How about a respectful religious vs non-religious discussion?

[TrickyDickie]

Had to look up the definition of homeopathy....have heard it mentioned in passing before but never personally encountered it.

From what I recall, some people were mixing homeopathic with holistic and using the terms interchangibly when they are two different things.

I do believe in holistic medicine. I don't feel that you can effectively treat one part of the body while ignoring the effect on the body as a whole. I think there is far too much isolationist medicine being practiced today. As one simple example, if you take Robitussin cough syrup and it negatively affects your stomach, that's not exactly what you could call successful treatment.

Can anyone recommend a good book about quantum physics that is the most up-to-date as of right now, as far as general consensus/agreement among the leading researchers, without being overly speculative? I know it's a field that goes through rather rapid flux, but I would just like to read the best there is as of right now.

Thanks.

 

[cultcross]

I do believe in holistic medicine. I don't feel that you can effectively treat one part of the body while ignoring the effect on the body as a whole. I think there is far too much isolationist medicine being practiced today. As one simple example, if you take Robitussin cough syrup and it negatively affects your stomach, that's not exactly what you could call successful treatment.

Many doctors would agree with you. It is a shame that holistic medicine is sometimes grouped in with the voodoo and nonsense of homeopathy and crystals and so on. It is the simple idea that the body is a holistic system which is treated best by 'whole person care'.

Can anyone recommend a good book about quantum physics that is the most up-to-date as of right now, as far as general consensus/agreement among the leading researchers, without being overly speculative? I know it's a field that goes through rather rapid flux, but I would just like to read the best there is as of right now.

If you're looking to come at the subject through a history of it, which I would recommend personally as it is a complex and unintuitive field, try In Search of Schrodinger's Cat by John Gribbin or for a more modern take, Uncertainty by David Lindley.

 

[TrickyDickie]

If you're looking to come at the subject through a history of it, which I would recommend personally as it is a complex and unintuitive field, try In Search of Schrodinger's Cat by John Gribbin or for a more modern take, Uncertainty by David Lindley.

Thanks....I will go for both. I think a review of the history is a great idea, to kick out any extraneous material that may have come in from other books that I've read.

 

[TrickyDickie]

Just ordered the two books, through inter-library loan.

I noticed that Gribbin has quite a number of books published. Are his more recent ones respected/agreed with among his peers?

Just want to avoid anything more that is geared more toward 'popular consumption' and making money than accepted science. I know that sometimes there is recycling the same ideas from previous books just to sell a new one. Gribbin offers some tantalizing titles, and I'd just like to know what his approach is like.

 

[Bluewhale]

I'm still new to this, but I'm replying to Trickydicky.
To me a real free thinker is someone who puts their view across, is prepared to read and absorb other opinions, considers them, then is prepared to deviate from their opinions, and be prepared to change his or her mind. It's a great thing to be able to say that you are on shaky ground and graciously admit you may have been wrong. You've done this with your post whilst some may just carry on with their dogmatic opinion. It makes these discussions worth while and respectful in my opinion.

 

[cultcross]

Just want to avoid anything more that is geared more toward 'popular consumption' and making money than accepted science.

A good trick is to look at the referencing. Good, reliable scientific writing, even for popular consumption, will be properly referenced to its sources in the form of a bibliography even if not by direct reference in the text. If those are peer reviewed articles in major journals, you're fine. If they're blogs, you're not - The benefit of 'popular consumption' books is that they are written for the educated layman and don't assume technical or, crucially, mathematical knowledge. The equations associated with quantum mechanics are very complex (take a look at one of the most basic), and the more textual and allegorical explanations offered by popular writers will make more sense. Great communicators of science are rare, and often quite a different beast to great scientists. You need someone who understands how to make others get what is obvious to them.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

The equations associated with quantum mechanics are very complex (take a look at one of the most basic), and the more textual and allegorical explanations offered by popular writers will make more sense.

And now my head hurts

So sorry for the repetitions to the post. I'm brand new to this and will have to read the instructions.

If you want to reply to a specific post one person has made then click the "reply" toggle on the bottom right of the post in question, it will then appear in the comment box at the bottom. If you want to quote multiple posts click the "+quote" for all the ones you want, then just below the comment box on the left there is a button for "insert quotes", where you can select all the multi-quotes you picked previously to include in your message.

Hope that helps.

 

[cultcross]

@Bluewhale it looks like you're clicking 'Reply' on the person's post then pressing 'Post Reply' before you type your response, so the quote ends up separated from the post you're replying to.
You only need to press 'Post Reply' when you're done with your reply and good to go. After you've quoted someone, you just keep typing under where it says [/QUOTE ]

 

[Kai "the spy"]

A good trick is to look at the referencing. Good, reliable scientific writing, even for popular consumption, will be properly referenced to its sources in the form of a bibliography even if not by direct reference in the text. If those are peer reviewed articles in major journals, you're fine. If they're blogs, you're not - The benefit of 'popular consumption' books is that they are written for the educated layman and don't assume technical or, crucially, mathematical knowledge. The equations associated with quantum mechanics are very complex (take a look at one of the most basic), and the more textual and allegorical explanations offered by popular writers will make more sense. Great communicators of science are rare, and often quite a different beast to great scientists. You need someone who understands how to make others get what is obvious to them.

Ah, yes, the dangers of infotainment's presentation of scientific studies.

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[Doom Shepherd]

That's actually my point....if something like that happens just once in someone's presence and it's not repeated and everything logical is ruled out, what do we do with it?

Nothing, because most likely, it represents an undiscovered mistake on the part of the observer/s.

When you have a cluster of data points that all give you roughly the same result.:

---------------- X--X-
------------- X X--XX X
--------------- X XXX

And a single data point that is wayyyyyyyy out there...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------X
(I tried showing this with spaces but it didn't work.)

Something probably went wrong when you were gathering the data.

It's a lot like target shooting... good grouping means your sights are accurate. Good grouping with one or two outlying shots STILL means your sights are accurate, just that something affected the shots one or two times - your hand twitching, a gust of hard wind, a bad round, whatever.

There would only be cause for concern if your shooting (results) were all over the place, or if your grouping was tight, but NOT where you were expecting the bullets to hit (data results to be). That's when things get interesting.

tl;dr: Parker Brothers is NOT mass-producing Items of ULTIMATE ARCANE POWAH!!!!! and selling them at Toys 'R Us in between Pictionary and Triominoes.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

Once upon a time, a slightly more ethically flexible Doom Shepherd was conned/coerced into applying for a position as staff at a Methodist Summer camp.

During our training, one day, we were all brought into a cabin to watch a training video. Tasty snacks were provided, but at first, I abstained. However, just as the training video was about to start, I experienced a sudden hunger pang, and got up out of my chair to get a doughnut.

I had taken less than three steps, when the window behind the chair I had been sitting in FELL IN, absolutely shredding the jacket I had left on the chair. If I'd tarried a moment longer, I would no doubt have been killed.

What does this mean?

A: nothing. Except that rickety old cabins are not the best spots for training sessions.

 

[Silvercrest]

A joke I came up with recently:
Holmes: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Unfortunately, Watson, all those comic books you read have severely distorted your understanding of what constitutes "impossible."

 

[cultcross]

If I'd tarried a moment longer, I would no doubt have been killed.

What does this mean?

A: nothing. Except that rickety old cabins are not the best spots for training sessions.

Actually, this brings up one of the things I find most annoying about some religious folk - the 'there but for the grace of god' mentality. Praising God for everything good that happens to them, but ignoring the fact that other people get shat on from a great height. "Pray I get the job" - well that by default means praying that the other candidates don't get the job - what did they do to deserve God's wrath?
And even more short sighted, praising God for tiny little bonuses in otherwise terrible situations. Yay, He allowed the Kindertransport.... but did fuck all about the other 6 million dead? Well, brilliant. He helped me recover from my injury? Well thanks a lot, bud, for causing it in the first place.
There is a real disconnect there where God is given credit for anything viewed as positive and never blamed for the bad stuff (except occasionally euphemisms about death - 'God saw fit to call him home' type stuff). If he is in precise control of your life, he is responsible for all of it. You can't have it both ways.

 

[BillJ]

God definitely comes across as the abusive spouse. "I hit you because I love you!"

 

[cultcross]

I think a far more reasonable approach to a God, if you believe in one, is that He is somewhat distant from daily life, and doesn't intervene much/at all in his 'clockwork universe' he has set running. Because a directly intervening god is so arbitrary and random in His interventions as to be actually cruel. Your mouth ulcer - cured! Your cancer - tough shit. Your parking warden - let you off! Your son - killed in Iraq!
I could buy believing in 'large scale' interventions like "here's my son", or "this dude's about to drop the hottest prophecy of 360BC", but I'm sorry, no deity is involved in whether you get a parking space at Walmart.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

Actually, this brings up one of the things I find most annoying about some religious folk - the 'there but for the grace of god' mentality. Praising God for everything good that happens to them, but ignoring the fact that other people get shat on from a great height. "Pray I get the job" - well that by default means praying that the other candidates don't get the job - what did they do to deserve God's wrath?
And even more short sighted, praising God for tiny little bonuses in otherwise terrible situations. Yay, He allowed the Kindertransport.... but did fuck all about the other 6 million dead? Well, brilliant. He helped me recover from my injury? Well thanks a lot, bud, for causing it in the first place.
There is a real disconnect there where God is given credit for anything viewed as positive and never blamed for the bad stuff (except occasionally euphemisms about death - 'God saw fit to call him home' type stuff). If he is in precise control of your life, he is responsible for all of it. You can't have it both ways.

Plane with 150 people on board doesn't crash - not a miracle.
Plane with 150 people on board plows into the ground, everyone dies - not a miracle.
Plane with 150 people on board plows into the ground, one person lives - They CALL this a miracle, but it's not, it's just screwing over the other 149 people on board.

Plane with 150 people aboard plows into the ground, EVERYONE lives, maybe that's a miracle. That's why it never happens.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

I think a far more reasonable approach to a God, if you believe in one, is that He is somewhat distant from daily life, and doesn't intervene much/at all in his 'clockwork universe' he has set running.

In my personal theological headcanon, the last time God intervened, was when She said "the reptiles on the third planet of Star 8040216 in galaxy 5622104 just aren't making any progress. They're pretty and all, but they're just not interesting. Gimmie a 5-mile rock, we'll try again with the mammals."

 

[Silvercrest]

I could buy believing in 'large scale' interventions like "here's my son", or "this dude's about to drop the hottest prophecy of 360BC", but I'm sorry, no deity is involved in whether you get a parking space at Walmart.

But, but —- there's no way I could have gotten that parking space by myself!

 

[JWPlatt]

...There is a real disconnect there where God is given credit for anything viewed as positive and never blamed for the bad stuff...

Confirmation bias.

 

[JWPlatt]

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

See the collected works of Christopher Hitchens, available on YouTube screens everywhere.

There's so much available that he called it "MeTube."