Full Version: Skeptical Non-Believers of Uppity Annoyance
| QUOTE (Norman @ Aug 1 2004, 03:54 AM) |
| Have any of you skeptics thought about being a skeptic about your skepticism? Just think about it! Why be a skeptic? Skeptics question the validity of truth. And you skeptics always question the truth! Why not question the reason for you to be a skeptic for a change? What about that? Don't you ever question the reason for your doubt? |
No, Skeptics are skeptic about things that arent proven to be true.
| QUOTE (Norman @ Aug 1 2004, 02:12 PM) |
| Wait! I've got it! Now, I know how to be a skeptic! Ok. I am ready! Someone write something that is questionable! |
"God is real"
You cannot see God.
Most people preffer to believe in
what they can see.
Most people preffer to believe in
what they can see.
It's a start; but you sort of missed the point..A skeptic doesn't really care what people prefer to believe. A better answer would have been: "Alright so you think God is real. Why? And what evidence can you use to try and prove that your belief is factual?
Basically, a skeptic doesn't just simply believe in "nothing"...a skeptic simply requires evidence of some sort before they will believe in anything outragous, such as the existance of dieties, aliens popping into our solar system or George Bush having a brain.
We're willing to accept the possibility of certain things you'll hear about on UM if, and only if, they provide some kind of evidence for their existance....it's only logical afterall; If someone claimed they could fly, would you believe them without saying "Okay...show me."
For example, I believe in Bigfoot, because it has left physical evidence for its existance, and because of anthropological history. However, as much as I believe in it, I am unwilling to tout it as definate fact until there is more hardline evidence, such as an actualy subject. On the opposite side of that, I don't believe in god in the slightest, because of a complete lack of evidence for his/it's existance, and staggering evidence that support other cases for where we came from.
We're willing to accept the possibility of certain things you'll hear about on UM if, and only if, they provide some kind of evidence for their existance....it's only logical afterall; If someone claimed they could fly, would you believe them without saying "Okay...show me."
For example, I believe in Bigfoot, because it has left physical evidence for its existance, and because of anthropological history. However, as much as I believe in it, I am unwilling to tout it as definate fact until there is more hardline evidence, such as an actualy subject. On the opposite side of that, I don't believe in god in the slightest, because of a complete lack of evidence for his/it's existance, and staggering evidence that support other cases for where we came from.
There's NO WAY you can make me forget to lock this thread by feeding me marijuana.
Really? No way at all? Because I was just saying to myself the other day that if I was ever in the Chicago area I was going to bring MC a huge bag of it, just for being such a tolerant Mod..
Falco, You have now made it to 'never being warned" status. ;-)
I had this idea today, I don't know whether or not it deserves a thread, as it's only a little teeny theory at this point, but I think it could make a lot of sense.
What if Jesus was pressured into being the Messiah and all? Mary obviously wouldn've known about all the prophesies, right? So what if one night she has a dream, which is in the bible, and decides that based on the dream her son is gonna be the Savior. Then, as soon as Jesus is born, all he hears growing up is Messiah this and Messiah that. So he ends up believing it himself, and then, to make his mama proud, he goes and tries to fulfill as many of the prophesies as he can, because he's been bombarded since birth by the idea that he's the son of god.
Just a thought.
What if Jesus was pressured into being the Messiah and all? Mary obviously wouldn've known about all the prophesies, right? So what if one night she has a dream, which is in the bible, and decides that based on the dream her son is gonna be the Savior. Then, as soon as Jesus is born, all he hears growing up is Messiah this and Messiah that. So he ends up believing it himself, and then, to make his mama proud, he goes and tries to fulfill as many of the prophesies as he can, because he's been bombarded since birth by the idea that he's the son of god.
Just a thought.
God is not real.
The paranormal does not exist.
I state these as facts.
Skeptics do your thang!
Seriously just to make sure you all play fair.Argument # 7: "The burden of proof is on the claimant"
Typical Usage: "Skeptics don't have to disprove anything because they're not the ones making a claim. The burden of proof is on the claimant."
When Skeptics who dismiss or deny are challenged to disprove something, they typically respond with this argument which states that since they are not the ones making the claim, they don't have to disprove anything, but that the burden of proof is on the claimant. This argument is similar to the "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" requirement of Argument # 2 (see rebuttal for that section). While this may be sound sensible on the surface, it poses some problems for the skeptics' pursuit of knowledge.
1) First of all, as said before, just because one is unable to prove something to others doesn't mean that it is false or nonexistent. For instance, I can't prove what I dreamed about or thought about yesterday, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen. Also, I can't conclusively prove that I saw a certain movie last month either. The skeptics could say that my saved ticket stub was stolen or forged, that my memory of the movie was obtained from hearing about it, that the people that were with me in the theater only constitute testimony and not proof, etc. You see, there is no way it could be proven 100 percent. Anyone who wants to deny can always find a reason to. The burden of proof may be on the claimant for the scientific and skeptical community to accept it, which is fine and understandable. But this argument is no grounds to use to dismiss claims and explain them away with alternate explanations, which skeptics like Michael Shermer tend to do. That would be more of what a cynic does. After all, why is a debunker's subjective dismissal more credible than one's direct experience? Skeptics can dismiss all they want, but they never seem to understand that they are doing it on purely subjective and speculative grounds.
2) Second, this argument does nothing to aid the skeptic's understanding of the paranormal. All it does is maintain the status quo of their own beliefs. If skeptics want some proof for something, they have to go find it themselves. Though not all paranormal experiences and encounters can be found by those willing to seek, some of them can at least. But asking a claimant to hand over proof on a silver platter isn't really going to lead anywhere. That's not how it works. How would one hand over proof of ghosts, UFO's, mystic experiences, or telepathic experiences, to a skeptic? Can one take a piece of a ghost and bring it back? Skeptics who want to investigate ghosts and UFO's should talk extensively to the eyewitnesses and perhaps spend some nights over in a haunted place, rather than just sitting back and thinking up their own explanations for it. Even the well-liked late Carl Sagan, who dismissed alien abductions offhand in his book The Demon Haunted World, never bothered to interview any abductees to learn about the abduction experience. That's certainly not the action of someone trying to understand something or looking for the truth. If a skeptic wants proof of metaphysical realities through mystical experiences or OBE's, they will have to do the work required to experience it themselves. There are a variety of techniques for inducing OBE's and astral projections. However, most skeptics are unwilling to do these type of things because they consider it a waste of their time since they don't think it's real. Instead, they lazily offer this argument, which makes sense scientifically, but progresses them nowhere in their knowledge or exploration. In fact, not bothering to investigate or experience something yourself, but just sitting back lazily and using this argument makes no sense.
3) Third, the claimant who already has his/her proof doesn't need to prove it to others to validate their experiences. NDEers often emphasize this. Their personal proof from their experience or encounter is a blessing, gift or message meant for them, not for the skeptics. In other words, the claimants, if sincere, have already proved it to themselves. Whether or not skeptics accept the proof is inconsequential to them. Skeptics can believe what they want, but what they think does nothing to change the reality of a paranormal phenomenon. The skeptics who only want to see proof from other people without looking for it themselves is totally missing out on their own transcendental experiences.
Argument # 8: "There is no hard evidence to support any paranormal phenomena."
This is a vague argument because it doesn‚t define what constitutes "hard evidence." If by hard evidence they mean something solid and tangible, then it would not be possible to obtain this from certain things like UFO‚s, ghosts, spirits, or ESP. since they are intangible in nature and possibly involve other dimensions we don‚t fully understand yet (could also be the case with UFO‚s). By this standard, we have no tangible evidence for stars, galaxies, black holes, or nebulas that are light years away either, although we can observe them. (Skeptics could argue that they‚re just holographic images on a giant movie projector.) In the same manner, although we can‚t reach out and touch UFO‚s, we have observed them hovering in the sky and outmaneuvering our best aircraft. Even if all the photographs and video footage of UFO‚s were hoaxed, there are still many cases of sightings that were observed by whole cities or towns, such as the Mexico City mass sighting of January 1995. This indicates that there‚s "something" there causing these mass sightings. Of course, this "something" could be a whole range of things besides alien spacecraft, but at least it‚s not zero evidence and not due purely to imagination. Though UFO‚s show up far less frequently than the other astronomical phenomena mentioned above, infrequent doesn‚t mean nonexistent. The possibility of winning the lottery is also very infrequent too, but not nonexistent. The same could also go for ghosts, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, apparitions of the Virgin Mary, etc.
If by hard evidence they mean things that we can test and measure with experiments, then this would be difficult to do with ghosts and UFO‚s since they are out of our control, but this has already been done and replicated for psychic phenomena like telepathy and telekinesis (See evidence in Arguments # 17, 18). We have the vastly replicated Ganzfeld and Autoganzfeld controlled telepathy experiments, the 20 year consistency of the Princeton Random Number Generator PK experiments, the controlled tests on psychics such as Uri Geller that he succeeded in, the recent tests on mediums by Dr. Gary Schwartz, and others. Skeptics need to clearly define what they want as hard evidence, rather than being vague about it and then raising the bar when anything is presented.
The paranormal does not exist.
I state these as facts.
Skeptics do your thang!
Seriously just to make sure you all play fair.Argument # 7: "The burden of proof is on the claimant"
Typical Usage: "Skeptics don't have to disprove anything because they're not the ones making a claim. The burden of proof is on the claimant."
When Skeptics who dismiss or deny are challenged to disprove something, they typically respond with this argument which states that since they are not the ones making the claim, they don't have to disprove anything, but that the burden of proof is on the claimant. This argument is similar to the "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" requirement of Argument # 2 (see rebuttal for that section). While this may be sound sensible on the surface, it poses some problems for the skeptics' pursuit of knowledge.
1) First of all, as said before, just because one is unable to prove something to others doesn't mean that it is false or nonexistent. For instance, I can't prove what I dreamed about or thought about yesterday, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen. Also, I can't conclusively prove that I saw a certain movie last month either. The skeptics could say that my saved ticket stub was stolen or forged, that my memory of the movie was obtained from hearing about it, that the people that were with me in the theater only constitute testimony and not proof, etc. You see, there is no way it could be proven 100 percent. Anyone who wants to deny can always find a reason to. The burden of proof may be on the claimant for the scientific and skeptical community to accept it, which is fine and understandable. But this argument is no grounds to use to dismiss claims and explain them away with alternate explanations, which skeptics like Michael Shermer tend to do. That would be more of what a cynic does. After all, why is a debunker's subjective dismissal more credible than one's direct experience? Skeptics can dismiss all they want, but they never seem to understand that they are doing it on purely subjective and speculative grounds.
2) Second, this argument does nothing to aid the skeptic's understanding of the paranormal. All it does is maintain the status quo of their own beliefs. If skeptics want some proof for something, they have to go find it themselves. Though not all paranormal experiences and encounters can be found by those willing to seek, some of them can at least. But asking a claimant to hand over proof on a silver platter isn't really going to lead anywhere. That's not how it works. How would one hand over proof of ghosts, UFO's, mystic experiences, or telepathic experiences, to a skeptic? Can one take a piece of a ghost and bring it back? Skeptics who want to investigate ghosts and UFO's should talk extensively to the eyewitnesses and perhaps spend some nights over in a haunted place, rather than just sitting back and thinking up their own explanations for it. Even the well-liked late Carl Sagan, who dismissed alien abductions offhand in his book The Demon Haunted World, never bothered to interview any abductees to learn about the abduction experience. That's certainly not the action of someone trying to understand something or looking for the truth. If a skeptic wants proof of metaphysical realities through mystical experiences or OBE's, they will have to do the work required to experience it themselves. There are a variety of techniques for inducing OBE's and astral projections. However, most skeptics are unwilling to do these type of things because they consider it a waste of their time since they don't think it's real. Instead, they lazily offer this argument, which makes sense scientifically, but progresses them nowhere in their knowledge or exploration. In fact, not bothering to investigate or experience something yourself, but just sitting back lazily and using this argument makes no sense.
3) Third, the claimant who already has his/her proof doesn't need to prove it to others to validate their experiences. NDEers often emphasize this. Their personal proof from their experience or encounter is a blessing, gift or message meant for them, not for the skeptics. In other words, the claimants, if sincere, have already proved it to themselves. Whether or not skeptics accept the proof is inconsequential to them. Skeptics can believe what they want, but what they think does nothing to change the reality of a paranormal phenomenon. The skeptics who only want to see proof from other people without looking for it themselves is totally missing out on their own transcendental experiences.
Argument # 8: "There is no hard evidence to support any paranormal phenomena."
This is a vague argument because it doesn‚t define what constitutes "hard evidence." If by hard evidence they mean something solid and tangible, then it would not be possible to obtain this from certain things like UFO‚s, ghosts, spirits, or ESP. since they are intangible in nature and possibly involve other dimensions we don‚t fully understand yet (could also be the case with UFO‚s). By this standard, we have no tangible evidence for stars, galaxies, black holes, or nebulas that are light years away either, although we can observe them. (Skeptics could argue that they‚re just holographic images on a giant movie projector.) In the same manner, although we can‚t reach out and touch UFO‚s, we have observed them hovering in the sky and outmaneuvering our best aircraft. Even if all the photographs and video footage of UFO‚s were hoaxed, there are still many cases of sightings that were observed by whole cities or towns, such as the Mexico City mass sighting of January 1995. This indicates that there‚s "something" there causing these mass sightings. Of course, this "something" could be a whole range of things besides alien spacecraft, but at least it‚s not zero evidence and not due purely to imagination. Though UFO‚s show up far less frequently than the other astronomical phenomena mentioned above, infrequent doesn‚t mean nonexistent. The possibility of winning the lottery is also very infrequent too, but not nonexistent. The same could also go for ghosts, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, apparitions of the Virgin Mary, etc.
If by hard evidence they mean things that we can test and measure with experiments, then this would be difficult to do with ghosts and UFO‚s since they are out of our control, but this has already been done and replicated for psychic phenomena like telepathy and telekinesis (See evidence in Arguments # 17, 18). We have the vastly replicated Ganzfeld and Autoganzfeld controlled telepathy experiments, the 20 year consistency of the Princeton Random Number Generator PK experiments, the controlled tests on psychics such as Uri Geller that he succeeded in, the recent tests on mediums by Dr. Gary Schwartz, and others. Skeptics need to clearly define what they want as hard evidence, rather than being vague about it and then raising the bar when anything is presented.
| QUOTE |
| God is not real. The paranormal does not exist. I state these as facts. Skeptics do your thang! |
Okay, well first off, I would say that this is not a statement of Fact, but rather a statement of Belief.
Let me explain. A statement such as "God is not real." and "The paranormal does not exist." implies that the causes behind the phenomena known as God and the paranormal are completely and throughly understood, which is not the case. In other words, a theory, being defined as a formal explanation of how a phenomena exists, does not make a claim that another phenomena does not exist. I repeat, a theory cannot, by definition, claim that something does not exist.
In order to claim that something does not exists, we would be forced to use the elimination argument. Basically, it goes:
Assume: A and B
Assume: Either A or B is true
Assume: A is not true
Conclusion: B is true.
Basically, the only way that one would be able to claim that God or the Paranormal is not true, would be to identify every single phenomena associated with them, and show how they are explained through the use of a competing theory. This has not been accomplished as of yet.
I have been testing paranormal phenomena for over a decade. I have not been able to find any evidence of its existance. A statement of fact, one that I can support with documented and imperical evidence, is that everything that I have seen can be explained through natural events. A statement of belief, one that cannot be supported by imperical evidence, is that the paranormal does not exist. One is an objective conclusion, the other is a subjective opinion.
What about the many, many more tests that Uri Gellar failed? After reading your essay, Spectral, I have to agree with you on some points, and disagree on others.
First, god can neither be proven or disproven, that is purely up to whatever faith you feel like practicing. Even atheism is an act of faith. I'm not here to debate god.
The burden of proof is on the claimant, this is true, if you want me to believe in what you saw, then you're gonna have to give me a decent reason. Now, skeptics, good skeptics, don't just decide one day that nothing exists outside of what you can hold in your hands, and nothing you say or do can convince us otherwise. The job of a skeptic is to find every possible explanation, through interviews, observation, and experimentation, and then find the one that fits best. We are a very open minded sort of people here, and if the only explanation for what you saw is a ghost then we'll go with ghost. But we're not simply going to jump on the bandwagon that you saw a ghost if that's not the only fair and reasonable explanation for what you saw.
And you left out misidentification, and the simple fact that many people simply refuse to believe that they saw anything other than what they thought they did. There are thousands upon thousands of cases in which someone's imagination got the better of them and over time they have convinced themselves that they saw something quite different than what they actually saw. There have been many, many tests substantiating this. Memories can be affected by suggestion and over time a person can have very good memories about events that never happened. Again, this is a proven fact. The sighting is real in their minds, no doubt about that, but the lines between fantasy and reality are hopelessly blurred. Does this make the experience real simply because it's real to them? A delusion is a very hard thing to prove.
And now I gots ta take my pills.
First, god can neither be proven or disproven, that is purely up to whatever faith you feel like practicing. Even atheism is an act of faith. I'm not here to debate god.
The burden of proof is on the claimant, this is true, if you want me to believe in what you saw, then you're gonna have to give me a decent reason. Now, skeptics, good skeptics, don't just decide one day that nothing exists outside of what you can hold in your hands, and nothing you say or do can convince us otherwise. The job of a skeptic is to find every possible explanation, through interviews, observation, and experimentation, and then find the one that fits best. We are a very open minded sort of people here, and if the only explanation for what you saw is a ghost then we'll go with ghost. But we're not simply going to jump on the bandwagon that you saw a ghost if that's not the only fair and reasonable explanation for what you saw.
And you left out misidentification, and the simple fact that many people simply refuse to believe that they saw anything other than what they thought they did. There are thousands upon thousands of cases in which someone's imagination got the better of them and over time they have convinced themselves that they saw something quite different than what they actually saw. There have been many, many tests substantiating this. Memories can be affected by suggestion and over time a person can have very good memories about events that never happened. Again, this is a proven fact. The sighting is real in their minds, no doubt about that, but the lines between fantasy and reality are hopelessly blurred. Does this make the experience real simply because it's real to them? A delusion is a very hard thing to prove.
And now I gots ta take my pills.
Spectral, you seem to be equating skeptics with cynics. It has been said before but I suppose it needs repeating: I ask you to understand that they are not one and the same. A cynic will indeed do their best to maintain the status quo. They will argue every single point all the way to denial simply to maintain their level of authority. To the cynic, scientific methodology is not longer a system, but rather a belief.
A skeptic, on the other hand, does not search for every possible explanation in existance. A skeptic is ruled by Occam's Razor. To a skeptic, the simplest solution is usualy the correct one. That is what they search for.
A skeptic, on the other hand, does not search for every possible explanation in existance. A skeptic is ruled by Occam's Razor. To a skeptic, the simplest solution is usualy the correct one. That is what they search for.
| QUOTE |
| Also, I can't conclusively prove that I saw a certain movie last month either. The skeptics could say that my saved ticket stub was stolen or forged, that my memory of the movie was obtained from hearing about it, that the people that were with me in the theater only constitute testimony and not proof, etc. |
To a skeptic, the idea that you forged or stole a movie pass merely to claim that you had seen a movie is ludicrous. A far simpler explanation would be that you did go see the movie. A claim as generic as that one requires very little in the way of credibility, and a movie stub, or indeed your simple claim, is more than enough to give it credibility.
That is, of course, if you are simply claiming that you went to see the movie. If, however, you are claiming that you went to see the movie in order to establish that you were not at the seen of a murder, at that point, it might make sense that you would wish to forge or steal a ticket, and further investigation would be necessary.
| QUOTE |
| After all, why is a debunker's subjective dismissal more credible than one's direct experience? Skeptics can dismiss all they want, but they never seem to understand that they are doing it on purely subjective and speculative grounds. |
That is incorrect. When a skeptic dismisses something (again, a skeptic, not a cynic), it is not done simply because the skeptic believes themselves to be of superior mental acumen, but rather because the great majority of the time, the claim made isn't even worthy of pursuit due to the purely subjective nature of it. it has been shown time and time again that people's direct experience of the exact same event differs from person to person. Witnesses to a scene of a mugging have alternately described the assailant as having a gun, a knife, and no weapon at all. One would think that such a disctinct event would cause a person to become more aware of such impotrtant details, but it is not the case. An extreme example of this was done a few months ago by a university. Participants were told to to watch a video of ball player and tally the score. Half-way through the video, a man dressed in a gorilla suit ran out into the middle of the game, beat his chest, and ran back out. Amazingly, in a significant percentage of testees, this did not register! They were so focused on getting the score, that they completely missed a gorilla in their midst. When asked if anything unusual had happened in the game, they simply shook their heads.
| QUOTE |
| But asking a claimant to hand over proof on a silver platter isn't really going to lead anywhere. That's not how it works. How would one hand over proof of ghosts, UFO's, mystic experiences, or telepathic experiences, to a skeptic? Can one take a piece of a ghost and bring it back? Skeptics who want to investigate ghosts and UFO's should talk extensively to the eyewitnesses and perhaps spend some nights over in a haunted place, rather than just sitting back and thinking up their own explanations for it. |
Actually, that is exactly how it works. A person making a claim is required to provide the proof of it. A piece of a ghost would be excellent, and indeed, zoology would almost require nothing less than this to classify a creature. However, we are not at the stage of trying to explain the phenomena. Before we explain a phenomena, we have to have proof that it exists in the first place! Imperical evidence is not just a piece of the ghost. It is anything that can be measured, that is repeatable, and that is reliable. In other words, a completely objective third person has to be able to look at this evidence and conclude that it would logically lead to the result claimed. If you truly believe that skeptics are merely armchair philosophers, that you have made a mental image for yourself that is as incorrect as it is insulting. I have as much, no, to be perfectly frank, I suspect that I have more field experience under my belt that most, if not all of the claimants that I have encountered in this forum.
| QUOTE |
| The skeptics who only want to see proof from other people without looking for it themselves is totally missing out on their own transcendental experiences. |
A skeptic isn't looking for a transcendental experience. By definition, such things rely exclusively on subjective opinion. Skeptics strip away subjective opinion in search of facts.
Hard evidence depends on the claim that is being made. For something like going to the movies, a simply statement to that effect is sufficient. For something that would defy the known limits of physics, biology, and statistics, more is needed. Don't forget, the claim you make is competing with theories of science that have undergone the most rigourous verification and credibility examination in all of academia. It would somewhat arrogant of you to claim that your personal viewpoint is the equivalent of this.
In all cases, if you wish, please describe a specific event and I will be more than happy to explain what would be considered hard evidence for its existence.
I can't believe I'm about to argue a point with aquatus1 but here goes.. 
I think the word he was searching for was debunker or pseudo-skeptic rather than cynic..
Cynicism is a school of philosophy whose main tenet is that virtue is sufficient for happiness, and maintaining your soul is better than pandering to your body. Given that to be a Cynic you have believe in a soul in the first place and the belief system itself calls for rejecting many of the conventions of society I hardly think it's a good term to use for someone who wants to maintain the status quo and disprove everything supernatural or paranormal...
I think the word he was searching for was debunker or pseudo-skeptic rather than cynic..
Cynicism is a school of philosophy whose main tenet is that virtue is sufficient for happiness, and maintaining your soul is better than pandering to your body. Given that to be a Cynic you have believe in a soul in the first place and the belief system itself calls for rejecting many of the conventions of society I hardly think it's a good term to use for someone who wants to maintain the status quo and disprove everything supernatural or paranormal...
| QUOTE |
| I can't believe I'm about to argue a point with aquatus1 but here goes.. |
I...You...He...!!!
ack...
*hangs head in shame*
Is true. Can't imagine what I was thinking. I am guilty of that which I accused others of.
Thank, you fellow skeptic. It is true that all of us occasionally, require a loosening of the mind, through an applied force to the buttocks.
Falco applying force to Aquatus' buttocks....there's a picture 
Now that's just disturbed.. 
Now now, Falco, you told me you like a little force to the buttocks everyonce in awhile, as long as the gentleman is polite and buys you dinner.
I doubt it was me that said that to you. I'm worth way more than dinner and light conversation..I'm thinking more along the lines of cruises, cash and cars..
But remember when we were talking the other night, and you told me about that lawyer named Joe you met in high school? You were just experimenting, you said....
You Fool! I was talking about setting up a crystal meth lab! And don't force me to bring up that story you told me about you and and the leather bar on Fire Island. And that other one about when you worked as a shepard that summer.. 
Geez...give these two an inch, and they take a strange and twisted mile
OK first of all let me make it clear that that was not my essay but an excerpt from Winston Wu's debunking the debunkers article, would that I were that good at making a point.
What I'm trying to address, and I'm basing this on what I have seen alot on other sites and a little on this site, is that I personally am fine with skepticism but wary of the kind of back slapping, self congratulatory, psuedo skeptic/debunking I've encountered on other boards which in the end merely produces insults, tactics and ultimately inhibits any open minded discussion. I have no problem with someone not believing in God, ghosts, UFO's etc as long as they have none with me if I decided I do, and to be fair most posters here seem to be of the open minded skeptic variety, still though I've seen it creep in from time to time and it's a worry. Perhaps your creating a formalised 'skeptic society' prompted a knee jerk response. I apologise if it seemed like an attack but I hope it does sound a cautionary note.
As for the 'burden of evidence is on the claiment' argument, I still feel that it's a bit of a cop out and abused far to freely by arch debunkers.
Aquatus you bring up the anology about going to see a movie as an alibi in relation to being at the scene of a crime and then say that it warrants further investigation, but that investigation and it's eventual outcome may, and often does come to conclusions based not on proof but evidence, eye witness testimony (which as you've pointed out is not always reliable), phorensic etc, none of which can totally guarantee placing the individual in the right place at the right time but which can still send someone to prison or worse. So we can accept evidence or lack of to send someone away or let them free but when it comes to speculative arguments about the paranormal we first demand proof before going any further, I just feel that's counter productive. Sure if we jailed people strictly on 100% proof a lot of innocent people would never have gone to prison but on the other hand a lot of guilty people wouldn't have either. It isn't perfect but at the moment it's the best we have, I feel much the same about the proof v evidence in relation to the paranormal.
What I'm trying to address, and I'm basing this on what I have seen alot on other sites and a little on this site, is that I personally am fine with skepticism but wary of the kind of back slapping, self congratulatory, psuedo skeptic/debunking I've encountered on other boards which in the end merely produces insults, tactics and ultimately inhibits any open minded discussion. I have no problem with someone not believing in God, ghosts, UFO's etc as long as they have none with me if I decided I do, and to be fair most posters here seem to be of the open minded skeptic variety, still though I've seen it creep in from time to time and it's a worry. Perhaps your creating a formalised 'skeptic society' prompted a knee jerk response. I apologise if it seemed like an attack but I hope it does sound a cautionary note.
As for the 'burden of evidence is on the claiment' argument, I still feel that it's a bit of a cop out and abused far to freely by arch debunkers.
Aquatus you bring up the anology about going to see a movie as an alibi in relation to being at the scene of a crime and then say that it warrants further investigation, but that investigation and it's eventual outcome may, and often does come to conclusions based not on proof but evidence, eye witness testimony (which as you've pointed out is not always reliable), phorensic etc, none of which can totally guarantee placing the individual in the right place at the right time but which can still send someone to prison or worse. So we can accept evidence or lack of to send someone away or let them free but when it comes to speculative arguments about the paranormal we first demand proof before going any further, I just feel that's counter productive. Sure if we jailed people strictly on 100% proof a lot of innocent people would never have gone to prison but on the other hand a lot of guilty people wouldn't have either. It isn't perfect but at the moment it's the best we have, I feel much the same about the proof v evidence in relation to the paranormal.
| QUOTE (Falco Rex @ Aug 1 2004, 08:03 PM) |
| And don't force me to bring up that story you told me about you and and the leather bar on Fire Island. And that other one about when you worked as a shepard that summer.. |
Man, I told you I got lost on my way to Newark, and the sheopard thing, I didn't know they were all gonna be Greeks.
But that doesn't explain your story about playing "dress up" with your wierd uncle Randy.
It's your hearing again..I told you to "Fess up" about you and Aunt Mandy..We've all heard the rumors..
I had no idea she was your aunt, and if I'd known about her horse fetish I'd have never gone to clean her gutters in the first place, you know I don't like talking about that.
You're right man, sorry..So..Back on topic..What was the topic again?
| QUOTE |
| What was the topic again? |
The merits of being skeptic, I believe
So let's just admit that we've made some mistakes, and move on, shall we?
I haven't found anything in the last few posts to be skeptic about Sera. I choose to blindly believe these statements.
| QUOTE (Falco Rex @ Aug 1 2004, 08:15 PM) |
| It's your hearing again..I told you to "Fess up" about you and Aunt Mandy..We've all heard the rumors.. |
Falco,they aint rumours,they is true.
Snuffy told me
(ok,I made that bit up,or did I!!!)This is cool,we got our own thread,I seriously don't believe that
| QUOTE |
| Aquatus you bring up the anology about going to see a movie as an alibi in relation to being at the scene of a crime and then say that it warrants further investigation, but that investigation and it's eventual outcome may, and often does come to conclusions based not on proof but evidence, eye witness testimony (which as you've pointed out is not always reliable), phorensic etc, none of which can totally guarantee placing the individual in the right place at the right time but which can still send someone to prison or worse. So we can accept evidence or lack of to send someone away or let them free but when it comes to speculative arguments about the paranormal we first demand proof before going any further, I just feel that's counter productive. Sure if we jailed people strictly on 100% proof a lot of innocent people would never have gone to prison but on the other hand a lot of guilty people wouldn't have either. It isn't perfect but at the moment it's the best we have, I feel much the same about the proof v evidence in relation to the paranormal. |
Well, hold on now. There is an inherent danger to describing science with metaphors and analogies, and that is that sooner or later, real life is going to exceed the fictional situation. The example I gave was limited to establishing how claims of increasing consequence required evidence of an increasingly credible nature. It was not meant to equate scientific requirements with legal requirements.
A court of law does not always have the luxury of repeatable and verifiable testing. By its very nature, since it deals almost exclusively with the consequences of human emotion, the courtroom must be a subjective arena. The law is not set in stone, but rather it is a flexible line, where many different circumstances can influence the outcome. If the law were science, we would not need a judge or a dozen jurors, but rather a single computer that analyzed the data and computed the appropriate punishment. Since science deals purely with the objective, and humans crime is generaly subjective, science limits itself to proving fact, and lets the courtroom make the decision.
Now, science, on the other hand, isn't under the pressure that the law is, not having any sort of statute of limitations on it. As you said, there are inherent drawbacks to using subjective evidence, and that is that, depending on the sources you cite, anywhere from 5% to 30% of the decisions you make are incorrect. While that may be currently acceptable for the legal system (and they do have laws that cover this as well), it is in no way acceptable in science. Because science deals strictly with the physical nature of the world, it must have repeatable, imperical proof. If a ghost can be seen with the human eye, and we have a full understanding of how the eye perceives images, then there must be some sort of physical element to the ghost.
As cold blooded as it sounds, the legal system can afford to make mistakes because there exists a bewildering variety of laws that help correct an error. Science, on the other hand, is set up so that the errors do not make it into the mainstream, because if they do, it is seen as a sort of betrayal by the civilian populace. This is vitally important for the credibility of science. One only has to look at the few times that hoaxes have succesfully navigated the system to see the far-reaching effects they have had, every single one of them detrimental.
In short, the courtroom standards for evidence and the scientific standards for evidence cannot be equated, because they deal with two separate and fundamentally different sources, one being subjective human emotion, the other being objective natural forces
And you're quite right we cannot equate legal and scientific requirements but I don't believe we can equate measuring that which is physical and repeatable with that which, by it's very nature, is numinous and random. Sure it's a cop out but I believe this is true, these phenomona do not sit comfortably within the rationalist/materialist framework for the simple reason it works outside the logics and rational paradigms that science dictates and I don't accept this is all due to fraud, misinterpretation or wilful gullability. I begin, reluctantly, to see why those 'bleevers' no longer wish to bother to prove their claims as it seems like a mutually inconclusive excercise in frustration. Maybe psi and related events should be more the province of lawyers, judges and barristers as science has shown an inability or unwillingness to embrace such things as non-locality, action at a distance and entaglement in the context of the paranormal the way it has, albeit uncomfortably, within the world of quantum pyhsics.
To Whom it may concern,
Hello,
I would like to apply for membership of the Dark Lords please...
Could the powers that be let me know what i need to do??
Thank you
Teddy.
Hello,
I would like to apply for membership of the Dark Lords please...
Could the powers that be let me know what i need to do??
Thank you
Teddy.
I must say i've seen Hammy's Teddy post quite abit of well-informed, intellectual responses and whatnot and i do declare that he would be a very valuable member of the SNBUN team.
Give that guy a Banner!!
Give that guy a Banner!!
I second that. What should the banner say?
I am taking orders and can customize some later today...
I am taking orders and can customize some later today...
Ooooh Does that mean Im in... *does the Teddy swivvle* Schwiiiiing schwiiiing 
Crikey, have to think of something cool now for the banner....
Teddy.
Crikey, have to think of something cool now for the banner....
Teddy.
Well, it looks like the guys have elected you by popular demand; so welcome aboard Hammys' Teddy! I'm sure Fluffybunny will take care of your banner, but don't forget to think of your official nickname for your profile quote...
Does the urge to hurt saucy after reading his reply in the debates board qualify me?
I think you were qualified a long time ago my man.
But yes, after reading Saucy's posts in the EvC debate, would wouldn't want to turn to the Skeptics!
But yes, after reading Saucy's posts in the EvC debate, would wouldn't want to turn to the Skeptics!
| QUOTE (Falco Rex @ Aug 4 2004, 11:01 PM) |
| but don't forget to think of your official nickname for your profile quote... |
Thanks for the welcome Falco, and the rest of you guys for accepting me....
As for official nickname, hows that over there <<<<<<<
Teddy.
Perfect!
Now you just need a banner.
May i suggest this one until your own offical one is created?
(copy and paste this into your signature IMG thingie)
Now you just need a banner.
May i suggest this one until your own offical one is created?
(copy and paste this into your signature IMG thingie)
| QUOTE |
| http://www.stevevictory.com/banner.gif |
Welcome aboard Hammy's Teddy, I hope you brought some sturdy boots....
| QUOTE (Stellar @ Aug 5 2004, 12:52 AM) |
| Does the urge to hurt saucy after reading his reply in the debates board qualify me? |
yes, yes it does. I do hereby nominate Stellar to become one of our sinister little cabal
How is this:
Where you aiming for ferocious or veracious?
Where you aiming for ferocious or veracious?
| QUOTE (Fluffybunny @ Aug 5 2004, 02:27 AM) |
| How is this: Where you aiming for ferocious or veracious? |
Opps i meant Ferocious,
Thanks for the banner its ace...
Teddy
Hey Fluffy can I have a custom banner? Pretty please?
| QUOTE (Daughter of the Nine Moons @ Aug 4 2004, 06:51 PM) |
| Hey Fluffy can I have a custom banner? Pretty please? |
Is this OK?
what about me
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