How about a respectful religious vs non-religious discussion?

[TrickyDickie]

Anecdotal evidence can be the start of scientific investigation, but not the end of it. If you've investigated the matter thoroughly and can't replicate the results, it's time to either search for more evidence or move on to another project. The beauty of it is, you can always come back to it some other time if new evidence does present itself.

If a whole bunch of scattered people encounter the same type of thing only once, and it can't be replicated on demand, what does that represent?

Your average decent person doesn't go around thinking that something only happens to them....so, when they read reports of it happening to others there is the reasonable thought that because it happened to them, not all of those others are likely to be lying or mistaken even if some are.

If it was only an individual thing, it would be easier. You don't know what it was and there's nothing you can do about it, so you just file it away and move on. It's those reports from other people that make it a bit of a nagger.

I'm just waiting to see if science turns up anything new over time.

In the meantime, it's just an interesting topic of conversation. I do very much remain an interested skeptic about such things.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Okay, sure, that would be a reasonable explanation for a lot of cases....but not necessarily every single case.

If a candlestick holder slides across a table forcefully, and stops suddenly, without falling off the edge....and there is no one near it when it happens....how do we explain that? Especially after examining everything carefully with the scientific method....floor, table, candlestick holder, etc.

I would reserve my judgement until I have James RandI or Penn Jilette beside me telling me their opinion of whether it is a trick or not.

 

[TrickyDickie]

You do know about probability, right?! Like, the odds of something like this happening are insert-a-numberillion against one? So, it could happen, only the chances are low, therefore it will only happen once or twice (or never, that's a possibility, too) over a long period of trials, and the butterfly effect dictates that minute details can be responsible for different results. That's why science demands you replicate the results. Otherwise, it's just a fluke.

Btw, I apologize to any actual scientists if I oversimplified here, or only touched upon factors, or used wrong terminology.

A fluke, or chance occurrence, still has a reason behind it even if we don't know and can't determine what it is.

If there are a significant number of flukes reported, against large odds, then perhaps they are not flukes but indicative of something actual the nature of which has not been able to be determined yet.

I don't feel that represents flawed logic. Something like that should remain in the category of unknown rather than be automatically dumped into the category of false.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

If a whole bunch of scattered people encounter the same type of thing only once, and it can't be replicated on demand, what does that represent?

Bullshit.

 

[Saga]

do i still have to use a ouija board?

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I was not raised in a religious household, not forced to go to church, Sunday school, etc, nor have I had any experiences in my life that I would contribute/thank a deity for, and at school I did get taught the basics of various religions so I am not an expert in the field. My own personal thoughts and "beliefs" in the matter are just that, they are rather well summed up by BillJ earlier in this thread:

Religion is fine to me, until it is used as a weapon to deprive people of rights, in some instances their lives.

People gain strength and fortitude from their religions, which is what they need and is what religion should be about, but as soon as it's twisted and distorted to "prove" their narrow-minded interpretations, then they become no better than cults. Part of my thoughts on the matter are derived from my orientation, which some religious extremists would tell me is a "sin" and that I'll be damned for an eternity of torment simply for being who I am--not exactly something I can change.

You have your beliefs? Great, I applaud you for them, just don't try and force them down my throat, or tell me I'm ignorant for being an atheist.

 

[TrickyDickie]

Bullshit.

Seems like a bit of a pat answer there.

Let me approach this from a different angle:

What are the laws of science? They are statements that are designed to show absolute truths in the field unless/until something comes along that demonstrates that they need to be changed, correct? By giving parameters, they also state or imply what would qualify as impossible.

Okay....by that reasoning, if they are absolute truths, then even one 'fluke' should be impossible. If it happens even one single time, then they are not absolute truths and they are not laws. They are then reduced to the status of what you could call 'practical applications' because they work most of the time. Even 99.999 percent of the time is not an absolute.

It seems like on one side there is absolute religion and on the other side is absolute science (as it exists at any given moment) and there is very little consideration given to anything outside those two opposing viewpoints.

 

[Silvercrest]

I would reserve my judgement until I have James RandI or Penn Jilette beside me telling me their opinion of whether it is a trick or not.

Bullshit.

That's close!

 

[Locutus of Bored]

@TrickyDickie

Pass. I've been down the rabbit hole of those kinds of ridiculous circular arguments before and there's no point engaging. It becomes apparent that it's all about continuing the argument indefinitely rather than actually trying to learn anything.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Seems like a bit of a pat answer there.

Let me approach this from a different angle:

What are the laws of science? They are statements that are designed to show absolute truths in the field unless/until something comes along that demonstrates that they need to be changed, correct? By giving parameters, they also state or imply what would qualify as impossible.

Okay....by that reasoning, if they are absolute truths, then even one 'fluke' should be impossible. If it happens even one single time, then they are not absolute truths and they are not laws. They are then reduced to the status of what you could call 'practical applications' because they work most of the time. Even 99.999 percent of the time is not an absolute.

It seems like on one side there is absolute religion and on the other side is absolute science (as it exists at any given moment) and there is very little consideration given to anything outside those two opposing viewpoints.

No.

 

[TrickyDickie]

@TrickyDickie

Pass. I've been down the rabbit hole of those kinds of ridiculous circular arguments before and there's no point engaging. It becomes apparent that it's all about continuing the argument indefinitely rather than actually trying to learn anything.

I have never been about arguing just for the sake of arguing.

When I was in school, part of the teaching was that if something was unknown/undetermined/anomalous it was shelved and not just thrown into the circular file.

I just got done with a book about the civilizations that visited what is now the United States long before Columbus. And actually left behind a lot of evidence of being here that many members of 'mainstream science' still try to ridicule and shout down. It's just unmitigated arrogance.

Mainstream science: the great pissing contest.

That's certainly the attitude that comes across. Who pisses a bigger stream.

 

[TrickyDickie]

No.

Would you be willing to elaborate on that?

 

[Timewalker]

I just got done with a book about the civilizations that visited what is now the United States long before Columbus. And actually left behind a lot of evidence of being here that many members of 'mainstream science' still try to ridicule and shout down. It's just unmitigated arrogance.

No, it's requiring evidence that is, as Carl Sagan would put it, extraordinary (if the claim is extraordinary).

It's fascinating to me how many people don't know that there were Europeans who set foot in North America before Columbus. It's certainly always been news to the Mormon missionaries who turn up on my doorstep (if they're from the U.S.). We know the Norse were here in Canada, approximately 500 years before Columbus; we've got the archaeological evidence to prove it.

Exactly which civilizations are you referring to? If you're going to say that the Egyptians must have been here because nobody else in the history of the planet ever figured out how to make a pyramid, please don't.

And especially let's please not get into ancient astronauts and Chariots of the Gods nonsense.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I think that someone in this thread could greatly benefit by reading Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I have never been about arguing just for the sake of arguing.

When I was in school, part of the teaching was that if something was unknown/undetermined/anomalous it was shelved and not just thrown into the circular file.

I just got done with a book about the civilizations that visited what is now the United States long before Columbus. And actually left behind a lot of evidence of being here that many members of 'mainstream science' still try to ridicule and shout down. It's just unmitigated arrogance.

Mainstream science: the great pissing contest.

That's certainly the attitude that comes across. Who pisses a bigger stream.

As far as know 'science' quite willingly accepts that Leif Erikkson and friends made it the Americas around 1000 AD though whether they travels further south than what is now Canada is harder to prove.

 

[TrickyDickie]

 

[Miss Chicken]

What are the author's academic qualifations? I have looked him up and all it says is that he has 'studied archeology'.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Because those Indians in the Americas couldn't have made any of that stuff.

What are the author's academic qualifations? I have looked him up and all it says is that he has 'studied archeology'.

That too, and which peer reviewed journals are these ideas in?

 

[TrickyDickie]

It was a library book and I don't have it to look up his schooling.

 

[TrickyDickie]

Because those Indians in the Americas couldn't have made any of that stuff.

That's a rather snide thing to say without even having read the book.