Pseudoscience can qualify as "paranormal"?

[NoDeity]

Do I correctly assume that a claim that directly contradicts well-established science would probably qualify as "paranormal" for purposes of the challenge, even if the claimant does not think that their claim is a paranormal one?

I have been in contact with someone who claims that the eyes are not sensory organs and that image data is not transmitted by light -- that images do not come to us "on wings of light" but rather that we see by "looking out" (she is unable to provide a coherent explanation of what that means). She claims that if the sun were to explode, we would see the event immediately, not about 8 minutes later.

These claims are part of a larger body of philosophical claims about how to stop all hate and violence in the world and it is quite a read, indeed! ;)

I suggested to her that, if she is correct, she could take the challenge and collect the JREF million. She thinks not, because she doesn't think that her claims qualify as paranormal claims. So, am I correct in telling her that, for the purposes of the challenge, her claims about light and sight would indeed qualify?

[arcticpenguin]

Randi does allow some "pseudoscience" claims to qualify. For example a few weeks ago in his weekly column he offered to allow some bogus fake electronic dowsing rig. It has to be more than just "directly contradicts well-established science" though, it should have no plausible mechanism.

A likely problem with the person you are in contact with is that if she cannot articulate what it is she is claiming, it would be difficult to set up tests for it. If she could articulate a claim that was in direct conflict with the known laws of physics and all the evidence for it, it is possible that it would qualify.

Does this person have a web site detailing any of her material? Some of us might find it entertaining.


BTW, I am not an official JREF spokesperson, the above is just my opinion, etc.

[NoDeity]

She doesn't have her own web site. We are encouraging her to set one up. She's been posting her stuff in various newsgroups and forums, including our Graveyard of the Gods forum, and she keeps complaining about not being allowed to post page after page after page of impenetrable prose -- so I keep suggesting to her that if she had her own site...

The claims about light and sight are part of a book she's promoting, called Decline and Fall of All Evil: The Most Important Discovery of Our Times by by Seymour Lessans: http://www.trafford.com/4dcgi/robots/02-1045.html There's an excerpt there.

It seems like typical crank stuff. The reason the ideas have been rejected by academia is not that they are unfounded but that the author doesn't have the correct formal credentials, dontcha know. :rolleyes:

The introductory blurb claims that the book "contains a scientific discovery based on a natural psychological law which was hidden so carefully behind layers of dogma in the guise of truth that it wasn't found until now". I'm sure we've all heard claims like that before. Still, since it is supposedly "scientific", it should be testable. (I've asked her not to pester me about her notions any more until she is able to suggest a means of testing them and I think that probably means "never".)

[Nucular]

Phew, an easy answer to all of thr world's problems! I thought for a moment we'd all have to actually do something...

Sounds gloriously barmy, if it wasn't £17.99 I'd buy it.

Does the book go into those weird perceptual claims about vision and light, or are they your contact's ideas? Is she connected to the book in any way, or did she just read it and believe?

[NoDeity]

Yes, the light and sight stuff is in the book. I don't actually have the book but she's been going from site to site, posting as many chapters of it in the forums as the mods and readers allow.

Here's an excerpt from chapter four: Sight takes place for the first time when a sufficient accumulation of sense experience such as hearing, taste, touch, and smell – these are doorways in – awakens the brain so that the child can look through them at what exists around him. He then desires to see the source of the experience by focusing his eyes, as binoculars.

The eyes are the windows of the brain through which experience is gained not by what comes in on the waves of light as a result of striking the optic nerve, but by what is looked at in relation to the afferent experience of the senses. What is seen through the eyes is an efferent experience. If a lion roared in that room a new born baby would hear the sound and react because this impinges on the eardrum and is then transmitted to the brain.

The same holds true for anything that makes direct contact with an afferent nerve ending, but this is far from the case with the eyes because there is no similar afferent nerve ending in this organ. The brain records various sounds, tastes, touches and smells in relation to the objects from which these experiences are derived, and then looks through the eyes to see these things that have become familiar as a result of the relation. This desire is an electric current which turns on or focuses the eyes to see that which exists – completely independent of man’s perception – in the external world.

He doesn’t see these objects because they strike the optic nerve; he sees them because they are there to be seen. But in order to look, there must be a desire to see. The child becomes aware that something will soon follow something else which then arouses attention, anticipation, and a desire to see the objects of the relation. Consequently, to include the eyes as one of the senses when this describes stimuli from the outside world making contact with a nerve ending is completely erroneous and equivalent to calling a potato, a fruit. Under no conditions can the eyes be called a sense organ unless, as in Aristotle’s case, it was the result of an inaccurate observation that was never corrected.

I'm pretty sure that she'd post the entire book in a forum if the audience was receptive. I think it's sincere and not just an attempt to scam some money.

She describes herself as the compiler and editor of the book. She feels that it is her responsibility to get this "important knowledge" out to the world. She knew the author but she won't elaborate on the nature of the relationship. She has described it as her "mission". When asked who gave her the mission, she said: "No one assigned this mission to me; but I feel compelled to bring this knowledge to light as I was given the rights to this work. I have no choice but to do what I am doing."

Kind of sad, really. But, the members of our board have spent more than a hundred pages worth of time trying to talk sense to her and she remains steadfast. There's nothing we can do (medication might help?) so, giving up, there is nothing to do but laugh.

Hey, if you guys want to invite her over here... [that's your cue to shudder]

[Beleth]

Sight takes place for the first time when a sufficient accumulation of sense experience such as hearing, taste, touch, and smell – these are doorways in – awakens the brain so that the child can look through them at what exists around him.
Okayyyyyy...

I'd welcome a chance to talk to this woman.

I think my first question to her would be "How does this theory explain things that can only be experienced visually, like a rainbow or the distant stars?"

[NoDeity]

Originally posted by Beleth


I'd welcome a chance to talk to this woman.
A google search for "janispaula", her user name, will find a great many links to her posts about this topic on various boards, including the board I call "home", Graveyard of the Gods. You could go to one of those boards and discuss it with her there or, if you don't think you'd be crucified for bringing her here, you could invite her. ;)

Our members have explained to her retinas and cones and rods. We've spoken to her of photographic film and pinhole cameras. We've spent more than a hundred pages at it. Our progress? Zilch. She maintains that eyes are not sensory organs and that, although light is required for us to see, that which we see does not come to us via light. So, attempts to explain and discuss this with her are, I believe, doomed except that there might be some educational benefit to the one doing the explaning.

[RPG Advocate]

Is this the same janispaula that thinks we can eradicate all evil through some unspecified "mathematically proven theory"? Someone with that username has popped up in an argument about determinism on another forum.

[NoDeity]

Yeah, that's the one. Just try to get her to give a coherent explanation of how this "mathematically proven theory" can be verified -- but only ask her that if you have immense patience and plenty of tolerance for nonsense.

[Beleth]

Originally posted by NoDeity

A google search for "janispaula", her user name, will find a great many links to her posts about this topic on various boards, including the board I call "home", Graveyard of the Gods. You could go to one of those boards and discuss it with her there or, if you don't think you'd be crucified for bringing her here, you could invite her. ;)
I went to GotG and got to page 30 of the 51-page locked thread. You're right, there's no talking sense into her, and there's no use bringing her here.

Thanks for the warning.

At least I learned two new words! "Affluent" and "effluent", or whatever. Hmm, maybe I haven't learned two new words.

[NoDeity]

Well, perhaps it is because she is affluent that she can afford to spend all her time pumping out all that effluent but the words are "afferent" and "efferent" and they were new to me, too. :D You never know what you can learn from a crank, eh?

Today, something dawned on me about her sad story of the book's author being neglected just because he didn't have academic qualifications. She tells us that his "theory" came to him in 1959 and that he died in 1991 (in obscurity, of course). So, he had more than thirty years to go to school and aquire a degree but he didn't bother to do it. He apparently believed that his ideas would solve most of the problems of humanity and he knew what he had to do in order to be listened to (get an education) but he didn't bother! He is the architect of his own obscurity.

[RPG Advocate]

Originally posted by NoDeity
Well, perhaps it is because she is affluent that she can afford to spend all her time pumping out all that effluent but the words are "afferent" and "efferent" and they were new to me, too. :D You never know what you can learn from a crank, eh?

Today, something dawned on me about her sad story of the book's author being neglected just because he didn't have academic qualifications. She tells us that his "theory" came to him in 1959 and that he died in 1991 (in obscurity, of course). So, he had more than thirty years to go to school and aquire a degree but he didn't bother to do it. He apparently believed that his ideas would solve most of the problems of humanity and he knew what he had to do in order to be listened to (get an education) but he didn't bother! He is the architect of his own obscurity.

Even more interesting, since part of the claim is that his particular brand of determinism exists because humanity is beholden to his desires (basically behaviorism in philosophical language)¹ :rolleyes:

I guess he came out with this great theory that could eradicate all evil, but he didn't desire to share it with everyone else. Since his theory (articulated through janispaula) preserves moral responsibility in spite of his claims of determinism, I guess that makes him immoral.

I'm starting to run out of irony meters. :)

______________

¹ Don't bother pressing janispaula on this point. No matter how hard you press her, she won't admit that the theory is just determinism in different terms.

[glee]

Originally posted by NoDeity
The claims about light and sight are part of a book she's promoting, called Decline and Fall of All Evil: The Most Important Discovery of Our Times by by Seymour Lessans: http://www.trafford.com/4dcgi/robots/02-1045.html There's an excerpt there.

It seems like typical crank stuff. The reason the ideas have been rejected by academia is not that they are unfounded but that the author doesn't have the correct formal credentials, dontcha know. :rolleyes:


From the link above:

"In view of the fact that the first two chapters must be studied thoroughly before any other reading is done, a table of contents has been omitted to preclude as much as possible someone opening the book at random or reading in a desultory manner."

This implies we are all fools who will not read the book sensibly.
Are there no readers who would like an index to refer back to?

"Soon enough the world will know, without reservation, that mankind is on the threshold of a GOLDEN AGE prophesied in the Bible that must come to pass, out of absolute necessity,"

Ah, goody. A Bible prophecy.
Sadly I can't think of any discovery that was predicted in the Bible, so am not impressed by this claim.

"Would you like to learn, though this book has nothing whatever to do with religion or philosophy, that your faith in God will finally be rewarded with a virtual miracle..."

So us atheists have nothing to learn?
And this has nothing to do with religion? :rolleyes:

"However, in spite of the fact that my discovery is completely scientific, it is a very difficult task to break through the beliefs, opinions and theories that have gotten a dogmatic hold on the mind."

Yes, discoveries like flight, penicillin and mobile phones will never catch on.

Obviously a metal object will never be able to defeat gravity.
What are this invisible things that cause disease? - we can't see them!
How can messages travel through air?

"Who, in his right mind or with a knowledge of history would believe it possible that the 20th century [note: this discovery was made in 1959, therefore the 20th century is referring to the time period this finding was actually made, although, as yet, it has not been brought to light] will be the time when all war, crime, and every form of evil or hurt in human relations must come to a permanent end?"

And here we are in the 21st century, and it has not 'come to pass'. What does this tell us about this man and his predictions?
Does he resemble a Doomsday cult that keep having to revise their 'end of the World' date?

"If you recall, in the 19th century, Gregor Mendel made a discovery in the field of heredity. He was unable to present his findings because there was an established theory already being taught as true."

I though Mendel was 20th century and that his theories were suppressed in the Soviet Union for political reasons. Of course the scientific method showed he was right and now he is established science.

"According to Richard Milton in his book 'Alternative Science, Challenging the Myths of the Scientific Establishment' [some excerpts are paraphrased] we are living in a time of rising academic intolerance in which important new discoveries in physics, medicine, and biology are being ridiculed and rejected for reasons that are not scientific."

What we need is a scientific Foundation that would test any such claim (and preferably offer some monetary reward, like $1,000,000).
Errrr.....

[NoDeity]

Originally posted by glee
What we need is a scientific Foundation that would test any such claim (and preferably offer some monetary reward, like $1,000,000).
Errrr.....
Indeed! I gave her the URL to the appropriate page at randi.org but I don't imagine that she'll bother. I suspect that, at some level, she understands that her claims are either untestable or will not stand up to skeptical scrutiny.

[NoZed Avenger]

Originally posted by glee

Yes, discoveries like flight, penicillin and mobile phones will never catch on.


Fads, I tell ya. Give 'em another 300-400 years, tops.

NA