, that science is the best tool humanity has to understand the natural world. I am a layperson that does not have the tools to observe and measure the events happening and currently being observed at the layers scientist can.

The past can not always be used to guage the future, but; as scientific break-throughs in centuries or decades past are now observable, for example with the equipment the resources of school districts permit, I have faith. I have faith that current natural events that can only be observed by a limited few and communicated to the layperson will be observable in the future by a greater number of people.

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

yeesh, certainly not a work of literary art ... perhaps not even coherant:wink8:

[Stimpson J. Cat]

PPG,

I find that I have to take much of this proof, sources and measurements on faith. I do not have the instruments, tools, and lab equipment to repeat the experiments. I can not observe that which the scientists and researchers can with the sensitive, expensive instruments they have.

You don't have to. Once you understand how, and why, the scientific process works, you don't have to take any of it on faith. You can reasonably accept things which have been scientifically verified, because you know that the process of scientific verification is reliable.

I have seen it stated many times, that faith has no place in understanding the natural world, or in using scientific procedure to understand the natural world, but I take much on faith many times when I read and examine the results or tests done on levels that I can not observe. I have faith that science is self correcting, that scientific procedure is the best tool we have of examining the natural world.

You don't need faith of these things. They are observable facts. Science works. The evidence is all around you.

Does this put me in danger of being credulous of every new claim, outcome and test result that is forwarded that I as a lay person may read about? I suppose it does.

It shouldn't. If you read or hear about a new scientific discovery, or research development, which you don't understand, then you should not just blindly accept it as valid. You should wait and see what happens in the verification process. Once the results have been independently verified, and the scientific community reaches a consensus, then it makes sense to accept the results, but not until then.

This applies to scientists, too. I can read papers on things like Quantum Field Theory, or General Relativity, and understand what they are claiming, but I have neither the resources nor the expertise to confirm those results myself. I withhold judgement until the results have been verified, and shown to be reliable. Faith never enters into it.


Dr. Stupid

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
PPG,



You don't have to. Once you understand how, and why, the scientific process works, you don't have to take any of it on faith. You can reasonably accept things which have been scientifically verified, because you know that the process of scientific verification is reliable.



Is the process of scientific verification ALWAYS reliable? How do you know when you have arrived at a piece of science that you don't know enough to know whether or not it is reliable? Could there be times when you mistakenly think a piece of science is reliable, yet it may not be? As a percentage, do you ever put 100% credence in a piece of science -- because I can never be 100% sure of any of it unless I have some personal verification of it -- and even then, I may only be 99.9% sure.


You don't need faith of these things. They are observable facts. Science works. The evidence is all around you.



Hmmmm.... Sounds like, "God exists, the evidence is all around you."


It shouldn't. If you read or hear about a new scientific discovery, or research development, which you don't understand, then you should not just blindly accept it as valid. You should wait and see what happens in the verification process. Once the results have been independently verified, and the scientific community reaches a consensus, then it makes sense to accept the results, but not until then.


I agree, you don't have to make a decision before you get enough evidence to make the decision. Reserve the right to not have an opinion, yet.


This applies to scientists, too. I can read papers on things like Quantum Field Theory, or General Relativity, and understand what they are claiming, but I have neither the resources nor the expertise to confirm those results myself. I withhold judgement until the results have been verified, and shown to be reliable. Faith never enters into it.


Dr. Stupid


Well, regarding reliability and scietific verifiacation: If you don't understand a subject on a first hand basis, you are in no position to know whether or not the methodology of a particular experiment was appropriate or not. For example, look at the parapsychology studies: Without a knowledgable magician as a consultant to the construction of such experiments, they produce positive results. But when you add a magician like Randi, he knows how to make the methodology more bulletproof, and with the added controls, the results are negative or inconclusive.

Can you not imagine that other fields of research may suffer from similar problems; that of not having the right kind of consultant to the experimental methodology? Perhaps "the right kind of consultant" does not even yet exist -- for some fields. I certainly have read studies in my field of expertise where I could see clear methodological inadequacies; but someone unfamiliar with the subject would never guess that such things could be problematic. Knowing the scientific method simply would not fulfill the description of valid experimentation; only having an intimate knowledge of the context does.

It is simply impossible to control for absolutely everything in any experiment; the selection of what to control, and how the experimental process should develop; must be done by someone with enough contextual first-hand experience, if the study is to verify what it claims to verify.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Suggestologist,

You don't have to. Once you understand how, and why, the scientific process works, you don't have to take any of it on faith. You can reasonably accept things which have been scientifically verified, because you know that the process of scientific verification is reliable.
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Is the process of scientific verification ALWAYS reliable?

I don't know what that means. Reliability means that the conclusions are usually correct, and that when they are not, the mistakes are eventually found and corrected.

How do you know when you have arrived at a piece of science that you don't know enough to know whether or not it is reliable? Could there be times when you mistakenly think a piece of science is reliable, yet it may not be?

That is not what I mean by reliable. The process of science is reliable. That does not mean that every "piece of science" is true. It means that once scientific verification has been done, we can be confident that the results are accurate, and that in the case that they are not, continued application of the scientific process will discover this, and correct the error.

As a percentage, do you ever put 100% credence in a piece of science -- because I can never be 100% sure of any of it unless I have some personal verification of it -- and even then, I may only be 99.9% sure.

Of course not. 100% confidence is unrealistic and unobtainable. Science provides us with reliable evidence upon which to make our decisions and decide what to believe. It does not provide certainty of anything. Nothing can provide that, other than self-delusion.

You don't need faith of these things. They are observable facts. Science works. The evidence is all around you.
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Hmmmm.... Sounds like, "God exists, the evidence is all around you."

The difference is that I can unambiguously demonstrate that science works. Can you say the same for the existence of any God?

This applies to scientists, too. I can read papers on things like Quantum Field Theory, or General Relativity, and understand what they are claiming, but I have neither the resources nor the expertise to confirm those results myself. I withhold judgement until the results have been verified, and shown to be reliable. Faith never enters into it.

Dr. Stupid
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Well, regarding reliability and scietific verifiacation: If you don't understand a subject on a first hand basis, you are in no position to know whether or not the methodology of a particular experiment was appropriate or not.

If somebody is accepting scientific "facts" on the basis of individual experiments, then they clearly do not understand the scientific process.

For example, look at the parapsychology studies: Without a knowledgable magician as a consultant to the construction of such experiments, they produce positive results. But when you add a magician like Randi, he knows how to make the methodology more bulletproof, and with the added controls, the results are negative or inconclusive.

The results are inconclusive all on their own, due to their lack of reproducibility. All the magician does is point out the flaws in the procedure. The fact that flaws are there is clear from the erratic and unreliable nature of the results of these experiments.

Furthermore, if you understand the scientific method, then you know that the majority, if not all, of parapsychological research, is deeply flawed due to the absence of any falsifiable theories. That conclusion can be reached simply by looking at what is being claimed by the parapsychologists. No specific deep knowledge of the details of the experiment is needed.

Can you not imagine that other fields of research may suffer from similar problems; that of not having the right kind of consultant to the experimental methodology?

Other fields of science are properly employing the scientific method. This means that they catch these kinds of methodological errors on their own. Parapsychology does not enjoy the self-correcting aspect of the scientific process, because they do not properly implement the process.

Perhaps "the right kind of consultant" does not even yet exist -- for some fields. I certainly have read studies in my field of expertise where I could see clear methodological inadequacies; but someone unfamiliar with the subject would never guess that such things could be problematic. Knowing the scientific method simply would not fulfill the description of valid experimentation; only having an intimate knowledge of the context does.

In normal fields of research, the review and replication process eventually catches these errors. In normal fields of scientific research, results are not accepted as reliable until they have been reproduced independently and under a variety of different experimental conditions. Furthermore, this process of verification never stops.

It is simply impossible to control for absolutely everything in any experiment; the selection of what to control, and how the experimental process should develop; must be done by someone with enough contextual first-hand experience, if the study is to verify what it claims to verify.

Of course. The individual studies need to be reviewed, and reproduced, by experts in that field. What I am saying is that once this process has been done, and the results have been generally accepted by the scientific community as being reliable, a layman can reasonably accept those results as being reliable. This is not because he has "faith" in the system, but simply because he knows how and why the system works.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
I don't know what that means. Reliability means that the conclusions are usually correct, and that when they are not, the mistakes are eventually found and corrected.



How long is "eventually"?

If somebody is accepting scientific "facts" on the basis of individual experiments, then they clearly do not understand the scientific process.

I completely disagree. A single experiment, anecdotal as those who disparage them call them, can prove more than statistical manipulation of data.

Does the moonlanding, an anecdote, not prove that humans can land on the moon? Does flying in an early Wright-Brothers plane not prove that people can fly safely (and unsafely)?

Anecdotal evidence can show what is possible, and may require no reproduction whatsoever. There is also the related, but anecdotal, thing called a "case study" that can show much the same.


The results are inconclusive all on their own, due to their lack of reproducibility. All the magician does is point out the flaws in the procedure. The fact that flaws are there is clear from the erratic and unreliable nature of the results of these experiments.

Furthermore, if you understand the scientific method, then you know that the majority, if not all, of parapsychological research, is deeply flawed due to the absence of any falsifiable theories. That conclusion can be reached simply by looking at what is being claimed by the parapsychologists. No specific deep knowledge of the details of the experiment is needed.


Anything is falsifiable as long a claim is made; and an opposite claim is possible. I am familiar with the hairy issue of "magnetizing" water, where they claim that if they magnetize one bottle of water, then any bottles near them will become magnetized.. blah blah blah... But there are other claims which are clear cut; the type that the Randi Challenge would test, and poor methodology in that type of test -- if reproduced, would show repeated "verification" of parapsychological crapola.


Other fields of science are properly employing the scientific method. This means that they catch these kinds of methodological errors on their own. Parapsychology does not enjoy the self-correcting aspect of the scientific process, because they do not properly implement the process.


Proper implementation requires adequate controls, and methodology that verifies what it claims to verify. I've already pointed out that you can't control for everything, someone has to decide what should be controlled, and what won't be controlled. And someone has to decide what steps the methodology will include; again, they have to include the necessary steps and experimental content (i.e. Do we need H2O or H30 for this experiment?), and not use that which won't verify what the experiment is supposed to verify.


In normal fields of research, the review and replication process eventually catches these errors. In normal fields of scientific research, results are not accepted as reliable until they have been reproduced independently and under a variety of different experimental conditions. Furthermore, this process of verification never stops.


Ok, was it realiable that people could fly, once you see a Wright Brother flying? Or did we need independant reproduction, because it could be claimed that he was using magic tricks to look like he was flying?


Of course. The individual studies need to be reviewed, and reproduced, by experts in that field. What I am saying is that once this process has been done, and the results have been generally accepted by the scientific community as being reliable, a layman can reasonably accept those results as being reliable. This is not because he has "faith" in the system, but simply because he knows how and why the system works.

General acceptance by the scientific community? That is relying on hear-say, or see-say; it's not evidence of anything other than that a community has agreed on something. To believe in what they have agreed on, without personal verification, is nothing other than faith and conjecture -- coming to a conclusion without gathering evidence.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Suggestologist,

I don't know what that means. Reliability means that the conclusions are usually correct, and that when they are not, the mistakes are eventually found and corrected.
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How long is "eventually"?

It varies. Most mistakes are found in the process of writing up the study. Most of the remaining errors are found in the review process, and almost all of the remaining errors are found in the first few attempts to replicate the results.

Some errors can occasionally remain for a long time. I never said the process was perfect. That doesn't mean it isn't reliable. If it did, nothing in the real world could ever be said to be "reliable", because nothing works perfectly.

If somebody is accepting scientific "facts" on the basis of individual experiments, then they clearly do not understand the scientific process.
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I completely disagree. A single experiment, anecdotal as those who disparage them call them, can prove more than statistical manipulation of data.

Who said anything about statistical manipulation of data? And just for the record, a single experiment is not an anecdote. An anecdote is a claim of an event which cannot be confirmed. An experiment is a group of observations made under controlled conditions.

Does the moonlanding, an anecdote, not prove that humans can land on the moon? Does flying in an early Wright-Brothers plane not prove that people can fly safely (and unsafely)?

Neither of those events are anecdotal. What proves that humans can land on the moon, or that people can fly, is the fact that those events are verifiable.

If, as you seem to be suggesting, we only had unverifiable anecdotal accounts of those events, then we would not be able to draw either of those conclusions.

Anecdotal evidence can show what is possible, and may require no reproduction whatsoever. There is also the related, but anecdotal, thing called a "case study" that can show much the same.

Once again, that is not anecdotal. :rolleyes:

Furthermore, if you understand the scientific method, then you know that the majority, if not all, of parapsychological research, is deeply flawed due to the absence of any falsifiable theories. That conclusion can be reached simply by looking at what is being claimed by the parapsychologists. No specific deep knowledge of the details of the experiment is needed.
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Anything is falsifiable as long a claim is made; and an opposite claim is possible. I am familiar with the hairy issue of "magnetizing" water, where they claim that if they magnetize one bottle of water, then any bottles near them will become magnetized.. blah blah blah... But there are other claims which are clear cut; the type that the Randi Challenge would test, and poor methodology in that type of test -- if reproduced, would show repeated "verification" of parapsychological crapola.

Most parapsychological research does not have any such theories.

Other fields of science are properly employing the scientific method. This means that they catch these kinds of methodological errors on their own. Parapsychology does not enjoy the self-correcting aspect of the scientific process, because they do not properly implement the process.
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Proper implementation requires adequate controls, and methodology that verifies what it claims to verify. I've already pointed out that you can't control for everything, someone has to decide what should be controlled, and what won't be controlled. And someone has to decide what steps the methodology will include; again, they have to include the necessary steps and experimental content (i.e. Do we need H2O or H30 for this experiment?), and not use that which won't verify what the experiment is supposed to verify.

What does this have to do with what I said? All this means is that, as I already said, the theory must be tested under many different conditions before it can be accepted as valid.

In normal fields of research, the review and replication process eventually catches these errors. In normal fields of scientific research, results are not accepted as reliable until they have been reproduced independently and under a variety of different experimental conditions. Furthermore, this process of verification never stops.
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Ok, was it realiable that people could fly, once you see a Wright Brother flying? Or did we need independant reproduction, because it could be claimed that he was using magic tricks to look like he was flying?

That is just silly. If you are going to try to come up with counterexamples to what I am saying, at least go to the effort of coming up with ones that aren't trivial like this.

Of course. The individual studies need to be reviewed, and reproduced, by experts in that field. What I am saying is that once this process has been done, and the results have been generally accepted by the scientific community as being reliable, a layman can reasonably accept those results as being reliable. This is not because he has "faith" in the system, but simply because he knows how and why the system works.
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General acceptance by the scientific community? That is relying on hear-say, or see-say; it's not evidence of anything other than that a community has agreed on something. To believe in what they have agreed on, without personal verification, is nothing other than faith and conjecture -- coming to a conclusion without gathering evidence.

You are acting like the scientific community is some sort of secret society, which gathers in dark halls to discuss their wizardry, and then makes proclamations to the world.

Like I said, you have to actually understand how, and why, the scientific process works. You clearly either do not, or are pretending not to for some reason I cannot fathom. No wonder to you it all seems like smoke and mirrors.


Dr. Stupid

[T'ai Chi]

A lot of the natural world is being deconstructed. For example, there are "behaviours" of sub-atomic particles I have never heard about being explained.


Science can always break things up to understand them, but can never quite manage to understand the whole. On one hand it does great things like understand sub atomic particles. On the other hand, it uses that information specifically to develop bombs that have killed millions of people. Go figure.

Science, because it is a human endeavor, can be manipulated by the power hungry and etc. It can be some peoples' faith too, that no matter what happens, science and its technology will be here to bail us out from our mistakes. I'd personally rather not make any mistakes. I think a lot of people need to reassess science, and what we as a race desire to learn from it.


I guess I am willing to consider the natural explanations because I believe science is self-correcting, it is progressive, it is rarely stagnant, and scientists come to a temporary agreement based on evidence.


I would argue that "natural explanations" and "science" are not necessarily the same thing. One can come to a natural explanation without relying on science, and sometimes explanations gleaned from science are far from natural.

[Filippo Lippi]

Science, because it is a human endeavor, can be manipulated by the power hungry and etc

Thank goodness no one has thought of using religion to manipulate people

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

Originally posted by T'ai Chi



I would argue that "natural explanations" and "science" are not necessarily the same thing. One can come to a natural explanation without relying on science, and sometimes explanations gleaned from science are far from natural.

oh?

can you give examples?

[Dancing David]

You can be wary of any all all psychological research, it is very important to know the methodology, the sample size and the controls that are in place before assuming anything is true in psych research. (Exclusive of the neuro-biology)

And it is true it takes faith that people are doing the replication and getting the same results, but people love to feert out a hoax.

Any reseach showing parapsychology is generaly lacking in scientific method, so question every thing, believe nothing and use what works.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Suggestologist,
Who said anything about statistical manipulation of data? And just for the record, a single experiment is not an anecdote. An anecdote is a claim of an event which cannot be confirmed. An experiment is a group of observations made under controlled conditions.


OK, then how is seeing the moon landing on TV not an anecdote? What can you do to confirm it? My knowledge of lasers doesn't allow me to bounce one off of the alleged moon mirrors, does yours?

[/B]
Neither of those events are anecdotal. What proves that humans can land on the moon, or that people can fly, is the fact that those events are verifiable. [QUOTE]

I disagree. Events don't have to be verifiable to point to possibilities. Case studies where humans are involved are usually unrepeatable; you can never find a person with the exact same set of attributes. But you may be able to learn from them, and find possibilities for future controlled experiments.

[QUOTE][B]
What does this have to do with what I said? All this means is that, as I already said, the theory must be tested under many different conditions before it can be accepted as valid.


How many? There may be a control that nobody ever thinks to use, that makes the difference.


You are acting like the scientific community is some sort of secret society, which gathers in dark halls to discuss their wizardry, and then makes proclamations to the world.

Like I said, you have to actually understand how, and why, the scientific process works. You clearly either do not, or are pretending not to for some reason I cannot fathom. No wonder to you it all seems like smoke and mirrors.


Dr. Stupid

I'm not acting like the scientific community is a secret society, in many respects it is; they speak gobbledygook to eachother that those outside the society will not understand without being initiated into the field -- usually by lots of study. Eventually much of it gets translated into what normals can understand and even test, or test by using a product that incorporates the new manifestations and incantations of these wizards.

Understanding how and why the scientific process works has little to do with understanding a particular scientific experiment. In order to understand what is appropriate for an experiment you have to have first-hand contextual knowledge of what is being studied. That's probably why they have young students do simple chemistry experiments, before they're allowed to do the more potentially hazardous sort.

As I said in a previous thread, those with no first-hand knowledge make claims about walking on hot coals as such: "the coals are cold, people are just in such a hyper mood, that they think the coals are hot, since everybody is acting as if they are hot, they go along with it" -- this I refered to as the "cold-coal hypothesis". If you've ever walked on hot coals, you'll know that the coals are actually hot, you can bake potatoes and cook steaks on them -- temperature is not the trick to walking on hot coals. But those who have no first hand experience of a subject are very likely to make "cold coal hypotheses" -- which may bias an experiment to either positive or negative results.

And such a hypothesis may or may not be the one tested, it may be a hidden presupposition of the experimenter that biases the results of the experiment's particular formal hypothesis.

For any field, there may be no person who can provide the first-hand knowledge necessary to avoid such difficulties.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Suggestologist,

OK, then how is seeing the moon landing on TV not an anecdote?

If the only evidence that you have for the moon landing is that you saw it on TV, then you are correct to be skeptical of it. But unless you are completely unwilling to do any research into the matter at all, this simply isn't the case.

What can you do to confirm it? My knowledge of lasers doesn't allow me to bounce one off of the alleged moon mirrors, does yours?

This is silly. You are completely ignoring a central principle of science, which is to find the most parsimonious explanation for the data you have. The hypothesis that all of the evidence about the moon landing was faked, would require a conspiracy of ridiculous proportions, involving thousands of scientists from differing parts of the worlds.

You can't seriously be saying that you have to take the fact that people landed on the moon on faith, can you?

Neither of those events are anecdotal. What proves that humans can land on the moon, or that people can fly, is the fact that those events are verifiable.

I disagree. Events don't have to be verifiable to point to possibilities. Case studies where humans are involved are usually unrepeatable; you can never find a person with the exact same set of attributes. But you may be able to learn from them, and find possibilities for future controlled experiments.

What are you talking about? I am unable to see what connection your response has to my statement.

What does this have to do with what I said? All this means is that, as I already said, the theory must be tested under many different conditions before it can be accepted as valid.

How many? There may be a control that nobody ever thinks to use, that makes the difference.

You are looking at it like there is some threshold, where everything below the threshold is rejected as "unproven", and everything above it is accepted as 100% confident.

The fact is that there is no end to process of independent confirmation. The more confirming tests that are done, the more confident we can be in the results. But there is always the possibility that at some point a flaw will be discovered. Once again, this does not mean that the process is not reliable. It just means that it is not perfect.

You are acting like the scientific community is some sort of secret society, which gathers in dark halls to discuss their wizardry, and then makes proclamations to the world.

Like I said, you have to actually understand how, and why, the scientific process works. You clearly either do not, or are pretending not to for some reason I cannot fathom. No wonder to you it all seems like smoke and mirrors.

Dr. Stupid

I'm not acting like the scientific community is a secret society, in many respects it is; they speak gobbledygook to each other that those outside the society will not understand without being initiated into the field -- usually by lots of study. Eventually much of it gets translated into what normals can understand and even test, or test by using a product that incorporates the new manifestations and incantations of these wizards.

:rolleyes: It only seems like gobbledygook to those who are not willing to exert the effort necessary to understand it. There is no "initiation". Anybody who wants to can learn it, and most scientists are more than happy to try to help explain it.

Understanding how and why the scientific process works has little to do with understanding a particular scientific experiment. In order to understand what is appropriate for an experiment you have to have first-hand contextual knowledge of what is being studied. That's probably why they have young students do simple chemistry experiments, before they're allowed to do the more potentially hazardous sort.

And as I already said, if you understand how and why the process works, then you don't have to be able to understand the specific experiments in order to reasonably conclude that the results obtained by the scientific process are reliable.

As I said in a previous thread, those with no first-hand knowledge make claims about walking on hot coals as such: "the coals are cold, people are just in such a hyper mood, that they think the coals are hot, since everybody is acting as if they are hot, they go along with it" -- this I refered to as the "cold-coal hypothesis". If you've ever walked on hot coals, you'll know that the coals are actually hot, you can bake potatoes and cook steaks on them -- temperature is not the trick to walking on hot coals. But those who have no first hand experience of a subject are very likely to make "cold coal hypotheses" -- which may bias an experiment to either positive or negative results.

And such a hypothesis may or may not be the one tested, it may be a hidden presupposition of the experimenter that biases the results of the experiment's particular formal hypothesis.

For any field, there may be no person who can provide the first-hand knowledge necessary to avoid such difficulties.

I have already addressed this issue. Like I said, the process is not perfect, nor is it infallible. It is just reliable, and self-correcting.


Dr. Stupid

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Suggestologist,
This is silly. You are completely ignoring a central principle of science, which is to find the most parsimonious explanation for the data you have. The hypothesis that all of the evidence about the moon landing was faked, would require a conspiracy of ridiculous proportions, involving thousands of scientists from differing parts of the worlds.


I don't know how many people it would require.

The most parsimonious explanation is more often wrong than right. Part of a parsimonious explanation for alcoholism was that once an alcoholic, you can never return to normal social drinking. The truth, was more complex. In fact, it is documented that some alcoholics have returned to normal social drinking. Such return to normal drinking were called flukes, or misdiagnoses; but the truth is that at least some alcoholics can return to normal drinking -- and accepting the parsimonious hypothesis that once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, led to erronious conclusions. And the scientific studies basically created a self-fulfilling prophesy on the matter -- the more that scientists invested in proving that alcoholism was non-reversible, the more they were unwilling to consider the idea that those who did reverse were not just flukes or misdiagnoses, but perhaps an area in need of development.



You can't seriously be saying that you have to take the fact that people landed on the moon on faith, can you?


Of course I do. Faith is believing in something without evidence. I have no evidence of anyone landing on the moon. All I have are video recordings and various writings. Ok, that's a little bit of evidence; but not enough to believe in it as fully as I could. I would wager that even you would find your belief in people landing on the moon increase a great deal, if you yourself were to arrive there on a future space-shuttle.

People say they believe things, but they really don't believe things, not really, not completely, not totally, until they actually experience it. And for that matter, they don't really disbelieve things until they experience them (or attempt to), either.


What are you talking about? I am unable to see what connection your response has to my statement.



You are looking at it like there is some threshold, where everything below the threshold is rejected as "unproven", and everything above it is accepted as 100% confident.

The fact is that there is no end to process of independent confirmation. The more confirming tests that are done, the more confident we can be in the results. But there is always the possibility that at some point a flaw will be discovered. Once again, this does not mean that the process is not reliable. It just means that it is not perfect.

:rolleyes: It only seems like gobbledygook to those who are not willing to exert the effort necessary to understand it. There is no "initiation". Anybody who wants to can learn it, and most scientists are more than happy to try to help explain it.

And as I already said, if you understand how and why the process works, then you don't have to be able to understand the specific experiments in order to reasonably conclude that the results obtained by the scientific process are reliable.

I have already addressed this issue. Like I said, the process is not perfect, nor is it infallible. It is just reliable, and self-correcting.

Dr. Stupid

You cannot reasonably conclude anything about something you don't understand. That includes experiments you have no first-hand contextual knowledge of. How and why the process "works" has little bearing on how and why a particular experiment works or not. You seem to think that I don't understand how the process works; I think that I do understand how the process works. It is not self-correcting, it is mode-locking.

What specifically do you think I'm missing?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Suggestologist
Well, regarding reliability and scietific verifiacation: If you don't understand a subject on a first hand basis, you are in no position to know whether or not the methodology of a particular experiment was appropriate or not. For example, look at the parapsychology studies: Without a knowledgable magician as a consultant to the construction of such experiments, they produce positive results. But when you add a magician like Randi, he knows how to make the methodology more bulletproof, and with the added controls, the results are negative or inconclusive.


I think you would need to supply appropriate references here. I am not aware of any properly conducted scientific research in parapsychology where the experimental protocol appears sound and positive results are produced, and which disappears when a magician suggests amendments to this experimental protocol.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


I think you would need to supply appropriate references here. I am not aware of any properly conducted scientific research in parapsychology where the experimental protocol appears sound and positive results are produced, and which disappears when a magician suggests amendments to this experimental protocol.

I'm obviously thinking about the very anecdotal appearance of Uri Gellar on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by PygmyPlaidGiraffe

Does this put me in danger of being credulous of every new claim, outcome and test result that is forwarded that I as a lay person may read about? I suppose it does.
Yes, I'm afraid so.

Originally posted by Suggestologist

Is the process of scientific verification ALWAYS reliable? How do you know when you have arrived at a piece of science that you don't know enough to know whether or not it is reliable?
Because of the ongoing and dedicated efforts of people like you who question everything, and especially when those people do know enough to know whether or not it is reliable.
General acceptance by the scientific community? That is relying on hear-say, or see-say; it's not evidence of anything other than that a community has agreed on something. To believe in what they have agreed on, without personal verification, is nothing other than faith and conjecture -- coming to a conclusion without gathering evidence.
As Stimpy made reference to, this view does not reflect a thorough grasp of the way ideas become widely accepted by the scientific community.

Science is a cooperative endeavor, many individuals contributing to a common knowledge base. It is also as vicious, ruthless, and cutthroat an arena as anything humanity has to offer. Scientific knowledge is gained through work; hard work. The most significant contributions are often made by driven individuals, and often one of the things driving them is a desire to make someone else look bad. In public. The ideas that remain standing are the ones that the best efforts of their authors' enemies were unable to defeat. When Dawkins and Gould were going for each others' throats, I felt like a little kid lying in bed listening to his parents fight.
Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat

It only seems like gobbledygook to those who are not willing to exert the effort necessary to understand it. There is no "initiation". Anybody who wants to can learn it, and most scientists are more than happy to try to help explain it.
I think that's less true today than in the past. In some fields, decades of study are required just to come up to speed, and ongoing study to stay there. The opportunities to break new ground are more dependent than ever before on early education and longevity. We are heading into areas where no one person can be expected to have a thorough grasp of all the relevant details; we have no choice but to rely more and more on specialists, current knowledge becoming more and more a collective experience. 'Exerting the effort' is going to be more about choosing one thing to learn.

[Silicon]

Suggestologist,

Are you just moving the goalposts around? Do you have a point, or are you just picking random sentences of Stimpson and coming up with new analogies?

I can't even fathom how your mind works. Stick with one analogy, don't keep evading.

Actually state what you think. Do you think the moon landing is faked? Do you think that's reasonable? Is the fact that you can't bounce lasers off the moon really the only reason why you refuse to believe it?

Or is it just cool and sexy and just so friggin X-files FUN to believe in a vast conspiracy? Most moon-conspiracists I've met were smarter people than that, but they seemed to try and make themselves stupider than they usually were when we discussed the issue. As if it was all so entertaining to them that they couldn't look at the mountain of documentation. They'd talk about how the astronauts would burn up from the heat of the sunlight! It's like, you couldn't talk to them about vacuum insulation. How stupid do you have to be to not understand the concept of a Thermos Bottle? And these were computer programmers!

Do you think that science is really a secret cabal? Do you think that there is any field of science that dead-ends with a secret society of folks who made it all up, and there's no way to do verifyable research?

If that's what you think, say it. Stop being such a wishy washy arguer. Have the courage of your convictions. Stop doing this dance.

State your evidence for your position.


Are you really equating science with faith, because nobody can possibly do every science experiment themself, then you must take it on faith?

That's ludicrous. We live in a society. We make accomplishments as a society. One of the accomplishments is science. It doesn't take faith to eat at a restaurant, hoping that the mushrooms aren't poison. It doesn't take faith to get in an airplane that wasn't built by my own two hands.

It takes a certain degree of acceptance of the reliability of things like safety codes, and the fact that these things tend to work out, because other people, people expert in those fields, have done the work.

I don't need to check every rivet on an airplane with my own expert before I'll get on one. I don't know about you. I do know that if Aviation mechanics was my chosen field, there wouldn't be some secret cabal making it all up.

I also don't have some self-deluded notion of uber-skepticism saying "how do I KNOW that airplanes fly? It could be a conspiracy! It could be really a train, with movies of clouds projected on the windows! After all, I'm not an aeronautical expert, and those guys seem to talk in their own gobledygook".


Anyway. Say what you mean. Do you actually think that science is somehow different than ANY shared human endeavor? Do you really think the only experience that counts for anything is YOUR personal observation, and everything else be damned?

And if that's the case, how the hell is it that we wiped out Polio without your help? How is it that Science works, whether or not you believe it?

Or do you think that the existence of polio was a conspiracy?

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Suggestologist,

This is silly. You are completely ignoring a central principle of science, which is to find the most parsimonious explanation for the data you have. The hypothesis that all of the evidence about the moon landing was faked, would require a conspiracy of ridiculous proportions, involving thousands of scientists from differing parts of the worlds.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't know how many people it would require.

Well then, you should either learn at least enough about the incident to determine this, or simply not claim to know whether it happened or not.

I never said that you can reasonably accept the findings of the scientific community when you are, yourself, completely ignorant about what they are doing. I just said that you do not have to understand in detail the specifics of their work.

The most parsimonious explanation is more often wrong than right.

Actually, that is a misrepresentation of the principle of parsimony.

Part of a parsimonious explanation for alcoholism was that once an alcoholic, you can never return to normal social drinking. The truth, was more complex. In fact, it is documented that some alcoholics have returned to normal social drinking. Such return to normal drinking were called flukes, or misdiagnoses; but the truth is that at least some alcoholics can return to normal drinking -- and accepting the parsimonious hypothesis that once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, led to erronious conclusions. And the scientific studies basically created a self-fulfilling prophesy on the matter -- the more that scientists invested in proving that alcoholism was non-reversible, the more they were unwilling to consider the idea that those who did reverse were not just flukes or misdiagnoses, but perhaps an area in need of development.

The very fact that we now know that the original hypothesis was an over-simplification, just verifies what I have been saying. When the original hypothesis was shown to be false, and those results were reliably reproduced by independent researchers, the old hypothesis was discarded. This very fact demonstrates that your imagined scenario of dogmatic scientists allowing their preconceptions cloud their judgement of the experimental results, is not an accurate portrayal of what actually happened.

Your above statement also misrepresents the scientific process itself. Scientists do not try to prove their theories. They try to disprove them. Any scientists who were specifically looking for data to back up their hypothesis, rather than actively trying to falsify it, were not doing science, but rather pseudo-science.

You can't seriously be saying that you have to take the fact that people landed on the moon on faith, can you?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course I do. Faith is believing in something without evidence. I have no evidence of anyone landing on the moon. All I have are video recordings and various writings. Ok, that's a little bit of evidence; but not enough to believe in it as fully as I could. I would wager that even you would find your belief in people landing on the moon increase a great deal, if you yourself were to arrive there on a future space-shuttle.

Absolute belief in anything is just plain stupid. The degree to which you believe something should reflect the amount of evidence in support of it. There is substantial evidence in support of the moon landing. I therefore am very confident that it occurred.

People say they believe things, but they really don't believe things, not really, not completely, not totally, until they actually experience it. And for that matter, they don't really disbelieve things until they experience them (or attempt to), either.

If you totally believe even the things you have experienced, then you are being naive.

You cannot reasonably conclude anything about something you don't understand. That includes experiments you have no first-hand contextual knowledge of. How and why the process "works" has little bearing on how and why a particular experiment works or not.

And how or why a particular experiment works or not has little bearing on whether scientific results which have been extensively tested by many independent researchers, can be accepted as reliable. All that is relevant is that you understand how and why that scientific process works.

You seem to think that I don't understand how the process works; I think that I do understand how the process works. It is not self-correcting, it is mode-locking.

I think that you a demonstrably wrong. The facts simply don't support your claim.

What specifically do you think I'm missing?

The fact that science has shown itself, time and time again, to be self-correcting. The fact that there is a very strong incentive within the scientific community to show that currently accepted theories are false, which completely destroys you "mode-locking" hypothesis. I think you are pretty much missing any understanding of how and why the scientific process actually works. As such, it comes as no surprise that you think it needs to be taken on faith.


Dr. Stupid

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat

The very fact that we now know that the original hypothesis was an over-simplification, just verifies what I have been saying.



Bang goes parsimony. :rolleyes: Besides if reality did somehow have the myserious propensity to always operate according to the minimum number of entities and concepts then we would scarcely have reached the present position where a bewildering number of elementary particles are invoked to explain the world. There is nothing about reality which dictates that it should be simple. You and seemingly everyone else on here misunderstand Ockham's razor. It is not some sort of immutable law stateing that the most parsimious explanation necessarily is always correct. It is a rule of thumb that if there are 2 or more theories which explain the facts then provisionally we should adopt the most parsimious theory until data suggests otherwise.



When the original hypothesis was shown to be false, and those results were reliably reproduced by independent researchers, the old hypothesis was discarded.



This sounds very implausible to me. It certainly is not the way scientists normally behave! :eek: As I have pointed out before it is very difficult to falsify theories because data can either be ignored, the observations can be called into question, or auxiliary hypotheses can be introduced (without changing the main thrust of the main hypothesis). Psychologically scientists are loathe to abandon theories even when they have been "falsified". Nor, in and of itself, is this inevitably necessarily an irrational attitude to adopt.



This very fact demonstrates that your imagined scenario of dogmatic scientists allowing their preconceptions cloud their judgement of the experimental results, is not an accurate portrayal of what actually happened.



I am highly skeptical of what you say here.



Your above statement also misrepresents the scientific process itself. Scientists do not try to prove their theories. They try to disprove them.



Now I've heard it all! :rolleyes: Do they become disconsolate when they fail in this endeavour?? LMAO!

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Ian,

The very fact that we now know that the original hypothesis was an over-simplification, just verifies what I have been saying.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bang goes parsimony. Besides if reality did somehow have the myserious propensity to always operate according to the minimum number of entities and concepts then we would scarcely have reached the present position where a bewildering number of elementary particles are invoked to explain the world. There is nothing about reality which dictates that it should be simple.

I already said that he was misrepresenting the principle of parsimony. Parsimony does not claim that the simplest explanation is more likely to be correct. It simply states that there is no point in adopting a more complicated explanation than is necessary.

You and seemingly everyone else on here misunderstand Ockham's razor. It is not some sort of immutable law stateing that the most parsimious explanation necessarily is always correct.

Where did you ever get the idea that this is what I think Ockham's razor means? :confused:

It is a rule of thumb that if there are 2 or more theories which explain the facts then provisionally we should adopt the most parsimious theory until data suggests otherwise.

Actually, it is the observation that the only assumptions in a theory which can be supported by testing the claims of the theory, are those assumptions which are logically necessary to derive the testable claims. What you posted above is a consequence of this fact.

Ockham's razor is commonly misunderstood the way you said it is, but not by me, and not by scientists in general.

When the original hypothesis was shown to be false, and those results were reliably reproduced by independent researchers, the old hypothesis was discarded.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This sounds very implausible to me. It certainly is not the way scientists normally behave!

On the contrary, this is exactly how scientists normally behave. This is how scientific progress is made!

As I have pointed out before it is very difficult to falsify theories because data can either be ignored, the observations can be called into question, or auxiliary hypotheses can be introduced (without changing the main thrust of the main hypothesis).

The first two would only be done if all of the people studying the phenomenon had some vested interest in not falsifying the theory. The fact is that most scientists would love nothing more that to falsify some currently accepted theory, since doing so would make them famous. The third is expressly forbidden by Ockham's razor. If it is possible to invent auxiliary hypotheses to save a theory from falsification, then the theory was not properly constructed in the first place.

Of course when a theory is falsified, it is likely that the new theory will have many things in common with the old one. This is only to be expected.

Psychologically scientists are loathe to abandon theories even when they have been "falsified". Nor, in and of itself, is this inevitably necessarily an irrational attitude to adopt.

Do you have any evidence to back up this claim?

This very fact demonstrates that your imagined scenario of dogmatic scientists allowing their preconceptions cloud their judgement of the experimental results, is not an accurate portrayal of what actually happened.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am highly skeptical of what you say here.

Good for you. You don't have to take my word for it. Do some research into the subject. Look at how scientists have discarded theories and replaced them with new ones over the years. Talk to actual scientists, and find out how interested they are in overturning some currently accepted theory.

The proof of what I said is freely available for anybody who wants to exert the minimal effort necessary to look for it.

Your above statement also misrepresents the scientific process itself. Scientists do not try to prove their theories. They try to disprove them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now I've heard it all! Do they become disconsolate when they fail in this endeavour?? LMAO!

No, why would they? It would be very unscientific to develop an emotional attachment to a theory. Sure, it happens, but that is one of the reasons that independent verification is so important.

I can assure you that I have no emotional attachment to other people's theories. I would love to prove some widely accepted theory false. It would make my career. The same is true of most scientists.


Dr. Stupid

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Stimpy's explanation of parsimony agrees with the dictionary:

"especially : economy of explanation in conformity with Occam's razor"

Economy of explanation, not necessarily of operation.

Paul's Obvious Rule of Thumb: The persistence with which someone claims that science is a close-minded dogmatic process is directly proportional to the number of things that person believes but science doesn't accept.

~~ Paul

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Stimpy's explanation of parsimony agrees with the dictionary:

"especially : economy of explanation in conformity with Occam's razor"

Economy of explanation, not necessarily of operation.

Paul's Obvious Rule of Thumb: The persistence with which someone claims that science is a close-minded dogmatic process is directly proportional to the number of things that person believes but science doesn't accept.

~~ Paul
PORT. I like it. Except to point out that science being close–minded and dogmatic process is demonstrably true, albeit only in instances when being such is not a bad thing, such as being a counter to things that people believe but science doesn't accept.
:)

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by BillyTK

PORT. I like it. Except to point out that science being close–minded and dogmatic process is demonstrably true, albeit only in instances when being such is not a bad thing, such as being a counter to things that people believe but science doesn't accept.
:)

Among those things that science doesn't accept, how many have already proven to be things that science accepted and how many more of these things are there?

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Stimpy's explanation of parsimony agrees with the dictionary:

"especially : economy of explanation in conformity with Occam's razor"

Economy of explanation, not necessarily of operation.

Paul's Obvious Rule of Thumb: The persistence with which someone claims that science is a close-minded dogmatic process is directly proportional to the number of things that person believes but science doesn't accept.

~~ Paul

Most of the time, an economy of explanation requires an economy of (theory of) operation. Simple theories are usually less correct than those which utilize more entities and processes. Of course, how one counts entities is a matter of subjective selection.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Suggestologist,
Well then, you should either learn at least enough about the incident to determine this, or simply not claim to know whether it happened or not.


Hmmmm, and how would you suggest I carry out a calculation as ridiculously indeterminate as the one you suggest?


I never said that you can reasonably accept the findings of the scientific community when you are, yourself, completely ignorant about what they are doing. I just said that you do not have to understand in detail the specifics of their work.


I disagree. If you don't understand it in detail, you may as well believe everything you read that you only slighly understand.


Actually, that is a misrepresentation of the principle of parsimony.


It's a misrepresentation how? In order to develop new hypotheses you necessarily have to break the "principle" or "rule" in question. Parsimony is part of what keeps things in a state of mode-locking.


The very fact that we now know that the original hypothesis was an over-simplification, just verifies what I have been saying. When the original hypothesis was shown to be false, and those results were reliably reproduced by independent researchers, the old hypothesis was discarded. This very fact demonstrates that your imagined scenario of dogmatic scientists allowing their preconceptions cloud their judgement of the experimental results, is not an accurate portrayal of what actually happened.

Your above statement also misrepresents the scientific process itself. Scientists do not try to prove their theories. They try to disprove them. Any scientists who were specifically looking for data to back up their hypothesis, rather than actively trying to falsify it, were not doing science, but rather pseudo-science.


Yeah, there's a lot of research money for those who can disprove their own hypotheses, mm hm.


Absolute belief in anything is just plain stupid. The degree to which you believe something should reflect the amount of evidence in support of it. There is substantial evidence in support of the moon landing. I therefore am very confident that it occurred.


I would wager that your belief in the moon landing has much more to do with accepting what everyone else accepts in order to appear part of the society, not abnormal, worthy of it's attention, love, etc. Much like people's beliefs in Gods.

As has been often said: People use logic to back up what they first felt emotionally.


If you totally believe even the things you have experienced, then you are being naive.


Is that because there is always the possibility that we're within a matrix within a matrix within a matrix within ...; Or a holodeck(tm) within a holodeck(tm) with in a ... ?


And how or why a particular experiment works or not has little bearing on whether scientific results which have been extensively tested by many independent researchers, can be accepted as reliable. All that is relevant is that you understand how and why that scientific process works.



I think that you a demonstrably wrong. The facts simply don't support your claim.

The fact that science has shown itself, time and time again, to be self-correcting.



Aha, so now you claim to be a psychic who can predict the future? No matter what has happened in the past, no matter how many times it happened, can you guarantee a future result. Are you sure that it isn't the case (see: I'm trying to prove the negative rather than the positive here :) ) that you simply know of more cases where science seems to you to have self-corrected, and know fewer times where science has remained stuck at points where it was in error? The "availability heuristic", you know.


The fact that there is a very strong incentive within the scientific community to show that currently accepted theories are false, which completely destroys you "mode-locking" hypothesis. I think you are pretty much missing any understanding of how and why the scientific process actually works. As such, it comes as no surprise that you think it needs to be taken on faith.


If there is an incentive to disprove, then there must also be an incentive to keep one's disprovements from themselves being disproven -- thus showing your studies to have been a waste of everyone's time -- is there not?

The more times a study is replicated, the harder it is for one that disproves it to get published, or seriously read if published; because there becomes a mountain of evidence against any disclaimant -- and the currency of science seems to be quantity of evidence; and too few times - quality of evidence. Replicating a study can get your name in lights (though not as bright) much quicker than developing a theory of your own which you can show to have failed to disprove. :)

[Silicon]

More dancing, suggestologist?

How many scientific papers have you gotten published? Where is this cabal of editors of scientific journals that keep YOUR theory out?

Evidence? Let's take a random Science Journal, like Nature. What's the ratio of new findings replacing old?

I think that'd show the evidence right there.

Do a survey that shows that science isn't interested in revising, improving or disproving old theories.

Go do the work to find out. Prove to us that science is mode-locking. Work for it. Get off your postulating butt and actually prove something to us.



Or HEY, here's a fantastically simple idea. Prove something is true that is currently ignored or believed to be false by all previously published science articles. Since science is mode-locking, it should be painfully simple to find some phenomena that has been locked out.

Prove THAT! Depending on what it is, you might be in line for a million bucks AND the nobel prize!

Plus, we can all throw out the scientific method, and use the Suggestologist Method, which states.....

What WOULD the suggestologist method state? Use as complicated a reasoning as possible... Never have faith in anything you can't put your hand to.... Dance around the argument, arguing semantics at every turn, then switch analogies..

Yeah, that'll cure polio, and get us to the moon!

[Yahweh]

Stimpy:
------------------------------------------------------
Your above statement also misrepresents the scientific process itself. Scientists do not try to prove their theories. They try to disprove them.
------------------------------------------------------

Ian:
Now I've heard it all! Do they become disconsolate when they fail in this endeavour?? LMAO!

You present yourself as a bit naive. Scientific hypotheses are supposed to be falsifyable.

If you believe science is all about finding more and more and more evidence to support a theory, then you are wrong.

To state "we can never know because there might not be some forces in nature we havent discovered yet" is an unfalsifyable hypothesis. To state "Humans have the ability to flap their arms and gain the ability to fly" is a falsifyable hypothesis.

There was a time when people believed maggots spontaneously arose from rotting meat. Quite an interesting but perfectly valid (and falsifyable) hypothesis. They had no idea that the maggots were simply fly larvae. They based their assumption on the fact they had to find any means they could to "fill in the gaps" of science, that is obviously a very flawed method. Many attempts were made by many scientists (Pasteur, that other guy, and the other other guy, and possibly another guy) to prove this hypothesis inaccurate.

Hell, if it makes you feel better, my of my friends at work teaches Physics. Today, he showed me a transparency that said "Scientists want to prove their hypotheses wrong". Then I said "I know that, what'd the kids think". Apparently the kids were dumbfounded. Sure, its anecdotal "evidence", but I just thought it was interesting.

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Suggestologist

The more times a study is replicated, the harder it is for one that disproves it to get published, or seriously read if published; because there becomes a mountain of evidence against any disclaimant
To be fair, there surely is some truth to this. But then again, that would also significantly increase the potential glory for one who could defeat it.

and the currency of science seems to be quantity of evidence; and too few times - quality of evidence.Mind if I rephrase that slightly for you?: "...and the currency of science seems to me to be..."

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Suggestologist,

Well then, you should either learn at least enough about the incident to determine this, or simply not claim to know whether it happened or not.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hmmmm, and how would you suggest I carry out a calculation as ridiculously indeterminate as the one you suggest?

You don't need exact numbers to know that the number is very large. I don't need to know exactly how far Moscow is from Berlin to know that I can't drive there in a half-hour.

I never said that you can reasonably accept the findings of the scientific community when you are, yourself, completely ignorant about what they are doing. I just said that you do not have to understand in detail the specifics of their work.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I disagree. If you don't understand it in detail, you may as well believe everything you read that you only slighly understand.

This is demonstrably false. Whether or not you believe their claims does not depend on whether you understand every detail of the research that led to those claims, but instead on whether those claims have been independently verified under a wide range of conditions.

Actually, that is a misrepresentation of the principle of parsimony.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's a misrepresentation how? In order to develop new hypotheses you necessarily have to break the "principle" or "rule" in question. Parsimony is part of what keeps things in a state of mode-locking.

Parsimony means making the explanation no more complicated than it needs to be. It does not mean clinging dogmatically to an explanation which has been demonstrated to be overly simplistic. :rolleyes:

Your above statement also misrepresents the scientific process itself. Scientists do not try to prove their theories. They try to disprove them. Any scientists who were specifically looking for data to back up their hypothesis, rather than actively trying to falsify it, were not doing science, but rather pseudo-science.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah, there's a lot of research money for those who can disprove their own hypotheses, mm hm.

Your ignorance is showing. Funding is based on results. And the only way to get results in science is by doing science according to the scientific method. You can try to cheat, and do pseudo-science, but the process is designed so that such fraud is usually quickly caught, and this ends up destroying the career of the fraud.

Absolute belief in anything is just plain stupid. The degree to which you believe something should reflect the amount of evidence in support of it. There is substantial evidence in support of the moon landing. I therefore am very confident that it occurred.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I would wager that your belief in the moon landing has much more to do with accepting what everyone else accepts in order to appear part of the society, not abnormal, worthy of it's attention, love, etc. Much like people's beliefs in Gods.

You would lose that wager. By the way, I don't believe in God either.

As has been often said: People use logic to back up what they first felt emotionally.

Some people do that. The scientific process is specifically designed to control for this tendency. Once again, the problem here is that you simply do not understand how or why the scientific process works.

If you totally believe even the things you have experienced, then you are being naive.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is that because there is always the possibility that we're within a matrix within a matrix within a matrix within ...; Or a holodeck(tm) within a holodeck(tm) with in a ... ?

No, it is because personal experience is demonstrably unreliable.

I think that you a demonstrably wrong. The facts simply don't support your claim.

The fact that science has shown itself, time and time again, to be self-correcting.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aha, so now you claim to be a psychic who can predict the future? No matter what has happened in the past, no matter how many times it happened, can you guarantee a future result.

Who said anything about guarantees? I already said that absolute confidence in anything is unjustified.

Are you sure that it isn't the case (see: I'm trying to prove the negative rather than the positive here ) that you simply know of more cases where science seems to you to have self-corrected, and know fewer times where science has remained stuck at points where it was in error? The "availability heuristic", you know.

I am sure of nothing. I am very confident that the above scenario is not the case. That confidence is based, once again, on the fact that I understand how and why the scientific process works, and that historically even the most cherished preconceptions of science were dismissed when the evidence required doing so.

The fact that there is a very strong incentive within the scientific community to show that currently accepted theories are false, which completely destroys you "mode-locking" hypothesis. I think you are pretty much missing any understanding of how and why the scientific process actually works. As such, it comes as no surprise that you think it needs to be taken on faith.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If there is an incentive to disprove, then there must also be an incentive to keep one's disprovements from themselves being disproven -- thus showing your studies to have been a waste of everyone's time -- is there not?

What? :confused:

Are you completely retarded, or just playing devil's advocate to a ridiculous level? Two words: Independent verification. This aspect of science addresses all of these nonsensical issues you are bringing up.

The more times a study is replicated, the harder it is for one that disproves it to get published, or seriously read if published; because there becomes a mountain of evidence against any disclaimant -- and the currency of science seems to be quantity of evidence; and too few times - quality of evidence. Replicating a study can get your name in lights (though not as bright) much quicker than developing a theory of your own which you can show to have failed to disprove.

The above clearly indicates that you know nothing about the process you are describing. That simply isn't how it works.


Dr. Stupid

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Suggestologist,
You don't need exact numbers to know that the number is very large. I don't need to know exactly how far Moscow is from Berlin to know that I can't drive there in a half-hour.


I suppose I should just use my imagination then -- to speculate wildly on the matter, since according to you, personal experience is a complete waste of time.


This is demonstrably false. Whether or not you believe their claims does not depend on whether you understand every detail of the research that led to those claims, but instead on whether those claims have been independently verified under a wide range of conditions.




Parsimony means making the explanation no more complicated than it needs to be. It does not mean clinging dogmatically to an explanation which has been demonstrated to be overly simplistic. :rolleyes:

You can't prove anything false, if you cling to parsimonious explanations, never entertaining the notion that there is more to somthing than the rule of thumb allows. Parsimony gets in the way of developing new hypotheses and keeps science mode-locking.


Your ignorance is showing. Funding is based on results. And the only way to get results in science is by doing science according to the scientific method. You can try to cheat, and do pseudo-science, but the process is designed so that such fraud is usually quickly caught, and this ends up destroying the career of the fraud.


Funding IS based on results -- positive results.


You would lose that wager. By the way, I don't believe in God either.


Oh, I would certainly win. I can tell by your argumentation that I would.


Some people do that. The scientific process is specifically designed to control for this tendency. Once again, the problem here is that you simply do not understand how or why the scientific process works.



No, it is because personal experience is demonstrably unreliable.


Ah yes, here is the core of the problem. Those who study their science and get all the right credentials are given the authority to speak and write about "truths" of which they have no personal experience. This includes such things as asserting that the personal experience of some people is less the "truth" than those "truths" they have studied yet have no actual personal experience of. Makes a lot of sense.


Who said anything about guarantees? I already said that absolute confidence in anything is unjustified.

I am sure of nothing. I am very confident that the above scenario is not the case. That confidence is based, once again, on the fact that I understand how and why the scientific process works, and that historically even the most cherished preconceptions of science were dismissed when the evidence required doing so.


The science you "understand" has, for the most part, been objectified and separated from it's historical contexts.


What? :confused:

Are you completely retarded, or just playing devil's advocate to a ridiculous level? Two words: Independent verification. This aspect of science addresses all of these nonsensical issues you are bringing up.


And we have evidence that such independent verification actually happens, how?


The above clearly indicates that you know nothing about the process you are describing. That simply isn't how it works.


Dr. Stupid

Please tell me how you think it works. You have repeatedly asserted a knowledge that I don't know how or why science "works"; without any evidence, I might add. Oh that's right, you have some personal experience with me in this thread -- but personal experience is irrelevant -- where's your science?

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Suggestologist,

You don't need exact numbers to know that the number is very large. I don't need to know exactly how far Moscow is from Berlin to know that I can't drive there in a half-hour.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I suppose I should just use my imagination then -- to speculate wildly on the matter, since according to you, personal experience is a complete waste of time.

Wow, a non-sequitur and a blatant misrepresentation, all within one sentence. I'm impressed.

Parsimony means making the explanation no more complicated than it needs to be. It does not mean clinging dogmatically to an explanation which has been demonstrated to be overly simplistic.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can't prove anything false, if you cling to parsimonious explanations, never entertaining the notion that there is more to somthing than the rule of thumb allows. Parsimony gets in the way of developing new hypotheses and keeps science mode-locking.

Wrong. You can demonstrate that a falsifiable theory is false. Once you have done so, the theory is replaced by a new one. That is how science works. If your claim was true, science would never make any progress at all.

Your ignorance is showing. Funding is based on results. And the only way to get results in science is by doing science according to the scientific method. You can try to cheat, and do pseudo-science, but the process is designed so that such fraud is usually quickly caught, and this ends up destroying the career of the fraud.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Funding IS based on results -- positive results.

Positive verifiable results. If your positive results cannot be independently reproduced, then your positive results aren't worth a puddle of warm spit, and you stop getting funded.

You would lose that wager. By the way, I don't believe in God either.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, I would certainly win. I can tell by your argumentation that I would.

Your presumption is typical of the willfully ignorant. :rolleyes:

No, it is because personal experience is demonstrably unreliable.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ah yes, here is the core of the problem. Those who study their science and get all the right credentials are given the authority to speak and write about "truths" of which they have no personal experience. This includes such things as asserting that the personal experience of some people is less the "truth" than those "truths" they have studied yet have no actual personal experience of. Makes a lot of sense.

Your ignorance is blazingly obvious. There are no authorities in science, at least not in the meaning you have presented. It doesn't make any difference who you are. If your results cannot be independently verified, they aren't worth crap.

I am sure of nothing. I am very confident that the above scenario is not the case. That confidence is based, once again, on the fact that I understand how and why the scientific process works, and that historically even the most cherished preconceptions of science were dismissed when the evidence required doing so.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The science you "understand" has, for the most part, been objectified and separated from it's historical contexts.

The science I understand is demonstrably reliable. End of story.

What?

Are you completely retarded, or just playing devil's advocate to a ridiculous level? Two words: Independent verification. This aspect of science addresses all of these nonsensical issues you are bringing up.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And we have evidence that such independent verification actually happens, how?

How about the fact that independent groups claim to have reproduced the study, and publish their methodologies in such a way that if they were lying, anybody who attempts to reproduce their results would find out?

Like I said, the alternative is a worldwide conspiracy involving the entire scientific community.

Anyway, I for one know that no such conspiracy exists, because I would have to be a part of it. I guess if your critical thinking skills are so inadequate that you cannot see the ridiculousness of the conspiracy hypothesis, then you will just have to take my word for it.

Or don't. I don't care whether you choose to believe nonsense or not. It is my job to do science, and make those results available to the public. It is not my job to convince ignorant people that science is valid.

The above clearly indicates that you know nothing about the process you are describing. That simply isn't how it works.

Dr. Stupid
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please tell me how you think it works.

Read a book. It is painfully obvious that you are not interested in a serious discussion here, and I am not going to waste my time humoring you anymore.

You have repeatedly asserted a knowledge that I don't know how or why science "works"; without any evidence, I might add.

Your own idiotic claims are all the evidence I need. Anybody who actually does understand science will have no trouble identifying that you do not.


Dr. Stupid

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Yahweh

You present yourself as a bit naive. Scientific hypotheses are supposed to be falsifyable.



Oh yes?? Tell me. Since when was this decided?? Methinks that a scientist has read some of Popper and got a bit carried away! You talk as much ***** as Stimp. You really imagine a theory is abandoned simply because some observation doesn't fit into the theory? What a load of *****.



If you believe science is all about finding more and more and more evidence to support a theory, then you are wrong.



No it is not all about that. And no I do not intend to go into how science progresses at this juncture. Poppers falsifiability doesn't actually portray the progress of science though.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Suggestologist,
Wrong. You can demonstrate that a falsifiable theory is false. Once you have done so, the theory is replaced by a new one. That is how science works. If your claim was true, science would never make any progress at all.


I can demonstrate that some theories are false. But that would be some of the dreaded "unreliable" personal experience.


Positive verifiable results. If your positive results cannot be independently reproduced, then your positive results aren't worth a puddle of warm spit, and you stop getting funded.


You can always get funding from a special interest group.

You get locked into your either-or thinking too easily.


Your presumption is typical of the willfully ignorant. :rolleyes:


I'm sure you have studies that characterize the attributes of the willfully ignorant to back that up?


Your ignorance is blazingly obvious. There are no authorities in science, at least not in the meaning you have presented. It doesn't make any difference who you are. If your results cannot be independently verified, they aren't worth crap.


There are no authorities in science? Who's being willfully ignorant? Scientists talk about that which they have no personal experience, and other people believe (as in have "faith") in what they say. This is a well-established social rule. Happens every day.


The science I understand is demonstrably reliable. End of story.


You haven't demonstrated that to me.


How about the fact that independent groups claim to have reproduced the study, and publish their methodologies in such a way that if they were lying, anybody who attempts to reproduce their results would find out?


As I have written earlier, reproducing a methodology is irrelevant to proving that the methodology proves what the experimenter thinks it proves. For that to be the case, the person who designs the methodology must have sufficient and in-depth personal experience of the subject matter. Randi and parapsychological experiments should come to mind.


Like I said, the alternative is a worldwide conspiracy involving the entire scientific community.


There are many alternatives. The worldwide conspiracy of which you are a part, that attempts to make anyone who disagrees with the "science" it has agreed upon -- look silly, is quite active; as your activity on this thread helps to Prove.

Do you understand the psychological referent of: "To blind someone with science"?

[QUTOE]
Anyway, I for one know that no such conspiracy exists, because I would have to be a part of it. I guess if your critical thinking skills are so inadequate that you cannot see the ridiculousness of the conspiracy hypothesis, then you will just have to take my word for it.
[/QUOTE]

There is no necessity to know that you are in a conspiracy, in order to be in one. That leads to Foucault and Bentham's Panopticon, and other related philosophy that I'm sure you wouldn't be interested in. The "normalizing gaze" and such.


Or don't. I don't care whether you choose to believe nonsense or not. It is my job to do science, and make those results available to the public. It is not my job to convince ignorant people that science is valid.


You've never proven that evaluation of my beliefs.


Read a book. It is painfully obvious that you are not interested in a serious discussion here, and I am not going to waste my time humoring you anymore.


I wasn't aware that you'd written a book on the subject, or I wouldn't have asked. But this is typical of the appeals to authority I've alluded to.


Your own idiotic claims are all the evidence I need. Anybody who actually does understand science will have no trouble identifying that you do not.

Dr. Stupid

None of them have sent me a questionairre, so I doubt they or you could substantiate such an evaluation scientifically.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Silicon
More dancing, suggestologist?
Evidence? Let's take a random Science Journal, like Nature. What's the ratio of new findings replacing old?

I think that'd show the evidence right there.


Many of the papers I read show incremental experimentation that do little more than reaffirm what we already knew. I see few papers that suggest a radical shift is needed. And the few that I have seen, seem to just fade away.


Do a survey that shows that science isn't interested in revising, improving or disproving old theories.


Science isn't a person who can have interests, or who can act to improve and disprove. That is what scientists are supposed to engage in. Motives among scientists are unlikely to be in synchrony about which theories should stay and which should go. A survey isn't likely to reveal any intentionally hidden motives, or even motives that the particular scientist might deem not socially acceptable within the scientific community.


Go do the work to find out. Prove to us that science is mode-locking. Work for it. Get off your postulating butt and actually prove something to us.


Science has had one stream of history. How would I replicate any methodology that proved what you suggest I should prove?


Or HEY, here's a fantastically simple idea. Prove something is true that is currently ignored or believed to be false by all previously published science articles. Since science is mode-locking, it should be painfully simple to find some phenomena that has been locked out.

Prove THAT! Depending on what it is, you might be in line for a million bucks AND the nobel prize!


Mode-locking doesn't mean that there aren't studies or papers that already show a different result from what is "accepted" by the scientific community. Hypnosis is a prime example, where the studies are all there, yet scientists are still loathe to take a good look because they have been socialized (within the scientific community, and before their initiation into it) to treat hypnosis as "just a trick".


Plus, we can all throw out the scientific method, and use the Suggestologist Method, which states.....

What WOULD the suggestologist method state? Use as complicated a reasoning as possible... Never have faith in anything you can't put your hand to.... Dance around the argument, arguing semantics at every turn, then switch analogies..

Yeah, that'll cure polio, and get us to the moon!

My "method" is that of personal experience. If I can't test it myself, it's not as believable as if I could test it myself. That's all. Once I test it myself, I am more open to accepting papers related to the idea in question.

Do I believe people landed on the moon, sure; but probably not as much as many of the people here seem to. I wasn't even there to watch it live, I can't bounce a laser off of whatever mirrors were supposed to have been left there, so how can I conscientiously claim to definately KNOW that it happened?

People who call themselves scientists can tell me; but how do I know that they aren't just mistaken?

What I have been confronted by in this forum has been the acceptance of any study published, simply because it has been published. And the idea that studies trump personal experience. How is this skepticism? I must ask the question.

"I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything." -- Thomas Huxley

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Oh yes?? Tell me. Since when was this decided??
It was not "decided". It is part of the process of science, its a process called "thinking from all sides of the circle". If I give you the hypothesis "a ball thrown at 5 meters per second will leave the earth and fly into space", then I will not continue to mount more and more evidence as to how that ball will escape the pull of the earth. I will try to prove how that hypothesis is wrong.

If I perform tests and yet I am unable to prove my hypothesis wrong, then obviously the data I have gathered most likely supports my hypothesis. Science is not a one-lane highway, Ian.

Methinks that a scientist has read some of Popper and got a bit carried away!
Methinks you use a lot of foul language.

You talk as much ***** as Stimp.
Hey, I admire Stimpy, hes a smart guy with more knowledge in Physics than I could ever wish to attain, he knows his way around Philosophy very well (so much he is comparable to Philosopher Yahweh himself), he has a good sense of humor. I like to know that I am comparable to him. Cool!

You really imagine a theory is abandoned simply because some observation doesn't fit into the theory? What a load of *****.
I dont understand what you meant... oh well, if I dont understand a particular rant then I'm sure it wasnt something worth reading anyway.

No it is not all about that. And no I do not intend to go into how science progresses at this juncture. Poppers falsifiability doesn't actually portray the progress of science though.
Hmmm, call me crazy but I would bet a supporting falsifyable hypotheses makes for a bit more progress than explaining science in terms of ambigious unfalsifyable theories and hypotheses.

[Silicon]

Originally posted by Suggestologist
Do I believe people landed on the moon, sure; but probably not as much as many of the people here seem to. I wasn't even there to watch it live, I can't bounce a laser off of whatever mirrors were supposed to have been left there, so how can I conscientiously claim to definately KNOW that it happened?

People who call themselves scientists can tell me; but how do I know that they aren't just mistaken?

[/B]

Well then, what's the point of living as a society? If no endeavor is actually real, no information is trustworthy unless you yourself can bang on it with your own hands?

That's the wierd suggestologist uber-skepticism then.

What's the solution? Nobody report on any finding ever, because nothings worthy of any trust?



How do you function!?! Do you wonder if your car will explode when you get in, because how do you know that the designer wasn't mistaken in his understanding of internal combustion?

How do you know that the electrician who wired your house didn't run wires too close to your plumbing and you'll get electrocuted in the tub?!!

In a philosophy course, my teacher proposed the following follies:

To believe a falsehood,
To disbelieve a truth


I see that you have added a third:

For fear of believing a falsehood, you disbelieve all truths that do not present themselves as directly observable to a layperson.

Any truths not directly observable without any understanding of a field, shall be discarded. Any observations by experts in that field should also be discarded. Any research into that field shall be deemed useless, as any scientific field of inquiry has been already mode-locked.


How can I prove man went to the moon, without going there myself? Hell, even if I DID go to the moon, how do I know that I wasn't drugged and hypnotized to THINK I went to the moon?!!?
How do I know I EXIST??!?!?!?
AAAAAAHHHHHHH

COGITO ERGO SUM!!!

Ahhhhh.... whew....

Okay, assuming I exist, how could I prove man went to the moon.

Well for one, I COULD ASK THE GUYS THAT DID!
Assuming they don't lie.

For two, I could look at the photographs and the footage.

I work in the field of visual effects. Work with Oscar winners. And many of those shots STILL can't be done in miniature. Trust me, I worked on Armageddon. We had 100000 times the computer horsepower that the entire world had in 1969, and their shots STILL kick our ass. I won't bore you with lens theory, and working with miniatures, except to say, if those moon orbiting shots were miniatures, they'd need a film camera the size of an olive, a soundstage the size of new-jersey, a camera boom the size of the empire state building and a light 100 times as powerful as the sun itself.

They'd also have to have invented motion-control about 10 years before Star Wars. They'd have to have perfected the travelling matte and the optical printer (things that to this day haven't been perfected, we've discarded them and gone to computer).


Oh, and I know the people who were the best visual effects artists in the world in the 1960's. Doug Trumbull was the main guy. And even he couldn't do a travelling matte shot that didn't print-through.

No way in hell is that stuff fake.

Oh, but I'm an expert, and I might be mistaken.....

:rolleyes:

[Stimpson J. Cat]

I am finished here. I have stated my position. I have addressed all of the issues that Suggestologist is rehashing and throwing back up over and over again. I am not going to just keep repeating myself just for his amusement.

If anybody has any reasonable questions or criticisms of my original reply to the topic of this thread, let me know.

Dr. Stupid

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Yahweh
Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Oh yes?? Tell me. Since when was this decided??
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


It was not "decided".



Right, that all I need to know. Let's not hear any more ***** about falsifiability being the crucial ingredient for scientific progress then. Science is more complex than that. Read some other philosophers of science apart fron Popper. Hey you have read Popper haven't you?

[Stimpson J. Cat]

[b]Ian,[b/]

Oh yes?? Tell me. Since when was this decided??
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was not "decided".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Right, that all I need to know. Let's not hear any more ***** about falsifiability being the crucial ingredient for scientific progress then. Science is more complex than that. Read some other philosophers of science apart fron Popper. Hey you have read Popper haven't you?

I have. And unlike you, I actually understood it. The scientific process is more complicated than just the principle of falsifiability, but that does not change the fact that it is a crucial part of the scientific method.

And as Yahweh said, it was not "decided". That suggest some group of scientists getting together and declaring that, henceforth, falsifiability is a requirement of scientific theories.

It was determined. Specifically, it can be logically shown that only way an experiment can support a hypothesis, is if that hypothesis makes falsifiable claims, which the experiment could have potentially shown to be false.


Dr. Stupid

[Silicon]

Adding one more detail about moon landing fakery.

Look at the moving footage, people, for crissakes.

Don't look at a still photo on the internet. Look at the moving footage.


Look at the shots of the sand rooster-tailing from the wheels of the rover. Look at it! Have you ever seen dust move that way? It's moving without any fluid dynamics. That dust is not moving in air. It's moving in a vaccuum. That's pure newtonian dynamics.



Look at the movies of seperation of the LEM. LOOK! See all those thousands of bits of floating dust and ice? All of them twinkling and turning on their own centers of gravity? Also, not interacting with any airfield?

There was NO WAY to achieve this effect in visual effects before doing it in computer graphics.

You maybe, MAYBE could have done it around 1990. Shading, texture, lighting and motion-blur? Best-case, 1990.


Also, there's the fact that if the moon-orbit shots were miniature, that would have to have been the biggest sphere ever built, because they go on one full shot without cuts desending for miles.

And if one crater, ONE CRATER was off by even a quarter mile, ANY amateur astronomer with a backyard telescope could prove it with a snapshot.


And just like me, checking this against my knowlege and critical thinking, ALL science has people like me. Doing life-science? I bet there are millions of bird-watchers who are lay-experts, checking their bs detectors.

Doing physics? There are people who work with real lasers and real nuclear reactors and real particle accelerators every day(millions of them) and they know when something doesn't work.

Doing astronomy? Those folks in their backyards are watching you, reading your papers, and they know a thing or three about the sky, too.

I don't have to go to the moon to know that somebody did. I don't have to bounce lasers.

I MIGHT have to get up off my postulating, internet arguing, conspiracy-theory-chasing ass and learn a thing or two.


I bet folks on the internet could give you 1500 ways you could prove that man walked on the moon without actually going there and looking for footprints.

Of course, you won't make that search yourself, because somehow that would make you have to come to a conclusion. And somehow then you would think that means you're closed-minded.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Silicon


Well then, what's the point of living as a society? If no endeavor is actually real, no information is trustworthy unless you yourself can bang on it with your own hands?


Ah, you've unwittingly hit on an important point. The social reality. When a scientist or a group of scientists who have all replicated some study tell you that something is the "truth"; in order to accept what they said without your own personal experience of it, you must TRUST them. Notice that there is a huge difference between trusting a person and having personal experiencial evidence of some "fact".

You might argue that if their "facts" are wrong, then someone will eventually find out and tell me. But again, without personal experience, I must now Trust the debunker's experiment which purports to invalidate the first.

So, scientists rely on trusting one another more than their disembodied style of experimental reporting admits. Taking evidence on trust is not the same as personal experience that serves to confirm it in some way.


That's the wierd suggestologist uber-skepticism then.

What's the solution? Nobody report on any finding ever, because nothings worthy of any trust?


Nothing is worthy of too much trust until you've experienced it for yourself. That's correct. I put the moon landing having happened at a 95% confidence level; but I fear that others here are more likely to put it between 99.99999% and 100%.


How do you function!?! Do you wonder if your car will explode when you get in, because how do you know that the designer wasn't mistaken in his understanding of internal combustion?


No, because using a car is a test of the functioning of the engine; so this is not something I need to take on trust -- I have personal experience that it functions. But it is true that manufacturers often make small recalls to fix things due to faulty design of one sort or another; I also have personal experience of this.


How do you know that the electrician who wired your house didn't run wires too close to your plumbing and you'll get electrocuted in the tub?!!


I'm sure such things have happened. And I do make some visual inspection of such repair work, as well as asking some questions. My life of scepticism is not as paranoid as you paint it.


In a philosophy course, my teacher proposed the following follies:

To believe a falsehood,
To disbelieve a truth


I see that you have added a third:

For fear of believing a falsehood, you disbelieve all truths that do not present themselves as directly observable to a layperson.


I am not asking for direct observation, merely some form of direct verifiability. I don't need to know how my car engine works to test that it does work.


Any truths not directly observable without any understanding of a field, shall be discarded. Any observations by experts in that field should also be discarded. Any research into that field shall be deemed useless, as any scientific field of inquiry has been already mode-locked.


How do I know they are really an expert? There are creationists who have real credentials (yeah, most of them have fake credentials, I'm not talking about those). Do you accept them as experts just because they have a Ph.D.?

Mode-locking is basically the same idea as "punctuated equilibrium" -- which is my accepted theory of the evolution of science.


How can I prove man went to the moon, without going there myself? Hell, even if I DID go to the moon, how do I know that I wasn't drugged and hypnotized to THINK I went to the moon?!!?
How do I know I EXIST??!?!?!?
AAAAAAHHHHHHH


False memories produced by hypnosis and other methods which are not overtly hypnotic -- are things you might want to stay aware of. It is possible for people to believe they went to the moon, when they really haven't been.

"I" does not exist. "I" is a nominalization. An ever-changing sequence, a process, a pattern -- more than one in fact. What "I" is at one moment, isn't what "I" is at another. What exists are the collections of patterns that the patterns themselves call "I" -- when grammatically appropriate. Sorry, I read too much philosophy this morning. :)


COGITO ERGO SUM!!!

Ahhhhh.... whew....

Okay, assuming I exist, how could I prove man went to the moon.

Well for one, I COULD ASK THE GUYS THAT DID!
Assuming they don't lie.


Assuming they don't lie? Do you know what cues to look for that are highly indicative of lying in people?


For two, I could look at the photographs and the footage.

I work in the field of visual effects. Work with Oscar winners. And many of those shots STILL can't be done in miniature. Trust me, I worked on Armageddon. We had 100000 times the computer horsepower that the entire world had in 1969, and their shots STILL kick our ass. I won't bore you with lens theory, and working with miniatures, except to say, if those moon orbiting shots were miniatures, they'd need a film camera the size of an olive, a soundstage the size of new-jersey, a camera boom the size of the empire state building and a light 100 times as powerful as the sun itself.


Perhaps there is a configuration you haven't yet thought of that could explain how it could have been faked. Just like scientists who were overconfident of their ability to control for minimal cues and communication of information in parapsychology experiments; you may be overconfident of your ability to creatively imagine the configuration that would allow everything you say about the physical characteristics of the photos and videos to be true, yet still not really be genuine moon landing footage.

Think about Fermat's last proof. Mathematicians have been unable to imagine how Fermat could have had a proof that takes less than a few hundred pages to describe. Yet Fermat said he had a relatively short proof in mind. People are still looking for a short proof, attempting to creatively use their imagination to fit that configuration. In the same way, video and photo experts may simply not be able to creatively see the "tricks" involved in moon landing video and photos, yet.


They'd also have to have invented motion-control about 10 years before Star Wars. They'd have to have perfected the travelling matte and the optical printer (things that to this day haven't been perfected, we've discarded them and gone to computer).


All of these have-to's imply that they would "have to" do it the way you would have done it -- or the ways you know it could have been done. Is it possible they could have found other ways? They did invent freeze-dried ice-cream, after all.


Oh, and I know the people who were the best visual effects artists in the world in the 1960's. Doug Trumbull was the main guy. And even he couldn't do a travelling matte shot that didn't print-through.

No way in hell is that stuff fake.

Oh, but I'm an expert, and I might be mistaken.....

:rolleyes: :p :D

That's right, you could be mistaken. :) I don't argue that are mistaken, only that you could be; and I keep my mind open to the possibility.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Suggestologist said:Ah, you've unwittingly hit on an important point. The social reality. When a scientist or a group of scientists who have all replicated some study tell you that something is the "truth"; in order to accept what they said without your own personal experience of it, you must TRUST them. Notice that there is a huge difference between trusting a person and having personal experiencial evidence of some "fact".
But the more scientists verify an idea, the more you trust them, right? Or is everything you can't replicate yourself some kind of giant conspiracy to fool you? Does your world consist of personally verified things and conspiracies?

And why do you trust yourself more than 1,000 scientists?

~~ Paul

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

Originally posted by Silicon


Well then, what's the point of living as a society? If no endeavor is actually real, no information is trustworthy unless you yourself can bang on it with your own hands?

...

What's the solution? Nobody report on any finding ever, because nothings worthy of any trust?



.......


For fear of believing a falsehood, you disbelieve all truths that do not present themselves as directly observable to a layperson.

Any truths not directly observable without any understanding of a field, shall be discarded.

I think a lot of what you touched on here is what I was trying to communicate in my post, if I may steal some of your phrases:

As a lay person that can not observe or "bang on " those discoveries that are observable by a small group of with the technology, I find that I am willing to trust science.

You make no mention of faith, so I will not try to attribute to you my own leap of faith in terms of accepting or trusting science.

When I read the findings which are done through a scientific process, I dare not say I consider them gospel, but that I accept their findings because science is a reliable tool, that is self-correcting, progressive, .

Reading the other posts covering what is involved in the science process (thanks to Stimpson J. Cats helpful contributions), I am reminded that science:

is a robust tool, the best tool that humankind has to understand the natural world

is constantly being verified as experiments are repeatable

is self correcting as new evidence is examined.
As only a temporary, provisional agreement is reached, after peer review, new evidence will determine if a claim or hypothesis stands up to the new evidence (this is something that I did not touch on in my origional post, but was reminded of in Stimpson's helpful posts).


origionally posted by Stimpson
You can't seriously be saying that you have to take the fact that people landed on the moon on faith, can you?

You know, I just may, if I have no way of observing or having access to the hard evidence. I may take a leap of faith.

In my limited exposure to science, I have participated in and applied scientific process (as a student, teacher and layman only), in the sense of hands on repeatable, verifiable, observable, falsifiable experiements. Some of these experiments were not able to be done a few decades ago by students, teachers, and laymen, but were by those with the technology and resources to do so.
These experiments were repeated and verified at the time, and a (provisional) concensus within the scientific community was reached in the past. The findings were communicated to, and read by, laypeople.

Perhaps I don't have enough evidence or I have a misunderstanding of science and scientific process.
Perhaps I am missing some contexts or clues that make science a self-evident reliable tool.
Perhaps I should stop and reconsider before making a statement such as: 'I have faith in science and in the scienctific process even though I can not directly observe or participate in the latest breakthrough communicated to laypeople.'

Does this put me in danger of being credulous of every new claim, outcome and test result that is forwarded that I as a lay person may read about? Dynamic has indicated on this thread that it does, but at least I have considered that I am credulous.

Lets assume here that the scientific community in scientific field 'x', which may be a small field, has reached provisional concensus on a claim or finding.

As a lay person with limited exposure to science (particularly field 'x' ) what options do I have?

I will list some, note some are not exclusive or independent from one-another:

Reject claims and reported findings because I can not directly observe the evidence, nor (with my resources) can I repeat the experiments that are relevant.
or "For fear of believing a falsehood, (I) disbelieve all truths that do not present themselves as directly observable to a layperson." - as Silicon adequately worded in a previous post.


Presume that the claims and findings or scientists are not trustworthy because scientists are controlled by a militaristic nation or by multi-national corperations and thus reject them or "everything (I) can't replicate (my)self (is) some kind of giant conspiracy to fool (me). (My) world does consist of personally verified things and conspiracies. (I) trust (my)self more than 1,000 scientists. ~ Paraphrased from Paul's post.

Reject science all together because it has been wrong in the past and science is constantly revising its claims and findings, or God and His word are constant and neverchanging and there are absolutes as demonstrated in His Word.

Largely having a misunderstanding of science and scientific procedure and how it is applied, I, as a layperson, should mind my own business as I am not qualified/competent to view the evidence and findings.

Having neither the ability to observe evidence and/or perform experiments relevant to the claims and findings I, as a layperson, should mind my business as I do not have the means to verify a repeatable experiment.


Presume to think that scientists believe that they have a monopoly on the truth, or that science can not ascertain truth as only God and His everlasting Word can give us insight into His universe.

Having neither the ability to observe evidence and/or perform experiments relevant to claims and findings, I, as a layperson, (untrained, unqualified and possibly lacking understanding of scientific procedure) take a leap of faith.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Suggestologist said:
But the more scientists verify an idea, the more you trust them, right? Or is everything you can't replicate yourself some kind of giant conspiracy to fool you? Does your world consist of personally verified things and conspiracies?

And why do you trust yourself more than 1,000 scientists?

~~ Paul

Why don't you trust the Bible? Hundreds of millions of people do. If you're theistic, then I understand, of course.

Social structure is itself an implicit conspiracy. We do not have to be aware of engaging in a conspiracy, in order to enforce its implicit edicts.

We are recruited into society, and led to believe a set of social "truths". We then use these truths to both self-criticize and use our "normalizing judgements" to keep others in line with that set of social "truths".

An example: In our society, belching in public is thought to be rude. It doesn't have to be thought of as rude, but it is an edict of our society that when someone belches in public, we look at them funny -- the "normalizing gaze". This keeps them in line, makes them feel foolish, etc. When we belch in public, we may think badly of ourselves as well -- it depends upon how deeply we have bought into this social rule. Now, this all amounts to an implicit conspiracy to make belching in public a social ill, to stigmatize those who belch in public. How many people are aware that they are a part of this anti-belching conspiracy? Some people are, most people are not. End of example.

In the same way, scientists are part of a conspiracy of power. You should believe what they say (that's the social rule), even if they are talking about things of which they have no personal experience.

I'll stop paraphrasing now and provide a quote: "...[C]ertain speakers, those with training in certain special techniques -- supposedly to do with the powers of the mind to make contact with reality -- are priviledged to speak with authority beyond the range of their personal experience." This is a social rule of the scientist social conspiracy. And those who dare disagree with it will be made to look foolish. And Stimpson has made a marvelous attempt at enforcing it upon me.

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

Originally posted by Suggestologist


.....
Social structure is itself an implicit conspiracy. We do not have to be aware of engaging in a conspiracy, in order to enforce its implicit edicts.

We are recruited into society, and led to believe a set of social "truths". We then use these truths to both self-criticize and use our "normalizing judgements" to keep others in line with that set of social "truths".



wait a minute......

Which Wachowski brother are you? Is this the spoiler for the 3rd Matrix movie? Aren't you contratually obligated not to make this information public? Warner Bothers is not going to be pleased.

[Silicon]

Originally posted by Suggestologist


All of these have-to's imply that they would "have to" do it the way you would have done it -- or the ways you know it could have been done. Is it possible they could have found other ways? They did invent freeze-dried ice-cream, after all.

[/B]
How do you KNOW they invented freeze-dried ice-cream?


HUH HUH HUH?



No, it's not possible they could have found other ways, because that suggests a technology that surpasses landing on the moon, or putting objects and people in orbit. It actually surpasses it by about 35 years.

Trust me, I know what 100 million dollars in visual effects looks like. I know how it's done, and I know how it was done in 1969. I know the guys who were the best in the business in 1969, still some of the best in the business.

To do the "effects" of the Apollo program alone, TODAY, in the COMPUTER, presuming that ALL the computers had already been invented, and you could just buy linux computers, and the software off the shelf.

To do all of that today, you'd be talking $100 million at least. And a staff of probably a thousand artists, maybe more, if you don't have close-up photography of the moon.

Take a look at the credits of Finding Nemo (less than 2 hours long, thousands of artists), and realize that the Apollo program produced hundreds of hours of footage.

Now imagine the orders of magnitude larger that community of artists would have to have been in 1969. Instead of thousands, you'd need millions of people. And those people would have needed to have been each one, an expert in the field of visual effects. Like BETTER than anyone alive today. And they would have had to learn that somewhere. So they'd have to be trained.

And then, they'd ALL have to forget that new way they figured it out. And they'd never work again.

Or do you mean they found a simple way to fake hundreds of hours of footage? Like somehow footage itself, of anything, even a guy sitting at a desk, doesn't require a set, or lights, or a camera, and someone to build all of that, and suspend objects from wires, and remove those wires, and come up with the methodology for removing those wires, and then remove the wires from hours and hours of footage with some new rotoscoping technique and an optical printer that doesn't leave matte edges, and that itself has to be built by someone who doesn't tell and never works again....

Yeah, a simple way to build miniatures of the ships and then suspend them while photographing them in a constant shot from close up to dozens of miles away, a difference of scale of 100 to 1 or more, all the while never cutting away, never transitioning, which would require a soundstage more than a mile in length, while a light illuminates it with nearly parallel beams of light that require an extremely distant light source,

That simple way would require a knowlege of, and the invention of a camera lens that would greatly surpass any lens known to science, only theoretical lenses modelled by computer out of infinitely plastic surfaces.. They would require a camera that would be smaller than any camera ever built, one so small that light itself would have a tough time getting into it. Or it would require the building of a soundstage so large as to take up one of the smaller states of the union.

ad nauseum....

There is no simple way. And if there were, the person who figured it out would have an intellect that made Albert Einstein look like Mortimer Snerd.

So, two possible explanations:

They got millions of people who are at least 30 years before their time in the technology of visual effects, or dozens of people who are 100 years or more ahead of their time in camera theory. Then made them all forget it.

OR

They got people who were EXACTLY at their time in the fields of science and engineering. And then, when they left NASA all worked in the private sector to bring that technolgy into the very computer you bang on today.


And it fails the fact that any fakery on the topography of the moon is falsifyable by anyone with a backyard telescope.

Ah, what's the use? You probably believe you are a brain in a jar. After all, the only thing you can prove is your own mind works.



Or DOES it?!!?

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

Originally posted by Silicon


Trust me, I know what 100 million dollars in visual effects looks like. I know how it's done, and I know how it was done in 1969. I know the guys who were the best in the business in 1969, still some of the best in the business.

To do the "effects" of the Apollo program alone, TODAY, in the COMPUTER, presuming that ALL the computers had already been invented, and you could just buy linux computers, and the software off the shelf.

To do all of that today, you'd be talking $100 million at least. And a staff of probably a thousand artists, maybe more, if you don't have close-up photography of the moon.



Person that favours Moon Landing Hoax:
shaking my head, in denial
shaking my head, in denial

:hit:

Silicon , thanks for you perspective on how to pull off a moon hoax in 1969, with a $100,000,000 budget (1967 or 2003 USdollars ? ) , with access to computer technology and special effects 20 to 35 years ahead of their time.

If you meant 1967 US dollars, just multiply that figure by 4 as you double the value of a dollar every 18 years assuming a conservative estimate of 4% per annum inflation rate, getting a value of US$400,000,000 2003 dollars.

I had never though about the moon landing from this perspective, this is very helpful. Your insight, considering your experience in the field, is valuable. Perhaps you should consider passing this insight onto Phil Plait www.badastronomy.com who appears to be a part time movie buff.

case in point for your reference to movie making in 1969.

Stanley Kubrick's Academy Award- winning (for Special Video Effects, 1968)

2001:a space odyssey
done in Super PANAVISION (registered TM)
and METROCOLOR (registered TM).

The movie took over 3 years to make, released in 1968.

Occassionally when I watch it (and I watch it a lot) my belief gets suspended at certain points in the movie. I get a "feeling" of "Wow, its like they filmed that in space." But then again I and my senses are easily fooled :).

The budget for 2001:aso was $10.5 million apparantly, considerable for the time. A budget of that size would not be seen again until E.T. (1982).

A $100,000,000 plus budget would not be seen for a movie until 1991, Cameron's Terminator 2:Judgement Day.


Buena vista's Computer Generated extravaganza, Dinosaur cost an amazing $200 million in 2000, tied with some movie about a sinking ship in 1997. Dinosaur has yet to break even.Movie Budgets (http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/records/budgets.html)

It looks like Silicon's guess of $100,000,000 is a good ball park figure.

Now in comparing 2001:aso to the footage from the Apollo program, there is no comparison. The Apollo footage wins, hands down. Kubrick and his crew were ahead of their time, but they filmed on earth, with all of the challenges of filming a space adventure on planet earth.

There is a "lunar" scene in the movie, that can not compare to the lunar landings footage. There is a Space Station (in geosynchrynous orbit?) portrayed with gravity generated by spinning the "wheel" shaped station.

If Stanely Kubrick can effectivley fake a lunar city, a lunar dig, and a space station, then NASA could just as easily fake their lunar landing and the International Space Station. The drawback being: not getting the awesome, effective footage that we see of the Apollo program.

But

If NASA is just going to fake lunar landings and International Space stations without artificially generated gravity, then, why not go all out and get a bigger bang for $400,000,000?
Why not just create a real space program for the same amount of money.

Oops, the Apollo program cost:

$19,408,134,000.


Apollo Budget (http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/apollo/) 34% of Nasa's budget apparantly for the years it was running the Apollo program.

So, Nasa spent almost $20 billion dollars, and all they made was the most expensive movie series ever created, and it did not even get a nomination for an Academy Award!

Note that Apollo 13 (1995) had a $65,000,000 budget and it garnered Academy Awards!

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Suggesto said:Why don't you trust the Bible? Hundreds of millions of people do. If you're theistic, then I understand, of course.
Becaue the content of the Bible was arrived at in a different way from most scientific results.

Social structure is itself an implicit conspiracy. We do not have to be aware of engaging in a conspiracy, in order to enforce its implicit edicts.
Huh?

We are recruited into society, and led to believe a set of social "truths". We then use these truths to both self-criticize and use our "normalizing judgements" to keep others in line with that set of social "truths".

An example: In our society, belching in public is thought to be rude. It doesn't have to be thought of as rude, but it is an edict of our society that when someone belches in public, we look at them funny -- the "normalizing gaze". This keeps them in line, makes them feel foolish, etc. When we belch in public, we may think badly of ourselves as well -- it depends upon how deeply we have bought into this social rule. Now, this all amounts to an implicit conspiracy to make belching in public a social ill, to stigmatize those who belch in public. How many people are aware that they are a part of this anti-belching conspiracy? Some people are, most people are not. End of example.
All righty then.

In the same way, scientists are part of a conspiracy of power. You should believe what they say (that's the social rule), even if they are talking about things of which they have no personal experience.
Science is different from belching. This is demonstrated by the fact that science works all over the planet, whereas belching is frowned upon in certain societies and accepted in others.

I'll stop paraphrasing now and provide a quote: "...[C]ertain speakers, those with training in certain special techniques -- supposedly to do with the powers of the mind to make contact with reality -- are priviledged to speak with authority beyond the range of their personal experience." This is a social rule of the scientist social conspiracy. And those who dare disagree with it will be made to look foolish. And Stimpson has made a marvelous attempt at enforcing it upon me.
You are giving too much credence to individual personal experience as opposed to collective organized experience. Ponder what the world would be like if people could only express confidence in things they had personally experienced. For example, you could not be confident in expressing the very philosophy you are currently expressing.

I smell the belch of Postmodernism here.

~~ Paul

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Silicon

There is no simple way. And if there were, the person who figured it out would have an intellect that made Albert Einstein look like Mortimer Snerd.


Now that Fermat is dead, no one knows of a simple way to prove his "last theorem".

Just because nobody knows of a simple way, doesn't mean one wasn't known to Fermat.


So, two possible explanations:

They got millions of people who are at least 30 years before their time in the technology of visual effects, or dozens of people who are 100 years or more ahead of their time in camera theory. Then made them all forget it.

OR

They got people who were EXACTLY at their time in the fields of science and engineering. And then, when they left NASA all worked in the private sector to bring that technolgy into the very computer you bang on today.


Oh, it's probably just alien technology. Alien camera techniques and set-builders helped them fake all that footage. Roswell, yeah. They found the cameras in the alien wreckage there.


Ah, what's the use? You probably believe you are a brain in a jar. After all, the only thing you can prove is your own mind works.


Are you saying it's impossible that one is just a brain in a jar?

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Suggesto said:
Science is different from belching. This is demonstrated by the fact that science works all over the planet, whereas belching is frowned upon in certain societies and accepted in others.


You're comparing apples to fruit. The prohibition on public belching is a social rule. "Science" is a society which has social rules.

When you say that "science works all over the planet", I have no idea what you could mean. Scientists all over the planet are all effective? Scientific experiments everywhere validate what they claim to validate? My watch works wherever I go on Earth?


You are giving too much credence to individual personal experience as opposed to collective organized experience. Ponder what the world would be like if people could only express confidence in things they had personally experienced. For example, you could not be confident in expressing the very philosophy you are currently expressing.

I smell the belch of Postmodernism here.

~~ Paul

Collective organized experience is a set of social truths, which often includes religious adherence. I don't think that your term means what you think it should mean.

And, I've experienced my "philosophy", so I'm within bounds.

If I fart while I'm asleep, do I smell the fart? :)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

When you say that "science works all over the planet", I have no idea what you could mean. Scientists all over the planet are all effective? Scientific experiments everywhere validate what they claim to validate? My watch works wherever I go on Earth?
I mean science works in China, even if the social rule involving belching is different there. As I said, science is different from belching.

Collective organized experience is a set of social truths, which often includes religious adherence. I don't think that your term means what you think it should mean.
Are you suggesting that it is only an agreed-upon truth that you'll smash flat on the ground if you jump off a tall building?

And, I've experienced my "philosophy", so I'm within bounds.
But have you ever had the experience of speaking with authority about something beyond the range of your personal experience?

If I fart while I'm asleep, do I smell the fart?
I think so, although you may not be aware of it.

~~ Paul

[Silicon]

Originally posted by Suggestologist

Are you saying it's impossible that one is just a brain in a jar? [/B]

No.

I merely suggested that because it seemed like the theory that would be most appealing to you, because it combines:

1. an ego-centric view that any knowledge in the world is only worthy if is percieved by the mind of Suggestologist itself.

2. a cool, x-files like conspiracy theory. The biggest one possible!

3. the absolutely most complex, convoluted and least simple explanation for the world that Suggestologist percieves. Occam's razor in reverse? Or the MOST Razor possible, Nobody and nothing but Suggestologist exist! BE GONE phantoms of Suggestologist's mind!

Well, Suggestologist, you figured it out. Hello, I'd like to introduce myself. I am the Designer. I created the Matrix.

We have all been in on this, from the beginning. You are just a brain in a jar. Your memories of your mother? Implants. Yes. Everything's been a fabrication. That spider outside your window when you were a child? Watched her build a web all summer long. Then one day, a hundred little baby spiders climbed out. And they ate her.

We know all about it. It was all designed for you. Implants. Those aren't your memories.

Sorry, now that the experiment has been discovered, we'll have to throw your jar out. It's been fun. See you.

[Silicon]

Yeah, PPG.

The effects in 2001, a lot of them hold up today. Amazing stuff, some of which are still the best of all time.

The problem is, all the stuff that Kubrick and Trumbull weren't able to pull off, and the even harder stuff that was never attempted.

For example, you always see ships silhouetted against stars. Never against the moon itself or planets.

so you see this http://www.nuclearspace.com/images/articles/2001_space_odyssey.jpg

But you never see this:

http://www.weckworth.com/images/capsuleb.jpg

That's because the matting process would print the earth through the dark parts of the image of Kubrick's space-station. Also, you'd see the mounting rod, as that was hard to matte out over the planet. But easy to matte out in the dark starfield.

You never see shots where space-ships go from close up to very very far away in continuous shots. There's only so much soundstage you can build and light!

Parallel shadows that you get from a distant light source. This is really really hard. That's why the outdoor dig site is lit by those practical lights in the scene. They knew they couldn't fake it.

The 500-degree difference between sunlight and shade. Really tough to light for in a soundstage. Stages have walls, and light bounces. So again, they lit the dig with those big practical worklights.


The stuff that they attempted but weren't able to pull off were:

Floating objects. You can see the glass that the fountain pen is mounted to. Hell, you can see the fingerprints on the glass! The floating food trays are laughable, and the wires are plainly visible. Wire removal wouldn't be invented until Back to the Future II.

Moon gravity. This isn't even attempted in the moonbase interior meeting scene. Outdoors they merely walk slowly, rather than bounce and kick up dust. For From The Earth To The Moon, they devised an ingenious scheme to attach huge helium balloons to the actors, so they could jump like Neil Armstrong. Of course for that miniseries, they had computers to do the wire-removal, as well as paint out the giant shadows that those balloons cast on the lunar landscape.

Men walking in the foothills of the moon. This doesn't work, as it's obviously a shallow-perspective front-screen projection. The vanishing points are way off, and it's incredibly hard to light this kind of shot unless your screen image is brighter than the live action.



But still, one of the greatest effects films ever made. Too bad NASA had to top it 10000 times over the very next year.
;)

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I mean science works in China, even if the social rule involving belching is different there. As I said, science is different from belching.


You're right. Science is at a different logical level from belching. Just as a society is at a different logical level from a social rule.

You haven't clarified what you mean by the very vague verb: "to work" -- as you mean it to mean regarding "science". I gave you an ample prompt in the previous reply to clarify this.


Are you suggesting that it is only an agreed-upon truth that you'll smash flat on the ground if you jump off a tall building?


I'm suggesting that the description and subjective meaning of an event is an agreed-upon "truth", the physical reality is the physical reality and no one had to agree on it.

However, I do not accept another person's report of "video-description" observation at the same level of confidence as my own personal "video-description" observations. By video-descriptions, I mean what one would see had an event been recorded on video (audio included) -- what some might call objective facts. Of course it can only be what I think I would see on a video recording -- unless it's actually been recorded on video.


But have you ever had the experience of speaking with authority about something beyond the range of your personal experience?


Yes.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Silicon


No.

I merely suggested that because it seemed like the theory that would be most appealing to you, because it combines:

1. an ego-centric view that any knowledge in the world is only worthy if is percieved by the mind of Suggestologist itself.

2. a cool, x-files like conspiracy theory. The biggest one possible!

3. the absolutely most complex, convoluted and least simple explanation for the world that Suggestologist percieves. Occam's razor in reverse? Or the MOST Razor possible, Nobody and nothing but Suggestologist exist! BE GONE phantoms of Suggestologist's mind!


It's actually too simple for my taste. Now, if I were a liver in a jar in a shark, crystalized within a diamond...


Well, Suggestologist, you figured it out. Hello, I'd like to introduce myself. I am the Designer. I created the Matrix.

We have all been in on this, from the beginning. You are just a brain in a jar. Your memories of your mother? Implants. Yes. Everything's been a fabrication. That spider outside your window when you were a child? Watched her build a web all summer long. Then one day, a hundred little baby spiders climbed out. And they ate her.

We know all about it. It was all designed for you. Implants. Those aren't your memories.

Sorry, now that the experiment has been discovered, we'll have to throw your jar out. It's been fun. See you.

Great, I get to go to the meta-matrix or is it the meta-meta-matrix; whichever. When do I get to visit the Vortex, that's where I'd really like to get to. :)

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

Originally posted by Silicon
Yeah, PPG.

The effects in 2001, a lot of them hold up today. Amazing stuff, some of which are still the best of all time.

.............


But still, one of the greatest effects films ever made. Too bad NASA had to top it 10000 times over the very next year.
;)

hey, cool stuff

never thought of the problems regarding matte and silhouettes, that sure explains a lot about the shots in 2001:aso.

Thanks for sharing

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Suggestologist said:You haven't clarified what you mean by the very vague verb: "to work" -- as you mean it to mean regarding "science". I gave you an ample prompt in the previous reply to clarify this.
The results of science (technology) work everywhere. Science can be conducted everywhere. The process of science works everywhere.

I'm suggesting that the description and subjective meaning of an event is an agreed-upon "truth", the physical reality is the physical reality and no one had to agree on it.
So, for example, the interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is an agreed-upon "truth"? Sort of, although no one calls it truth (there is no truth in science) and everyone knows there are competing interpretations.

However, I do not accept another person's report of "video-description" observation at the same level of confidence as my own personal "video-description" observations. By video-descriptions, I mean what one would see had an event been recorded on video (audio included) -- what some might call objective facts. Of course it can only be what I think I would see on a video recording -- unless it's actually been recorded on video.
So your confidence in the existence of Antarctica really is lower than your confidence in the existence of your house? (I assume you've not been there.)

I said:But have you ever had the experience of speaking with authority about something beyond the range of your personal experience?
and you answered:Yes.
And why do you think that you should not have done that?

I bet you've never seen your heart. Do you have one?

~~ Paul

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Silicon

For From The Earth To The Moon, they devised an ingenious scheme to attach huge helium balloons to the actors, so they could jump like Neil Armstrong.
I want one of those. How huge are we talking here?

I also am finding your technical review quite interesting, and most convincing. My confidence in the genuineness of the moon landings now approaches 100% by at least three or four more decimal places.

[Silicon]

Here's the transcript of an online chat with the actors, the author and Astronaut James Lovell about the making of the series PD is the interviewer, TD is Tim Daly, actor; BC is Brett Cullen, actor; AC is Andrew Chaikin, author of the book:


http://www.ari.net/nss/apollo/html/actors/transcript404.html


Nasaniki asks: How did you simulate anti-gravity in filming the
series?

TD: A combination of high-tech teeter-totters and strong thigh
muscles.

BC: The way we did it....we had a teeter-totter when we were in
the lunar module to simulate weightlessness. We also did a
couple shots where we were hung from wires and they took the
wires out digitally. Working with Tom Hanks makes you
weightless anyway.

TD: Stop being such a suck-up, Brett!

AC: I watched them filming the moonwalk sequences in an
enormous hanger in California. The stuntmen and actors were
suspended from 50-ft long helium balloons to simulate the moon's
1/6 gravity. I tried it and it was pretty exhausting. After a half hour
I was wiped out. The balloon had a mind of its own.

PD: Great idea for a theme park - helium balloons!

BC: The interesting thing about what Andy is saying, Dave Scott
said he wished they had been trained this way to be on the moon.

TD: The theme park idea would never work because everyone
would breathe in the helium to make that stupid voice!

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Suggestologist said:
The results of science (technology) work everywhere. Science can be conducted everywhere. The process of science works everywhere.


Well, science is not a single process. Some processes that call themselves science seem to produce things that help us manipulate physical reality, and social reality for that matter. Some processes that call themselves science don't.


So, for example, the interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is an agreed-upon "truth"? Sort of, although no one calls it truth (there is no truth in science) and everyone knows there are competing interpretations.


Yes, the interpretation is agreed-upon. When they can actually produce a product (like a quantum computer or something) that uses that technology, then the use, the utility -- is a physical fact, or produces physical facts. The theory isn't the "truth", it's a model. The utility of the model is determined by how well it allows us to manipulate realities. Like Randi in his Million Dollar Challenge, the theories don't interest me, I just want to see the evidence. If the evidence looks good, I can then consider the theory in good conscience.


So your confidence in the existence of Antarctica really is lower than your confidence in the existence of your house? (I assume you've not been there.)


Yes.


And why do you think that you should not have done that?


I never said that I should not have done that. I'm just suggesting that it's not science.


I bet you've never seen your heart. Do you have one?

~~ Paul

I've felt something beating when I exercise. That's personal experience.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Suggesto said:Yes, the interpretation is agreed-upon. When they can actually produce a product (like a quantum computer or something) that uses that technology, then the use, the utility -- is a physical fact, or produces physical facts. The theory isn't the "truth", it's a model. The utility of the model is determined by how well it allows us to manipulate realities. Like Randi in his Million Dollar Challenge, the theories don't interest me, I just want to see the evidence. If the evidence looks good, I can then consider the theory in good conscience.
I've completely lost track of what we're talking about. If the theory allows us to produce technology, then the theory must be more than some willy-nilly agreed-upon story. An arbitrary story wouldn't produce results.

I never said that I should not have done that. I'm just suggesting that it's not science.
Sure it is. If scientists couldn't rely on each other's results without "experiencing them" firsthand, we'd never get anywhere.

I've felt something beating when I exercise. That's personal experience.
But it's not a heart. Is just a pulsing clock thing. You don't have a heart, or at least you shouldn't trust that you do.

~~ Paul

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Suggesto said:
I've completely lost track of what we're talking about. If the theory allows us to produce technology, then the theory must be more than some willy-nilly agreed-upon story. An arbitrary story wouldn't produce results.


I agree. But in order to know that it's not just a radically constructed (the technical equivalent of "willy-nilly made up") story, I have to have a way to verify some aspect of the story.


Sure it is. If scientists couldn't rely on each other's results without "experiencing them" firsthand, we'd never get anywhere.


That may be true. Scientists rely on each other's communications of experience, and that makes things easier for them. But this is a social structure, nothing more. The communication of experience is not the same as the carrying out of "scientific method". Otherwise we'd have to have controls for the disemmination process, and such.


But it's not a heart. Is just a pulsing clock thing. You don't have a heart, or at least you shouldn't trust that you do.

~~ Paul

I have the personal experiences that lead me to conclude that what I experience beating is what other people in society call a "heart" -- I have no personal word for the thing, but society does. I conclude this by evaluating the characteristics I experience with the characteristics the society has deemed to use the token, "heart", to represent -- so I use the social token when engaged in social communication. Would I have an increase in my belief that I had a heart (as presented in medical operation video), if I actually saw it? Yes. And so would you, if you saw yours.

[Silicon]

I think it's suggestologist's "degrees of belief" dogma that freaks me out.

What's wrong, suggestologist? Are you that afraid of coming to any conclusion, that you have to qualify your own belief in strange concepts as the existence of antarctica and your heart by percentages?

I have come to a conclusion on the existance of Antarctica. It exists. I require no more proof to believe in its existance.

Extrodinary proof would be required for me to reopen evaluation. I do not expect to see such proof in my lifetime.

Suggestologist, however seems to never come to a conclusion. What a foggy world of percentages of trust. Tell me, which is more real to you, the Mariana trench, or the existance of Radon gas?

(Here's a hint, they're BOTH real. Stop being so egocentric!)

Doesn't that seem silly to you?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Suggesto said:That may be true. Scientists rely on each other's communications of experience, and that makes things easier for them. But this is a social structure, nothing more. The communication of experience is not the same as the carrying out of "scientific method". Otherwise we'd have to have controls for the disemmination process, and such.
If it were nothing more than a social structure, then it would become clear that the information being communicated was arbitrary gossip. We do have controls for the disemination process: journals, peer review, conferences, replication of received information, critical analysis of published papers, and so forth.

Did you get beat up by a roving gang of scientists or something?

~~ Paul

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Silicon
I think it's suggestologist's "degrees of belief" dogma that freaks me out.

What's wrong, suggestologist? Are you that afraid of coming to any conclusion, that you have to qualify your own belief in strange concepts as the existence of antarctica and your heart by percentages?

I have come to a conclusion on the existance of Antarctica. It exists. I require no more proof to believe in its existance.

Extrodinary proof would be required for me to reopen evaluation. I do not expect to see such proof in my lifetime.


Right. And what you call "extraordinary" is a subjective evaluation. Based on personal experience.


Suggestologist, however seems to never come to a conclusion. What a foggy world of percentages of trust. Tell me, which is more real to you, the Mariana trench, or the existance of Radon gas?

(Here's a hint, they're BOTH real. Stop being so egocentric!)

Doesn't that seem silly to you?

It seems perfectly rational to not believe something I haven't experienced more than (or equal to) something I have experienced. Both Radon and the Marinara trench are have the same level of confidence of existence in my thinking. Both are less believed-in than the existence of my house and car.

I have no choice but to be "ego-centric", unless you'd like to lend me your ego?

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Suggesto said:
If it were nothing more than a social structure, then it would become clear that the information being communicated was arbitrary gossip. We do have controls for the disemination process: journals, peer review, conferences, replication of received information, critical analysis of published papers, and so forth.

Did you get beat up by a roving gang of scientists or something?

~~ Paul

Social structures, both scientific and non-scientific have the same problems. What was held to be a central cause of the Space Shuttle disintegration? "A culture of invincibility" at NASA. Why did the USA famously lose a certain space probe? Because the social structure of scientists failed to recognize that one was using the metric system and the other was not. Miscommunication.

Arbitrary gossip it is not, but science it is not, either -- to accept what others tell you as gospel.

Replication of received information, as I have stated before, does not mean that the methodology shows what it was intended to show. Only a personal experience based understanding of the subject could point out new types of methodological flaws, specific to the subject of the experiment.

None of the controls you name would be acceptable as a form of control within an experiment -- that those disseminated papers attempt to communicate. Except for replication; and that replication can only be done by personal experience by the reader/replicator.

Scientists kidnapped my dog and vivisected it. :(
:)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

So to summarize, Suggestologist, you're saying that science is performed by human beings and mistakes are inevitable. I agree.

Only a personal experience based understanding of the subject could point out new types of methodological flaws, specific to the subject of the experiment.
You appear to be saying that we can't do science except by having scientists actually do the science. I agree here, too.

So I have no idea what's bugging you. If you don't want to accept anything anyone says except what you can experience yourself, be my guest. Sounds tedious and gruesomely error-prone.

~~ Paul

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
So to summarize, Suggestologist, you're saying that science is performed by human beings and mistakes are inevitable. I agree.


You appear to be saying that we can't do science except by having scientists actually do the science. I agree here, too.

So I have no idea what's bugging you. If you don't want to accept anything anyone says except what you can experience yourself, be my guest. Sounds tedious and gruesomely error-prone.

~~ Paul

I haven't said that I don't accept it. I've written that I trust and believe more what I see with my own eyes than what I read in a scientific study. And that I probably trust the scientific studies less than most "skeptics" here seem (to me) to have indicated. That's all.

Some people seem to have deep-seated disagreement with this view. They seem to have read Karl Popper and his rejection of the primacy of personal experience.

A corrolary of my view is: If you really want to know whether something is real, whether something works, whether something makes any sense, go out and do it (as long as it's not dangerous) -- don't just sit around reading papers about it. Your belief in it really should (warning: prescriptive) go up when you do.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Suggesto said:A corrolary of my view is: If you really want to know whether something is real, whether something works, whether something makes any sense, go out and do it (as long as it's not dangerous) -- don't just sit around reading papers about it. Your belief in it really should (warning: prescriptive) go up when you do.
This is fine if you want to replicate something. I'd just be wary of my own senses when noticing something odd or investigating something new.

Really, when your ex-wife thinks she was the Second Coming of Christ for two months, all this "primacy of my own experiences" stuff goes right down the toilet.

~~ Paul

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Suggesto said:
This is fine if you want to replicate something. I'd just be wary of my own senses when noticing something odd or investigating something new.

Really, when your ex-wife thinks she was the Second Coming of Christ for two months, all this "primacy of my own experiences" stuff goes right down the toilet.

~~ Paul

If that's true, then how did you know whether you were just hallucinating that your wife was hallucinating, rather than seeing the reality that she was hallucinating?

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Suggestologist

A corrolary of my view is: If you really want to know whether something is real, whether something works, whether something makes any sense, go out and do it
I think that's a terrific approach -- if your area of interest happens to be skateboarding.
don't just sit around reading papers about it.
Yes, reading can be tedious, can't it? But you seem willing to make an exception with regard to reading what has been posted on an internet forum, consistently applying your policy of rejecting everything others have to say. What I don't get is why you bother.
Your belief in it really should go up when you do.
Is that the goal?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Dymanic

I think that's a terrific approach -- if your area of interest happens to be skateboarding.

Yes, reading can be tedious, can't it? But you seem willing to make an exception with regard to reading what has been posted on an internet forum, consistently applying your policy of rejecting everything others have to say. What I don't get is why you bother.

Is that the goal?

Err . . Dymanic . .what's with the antagonism towards suggestologist?? :confused: I would have thought if you were going to be hostile towards anyone it would be me ( being a "believer" and a non-materialist and being rude to boot).

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Err . . Dymanic . .what's with the antagonism towards suggestologist?? :confused: I would have thought if you were going to be hostile towards anyone it would be me ( being a "believer" and a non-materialist and being rude to boot).

Hey, the only reason I get on these kinds of forums is to get people mad. Stop trying to cut in on my action here. :)

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Dymanic

I think that's a terrific approach -- if your area of interest happens to be skateboarding.

Yes, reading can be tedious, can't it? But you seem willing to make an exception with regard to reading what has been posted on an internet forum, consistently applying your policy of rejecting everything others have to say. What I don't get is why you bother.

Is that the goal?

It's the approach for anything that can be tested without expensive equipment, without more than the usual amount of physical danger.

I really should have written that if you do it, your belief will either go up or down; but it will be more concrete; and you'll actually have a better understanding of what you're talking about here.

Reading is not doing, not getting in-touch with reality; reading is all in your head, the production of a hallucination.

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian

I would have thought if you were going to be hostile towards anyone it would be me
I tried a couple of times, but you wouldn't take the bait!

Seriously, though, here's the deal.

I think you're a kook, and you bug me. But you're a kook who does his homework, and I respect that. You make me work. I hate to admit it, but reading your posts often involves googling and reaching for the dictionary. You're right, we don't agree on a lot of things, and your in-your-face style seems...excessive at times. But you are interesting, and I think some of your ideas have more merit than you get credit for around here. On one or two rare occasions, I have even seen you concede a point.

Suggestologist bugs me in a different way, because he seems to derive enjoyment out of just being stubborn, and continues to whip a dead horse just because he has so much invested in it. This is something I have to constantly be on guard against myself, and if it bothers me a lot when I see somebody else doing it, it's probably just that it reminds me too much of me.

I often learn the most from those I disagree with, but sometimes if you want to hear a guy's best stuff, you gotta get him riled up a little. (But then, who am I to tell you that?)

[evildave]

Evidence, I tell you! Evidence! (http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/story.htm)

Of what, I'm not sure.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Dymanic

Suggestologist bugs me in a different way, because he seems to derive enjoyment out of just being stubborn, and continues to whip a dead horse just because he has so much invested in it.


From my perspective, this implies that you neither understand my intent nor my method. And you shouldn't be expected to.


This is something I have to constantly be on guard against myself, and if it bothers me a lot when I see somebody else doing it, it's probably just that it reminds me too much of me.


So, by attacking me; you keep that part of yourself in check. I become a part of you. In your hallucination.


I often learn the most from those I disagree with, but sometimes if you want to hear a guy's best stuff, you gotta get him riled up a little. (But then, who am I to tell you that?)

You can't rile me up. So, you'll never hear any of my best stuff, according to you.

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Suggestologist

From my perspective, this implies that you neither understand my intent nor my method. And you shouldn't be expected to.
Fair enough.
So, by attacking me; you keep that part of yourself in check.
Right. I didn't say it was rational. Or virtuous. It's just an observation I've made about the way my head works. I think this has been referred to as 'projection'.
You can't rile me up.
I've noticed that, and that's another thing I respect. If you've been advocating your 'primacy of personal experience/international conspiracy of scientists' position for very long, you've probably developed a fairly thick skin already; if it's new, you're going to need to get one. Either way, I'd like to make it clear that it is your position on this that I question; the fact that you spend so much time thinking about these things automatically makes you something of a kindred spirit -- if we met in person, I'm sure we'd get along fine (as would Stimpy and Ian, I bet).

If I haven't heard your best stuff already, please feel free to lay it on me (I know you will). If I see anything I take exception to (which is likely), I'll try to do so in a more respectful manner.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Dymanic

Fair enough.

Right. I didn't say it was rational. Or virtuous. It's just an observation I've made about the way my head works. I think this has been referred to as 'projection'.


To project is to see the world through the filter of yourself. It's a post-structuralist sort of idea, really.


I've noticed that, and that's another thing I respect. If you've been advocating your 'primacy of personal experience/international conspiracy of scientists' position for very long, you've probably developed a fairly thick skin already; if it's new, you're going to need to get one. Either way, I'd like to make it clear that it is your position on this that I question; the fact that you spend so much time thinking about these things automatically makes you something of a kindred spirit -- if we met in person, I'm sure we'd get along fine (as would Stimpy and Ian, I bet).


I developed a thick skin long ago, debating christians on BBS systems. And, I'm too much of a "psychobabbler" to allow myself to fall for other people's mind tricks.


If I haven't heard your best stuff already, please feel free to lay it on me (I know you will). If I see anything I take exception to (which is likely), I'll try to do so in a more respectful manner.

Well, I do require instigation in order to produce it; but not the kind you thought would work. I prefer to instigate others to instigate me in the way I want to be instigated. And that depends on my mood. :)