Religion and Dinosaurs

[UBERDOINK]

The sad fact about this type of verification is that, if one is setting out to prove a certain premise, he can most likely find *some* way to do it.

There have been multiple empirical studies that say this is true. It's called "confirmation bias" or "narrative fallacy", and it has been proven that the science establishment suffer most from this.

Confirmation bias states that people will naturally "find" proof of their theory, unaware that they have forced that proof to "fit".

Narrative Fallacy is basically the same thing, but says people will see data that fits into a pre-defined and accepted narrative, i.e. evolution for example. So other theory's or explanations for something are not even considered, or possibly even thought of, because of this foundational narrative that the scientist has already bought into clouds perception.

There are lots of cool studies on this, but an easy to read one is a book called The Black Swan. Which states that all one has to do to prove all swans aren't white (which was believed until the 19th century) is to find one black swan. NOT a flock, or even a testable scientific model of swans.

That's what science lacks, is the ability to address those "anomalies" that are set to the side because they don't fit any theory.

Remember Darwin said the co-creator of evolution was Alfred Russel Wallace, who believed God used evolution to create the universe, and it was Huxley, an atheist, that helps marginalize Wallace's work. So even at the foundation of things, bias shaped our current Narrative.

 

[Rob]

Brandon, the difference being that science postulates, predicts and (ultimately or not) observes not to maintain belief systems, but to test them. Look at CERN, large scale experiments to attempt to observe what was postulated and predicted 50+ years ago. If what they hoped to find doesn't exist, that's just as much a success as it will be a failure of previous foundational assumptions and models.

Yes, that's what they tell us in school isn't it?

It's funny how skeptical a person can be towards one particular type of institution, and at the same time an idealistic/credulous devotee of another.

Individuals fight to preserve their world-view, and change it only after their resistance has been beaten down. And unfortunately scientists are not an exception to this rule. ESPECIALLY since their point of pride is that they are searching for truth.

Just as a religious man's point of pride is that he's a "moral person", a belief which gives him the freedom to be as cruel and immoral as he likes.

It's unclear what you're saying here. You have a particular way of writing that demonstrates your confusion, leading the reader to be similarly confused. I doubt it's intentional and I don't mean that as an insult.

I don't see how it's unfortunate that scientists are not an exception to this rule you've created. Again, that's exactly my point. Fortunatley, they're not an exception.

 

[BrandonD]

It's unclear what you're saying here. You have a particular way of writing that demonstrates your confusion, leading the reader to be similarly confused. I doubt it's intentional and I don't mean that as an insult.

I don't see how it's unfortunate that scientists are not an exception to this rule you've created. Again, that's exactly my point. Fortunatley, they're not an exception.

Sorry if I'm being unclear. I'll try again in very simple terms:

Humans have a world view. The world-view is composed of various opinions of how the world works.

Humans don't want to change their world-view. It is a mechanism which supports their sense of security and self-worth.

Scientists are not an exception. In fact they are more subject to this rule than the average person for the following reasons:

1) Unlike the average Joe, a scientist has a public reputation based upon his opinions. Changing these opinions in any significant way puts his reputation in jeopardy, at least within his own mind.

2) Scientists are commonly considered to be "the seekers of the truth" in our society. Therefore they are allowed a great deal of leeway in this department. In other words, since they are automatically considered to be objective viewers of the world they can lie more than the average person, and get away with it.

Just as (in older times) when a parent would leave their child alone with a priest. They would not do this with just anyone, but granted the priest a greater leeway because he was automatically considered "good". Therefore he could get away with greater immoralities than the average person. The immorality had to rise to a cacophonous shriek before the public even began to take notice.

Now...

Since scientists *aren't* the exception to the rule, instead of simply observing the natural world and altering their world-view accordingly, observations of the world are altered in order to conform with the world-view. And they can easily get away with this because they are our culture's trusted carriers of the truth.

I don't see how this is terribly hard to understand.

 

[Rob]

(Note to self: What am I doing? This is as 'paranormal' themed forum/website. It seems I'm expecting too much rationality around here. I should know better. Is this why my wife left?).

"... instead of simply observing the natural world and altering their world-view accordingly, observations of the world are altered in order to conform with the world-view."

Alright Brandon, I think I'll leave it there. Thanks for, um, clarifying.

 

[David Biedny]

(Note to self: What am I doing? This is as 'paranormal' themed forum/website. It seems I'm expecting too much rationality around here. I should know better. Is this why my wife left?).

"... instead of simply observing the natural world and altering their world-view accordingly, observations of the world are altered in order to conform with the world-view."

Alright Brandon, I think I'll leave it there. Thanks for, um, clarifying.

Rob, I think that what Brandon is saying is that the scientist might sooner alter the results of his/her observations to fit into an existing, accepted worldview, than modify the worldview to accommodate unexpected findings.

Which, BTW, I suspect does indeed happen, but as with everything, is subject to exceptions.

So did your wife leave the forums, or leave you? The former, I hope.

dB

 

[Rob]

The problem is that Brandon is speaking in a general sense, suggesting that this is normal and common practice among scientists to alter results to fit an exisiting worldview, that all scientists fall under his description and react to the world in this way. He isn't making an exception to any rule, this is how this 'culture's carriers of the truth' behave. This is plainly delusional.

He's doing exactly the thing you're both attempting to denounce.

 

[Poi]

And so you are also, Rob.

Scientists have to protect the grants that sustain them. Bottom line.

If they are fortunate to have free rein, free thought, free $$$ for their outcomes, great. If not, we get loads of them cowtowing to politics, plain and simple. It pays to investigate the backers and their politics, unfortunately.

But I think they only go into science with the idea that they will make a difference. Some are able to do just that, thank goodness. It's a bad idea to pigeonhole any of them in either direction without investigation.

 

[Astroboy]

...instead of simply observing the natural world and altering their world-view accordingly, observations of the world are altered in order to conform with the world-view.

Can you give us an example where current scientists do this?

As far as I can tell scientist either prove their case or they don't. Establish scientific principles are proven through scientific methodologies and are constantly challenged and subject to peer review and verifiable experiments. Scientist themselves can be wrong but science is fundamentally a self correcting field. Those ideas that are not accepted usually are ones that have not been proven or where the evidence is weak or nonexistent.

Scientist don't go crying "Conspiracy!" or "It's fake" when confronted with irrefutable evidence that disproved their hypothesis. They submit their ideas for scrutiny and change their hypothesis not the data when they don't fit observations.

While scientists can't explain every phenomenon in the universe (no true scientist would ever claim to know everything) they are certainly doing more to figure it out than people whose ideas rely on faith.

Perhaps your own faith is an irrational distrust of science by lumping scientists with all "authority figures" which you obviously do not trust at all. While I don't trust everything the government tells us I sure as hell don't trust most of what people in UFOlogy or the paranormal field say either.

 

[UBERDOINK]

Can you give us an example where current scientists do this?

Great work on this topic, especially for this forum as it discusses how hard it is to crack scientific bias.

Gas Resources | gasresources.net

 

[auntiegrav]

Can you give us an example where current scientists do this?

Great work on this topic, especially for this forum as it discusses how hard it is to crack scientific bias.

Gas Resources | gasresources.net

Another place that covers some of the scientific bias is Infinite Energy magazine (or used to: the murder of it's editor left a gap in their unique insight to MIT's shenanigans over Cold Fusion tests.)

Infinite Energy Magazine

Yes, there are some wacko ideas covered in it, but for the most part, they are seriously educated wackos...;-)

A.G.
"If our food makes us lazy and stupid, how will our children ever find out?"

 

[auntiegrav]

For people interested in the odd physics questions:
Carolyn Thompson (RIP) restarted an interest in physics late in life, and tried to answer some interesting physics problems from an outsider's viewpoint. Much of that work is kept online here:

Caroline Thompson's Physics Site

 

[Astroboy]

Can you give us an example where current scientists do this?

Great work on this topic, especially for this forum as it discusses how hard it is to crack scientific bias.

Gas Resources | gasresources.net

Interesting but most examples in this article are very old when current standards of scientific methodologies did not exist.

In fact, I would say that modern scientific standards really did not exist except for the last maybe 50 years or so with the advent of mass media and the Internet. This has made peer review and the ability to disseminate information in order to test and verify experiments much easier.

As for the Cold Fusion stuff. I don't know. I don't think they've made a convincing case yet.

There is still a huge gap in knowledge in such things as the Standard Model of the universe. But at least scientist acknowledge that the theory is seriously flawed. Hence the LHC project. Large Hadron Collider - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Even if they don't find the Higgs particle they would have answered a fundamental question....or they'll create a black hole and we'll all be sucked in. Have a nice day!

 

[auntiegrav]

As for the Cold Fusion stuff. I don't know. I don't think they've made a convincing case yet.

There is still a huge gap in knowledge in such things as the Standard Model of the universe. But at least scientist acknowledge that the theory is seriously flawed. Hence the LHC project. Large Hadron Collider - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Even if they don't find the Higgs particle they would have answered a fundamental question....or they'll create a black hole and we'll all be sucked in. Have a nice day!

Your responses are close to what I have also concluded.
As for Cold Fusion: it isn't a matter of verifying it any more. That's been done many times with excess energy and neutron emissions, tritium production, and x-ray emissions to show that it is really a fusion reaction. The problems are with scaling and concentration (and of course, political).
The biggest reason that it doesn't hit the main consciousness as a real phenomenon is because it raises more questions than answers (questions that interfere with implementation). Questions about the standard model, which lead to questions about relativity and 100 years of disinformation, whether intentional or not.
An appropriate topic for these forums on its own mystery and conspiracy, but hard to maintain due to the depth of investigation required. The same reasoning can apply to why some subjects (like religion and science integrity) don't lend themselves to investigation or discussion. Too much work when everyone who is interested and skilled enough to do the digging has too much 'real' work to do. Like on my farm: spending too much time fixing the machinery instead of actually farming. Sometimes you just want to chuck it all and go back to hunting and gathering and staring at the stars and making things up as you go along.

 

[UBERDOINK]

Interesting but most examples in this article are very old when current standards of scientific methodologies did not exist.

Well they do cite a 1990's case, also check out this author from 2005

"A Habit of Lies: How Scientists Cheat",
A Habit of Lies

which is just the tip of the iceberg. Read about Brain Plasticity for another great modern example.

Al Higgins has produced a massive database of more than 4000 references, each annotated and summarized, on fraud in science, as part of his listserv.
[email protected]

another example from 1999
Suppressing Research Data, by Brian Martin

Abstract

Research data can be suppressed in various ways, including organizational secrecy, defamation law and refusal to reply to queries. In a broader sense, methods of suppression include pressures not to do research in the first place and attacks on scientists who produce unwelcome data. The context of this sort of suppression includes individual self-interest, vested interests, and paradigms. Suppressing research data can be either compatible with or contrary to accountability, depending on the constituencies involved. Ways to challenge suppression of research data include individual requests, exposés, refusal to suppress, publicity, creating new data, and social movements.

 

[Astroboy]

Science in the proper form is transparent. The data, methods of collecting it and testing are open and subject to outside review in order to replicate it for verification.

Does this mean bad science doesn't go on? Of course not. You should be suspicious of research conducted privately such as those from tobacco companies or chemical companies or certain governmental organizations. The research is often not open to scrutiny.

But again science in general is self correcting. Most of the bad science is eventually exposed as such by other researchers. The most famous example of this is the South Korean scientists who falsified his test results in doing cloning work.

It is a gross exaggeration to say, however, that most science work being conducted is suspect.

Are people working in scientific fields more suspect than those working in UFOlogy or the paranormal? Get real. Scientists depend on credibility to continue to work. But guess what? Greer, Silvia Brown, Billy Meier, and the like have been working forever despite being exposed as frauds.

 

[UBERDOINK]

But again science in general is self correcting.

I agree with the charlatans you mentioned, but I have to say that self correcting is possibly true in the long term sense of say, 50-100 year cycles.

But if you read the articles I referenced, suppression is currently running rampant through science. I think do impart because of funding and grants. They need money and money is the root of most frauds.

But according to these studies, what about this:
"In a broader sense, methods of suppression include pressures not to do research in the first place and attacks on scientists who produce unwelcome data."

How can that kind of pressure result in self-correction if the research isn't even done?

 

[UBERDOINK]

Also I'll add this cool article, it's is also amazing how belief creates myth. Like the myth that science knows best.

Peer Review and Scientific Consensus : Peer-to-Peer

mini-abstract

The peer-review process is not, contrary to popular belief, a nearly flawless system of Olympian scrutiny. Any editor of a peer-reviewed journal who desires to reject or accept a submission can easily do so by choosing appropriate referees.
Unfortunately, personal vendettas, ideological conflicts, professional jealousies, methodological disagreements, sheer self-promotion and irresponsibility are as much part of the scientific world as any other. Peer review cannot ensure that research is correct in its procedures and conclusions.

 

[BrandonD]

Rob, I think that what Brandon is saying is that the scientist might sooner alter the results of his/her observations to fit into an existing, accepted worldview, than modify the worldview to accommodate unexpected findings.

Which, BTW, I suspect does indeed happen, but as with everything, is subject to exceptions.

I absolutely agree. I've never once said or implied that ALL scientists follow the line of thinking that I outlined (that was Rob's assumption). But I DID say that they were more subject to it than the average person, and so it is naive and idiotic to ignore this.

Jesus friggin H Christ, if I have to make elaborate clauses and qualifiers and exceptions for every statement I say then my posts will be 15 times longer than they already are. And I'm sure everyone will just luv that.

 

[Lavarat]

 

[Rob]

Rob, I think that what Brandon is saying is that the scientist might sooner alter the results of his/her observations to fit into an existing, accepted worldview, than modify the worldview to accommodate unexpected findings.

Which, BTW, I suspect does indeed happen, but as with everything, is subject to exceptions.

I absolutely agree. I've never once said or implied that ALL scientists follow the line of thinking that I outlined (that was Rob's assumption). But I DID say that they were more subject to it than the average person, and so it is naive and idiotic to ignore this.

Jesus friggin H Christ, if I have to make elaborate clauses and qualifiers and exceptions for every statement I say then my posts will be 15 times longer than they already are. And I'm sure everyone will just luv that.

My assumption was based on your response.

You don't need to lengthen your posts, just make them concise and clear.

I know, I sound like a dick.