Out-of-body experiences - proof of afterlife?

[Big Bad Voodoo]

Except that it isn't. Your misunderstanding of evolutionary theory doesn't mean that Bob Marley was "in harmony with today's science".

Fittest dont survive?

Big Bad Voodoo

[Arbitran]

To add. Without philosophy we wouldnt have science.

Big Bad Voodoo

I'm inclined to agree, if only because it appears that science has certain philosophical elements, such as the value of knowledge, etc.

[Arbitran]

Fittest dont survive?

Big Bad Voodoo

I didn't say that. But to say that "only the fittest survive, and all others die", is erroneous. No organism is perfect: the essence of natural selection is that those organisms which are better suited to their environment, and better capable of reproducing, will be more likely to propagate and survive than those individuals which are less keenly adapted.

[Big Bad Voodoo]

And I disagree with Plato. A philosopher ruling a country would be like asking a writer of children's stories to write a thousand-page novel; they might manage to do it, but it's certainly not within their usual expertise.

And how do I know I'm not one of the wrong scientists? Because my research is evidence-based, and validated through peer review and replication. In other words: because other scientists can conduct the same research, and they'll find the same data as I did.

Ah and neuroscientists serves social community? Get real

Their research is evidence based. Did you work in projectarium? And guess what I wrote several scientists. Not one. Meaning they all concluded same thing.

And btw peer review is old-outdated-not working method.

Big Bad Voodoo

I'm inclined to agree, if only because it appears that science has certain philosophical elements, such as the value of knowledge, etc.

And because Logic is brench of philosophy.

Big Bad Voodoo

[Arbitran]

...

I would like to politely ask you to do one thought experiment and that you respond what did you conclude.

Lets say you are floating in void with streched arms and legs and even fingers. Your skin dont touch anything.

Then its total darkness. You cant see anything.

Then its total silence. You can hear anything.

You cant smell anything.

What do you think, in that state, would you be aware that you exist? What you concluded?

Big Bad Voodoo

Again, this is a philosophical question; what is its relevance to this discussion?

[Big Bad Voodoo]

I didn't say that. But to say that "only the fittest survive, and all others die", is erroneous. No organism is perfect: the essence of natural selection is that those organisms which are better suited to their environment, and better capable of reproducing, will be more likely to propagate and survive than those individuals which are less keenly adapted.

You do realize I was joking? Ofcourse Bob and science are different songs. He was musician. But I found amusing discussing with strict scientist(?).

Big Bad Voodoo

[Big Bad Voodoo]

Again, this is a philosophical question; what is its relevance to this discussion?

So what if is philosophical? You mean that your diploma is more valuble then others discipline?

Big Bad Voodoo

[Arbitran]

Ah and neuroscientists serves social community? Get real

Their research is evidence based. Did you work in projectarium? And guess what I wrote several scientists. Not one. Meaning they all concluded same thing.

And btw peer review is old-outdated-not working method.

Big Bad Voodoo

Neuroscientists serve the scientific community by granting us a fully knowledge of the brain and its workings, which has many potential useful applications. Yes, a good scientist's work should always be evidence-based. All this talk of "non-materialist neuroscience" is, as yet, not based in reproducible evidence.

And no, whoever told you that peer review is "outdated" or "not working" told a very, very nasty lie. Peer review is as valid and useful as it ever was: i.e., immensely valid and useful. It's sort of one of the vital components of science, actually.

And because Logic is brench of philosophy.

Big Bad Voodoo

On the contrary: philosophy would be useless without logic. Philosophy is a branch of logic, not the other way around.

[Arbitran]

You do realize I was joking? Ofcourse Bob and science are different songs. He was musician. But I found amusing discussing with strict scientist(?).

Big Bad Voodoo

Unless you specify that you're joking, why should I be presumed to know that you are? I had a hunch you were joking, sure, but then you added that bit about "survival of the fittest" and sounded far more serious than before, so I took the time to answer that seriously.

[Arbitran]

So what if is philosophical? You mean that your diploma is more valuble then others discipline?

Big Bad Voodoo

I'm sorry, I don't even know what you're talking about anymore. I simply asked how your "experiment" was relevant to this discussion; on the face of it, it seemed very off-topic to this thread.

[Big Bad Voodoo]

Neuroscientists serve the scientific community by granting us a fully knowledge of the brain and its workings, which has many potential useful applications. Yes, a good scientist's work should always be evidence-based. All this talk of "non-materialist neuroscience" is, as yet, not based in reproducible evidence.

And no, whoever told you that peer review is "outdated" or "not working" told a very, very nasty lie. Peer review is as valid and useful as it ever was: i.e., immensely valid and useful. It's sort of one of the vital components of science, actually.

On the contrary: philosophy would be useless without logic. Philosophy is a branch of logic, not the other way around.

Wrong about philosophy. Use google. Neuroscientists and doctors cause problems if they have views on world such as yours.

And peer reviewed is out dated and not working method.

Big Bad Voodoo

[Big Bad Voodoo]

I'm sorry, I don't even know what you're talking about anymore. I simply asked how your "experiment" was relevant to this discussion; on the face of it, it seemed very off-topic to this thread.

Not at all. And you know it very well. Thats why are you affraid to participate in it.

Big Bad Voodoo

[Arbitran]

Wrong about philosophy. Use google. Neuroscientists and doctors cause problems if they have views on world such as yours.

And peer reviewed is out dated and not working method.

Big Bad Voodoo

I will clarify as to my previous point, concerning logic and philosophy: they are contingent upon one another. Logic requires principles which are philosophical, but philosophy is meaningless without logical principles. They are mutual.

And what "problems" would a doctor or neuroscientist have in utilizing my research methodology? I use the same standard scientific methodology as they do.

And no, your asserting baselessly that peer review is outdated does not make that true; it is not outdated, by any means.

[Arbitran]

Not at all. And you know it very well. Thats why are you affraid to participate in it.

Big Bad Voodoo

You claim that I'm "afraid" to participate; on the contrary, I simply see no value in participation. The "experiment" you propose has no relevance to our conversation here.

[Big Bad Voodoo]

I will clarify as to my previous point, concerning logic and philosophy: they are contingent upon one another. Logic requires principles which are philosophical, but philosophy is meaningless without logical principles. They are mutual.

And what "problems" would a doctor or neuroscientist have in utilizing my research methodology? I use the same standard scientific methodology as they do.

And no, your asserting baselessly that peer review is outdated does not make that true; it is not outdated, by any means.

I dont know how you classify logic in your country but in my country, as well as in Germany it is brench of philosophy.

What if I proove you that is out dated, old, not working,...almost funny method?

Big Bad Voodoo

[Arbitran]

I dont know how you classify logic in your country but in my country, as well as in Germany it is brench of philosophy.

What if I proove you that is out dated, old, not working,...almost funny method?

Big Bad Voodoo

Go ahead, "prove" it, if you think you can.

[Big Bad Voodoo]

Go ahead, "prove" it, if you think you can.

And what if I proove you? Will your change your mind over scientific community?

No you wouldnt. Because obviously thats all you is. Its your religion. You would rather die. Or Im wrong.

Big Bad Voodoo

Edited August 24, 2013 by Big Bad Voodoo

[Arbitran]

And what if I proove you? Will your change your mind over scientific community?

No you wouldnt. Because obviously thats all you is. You would rather die. Or Im wrong.

Big Bad Voodoo

Let's cross that bridge when we come to it. If we come to it. You still haven't proven anything.

Edited August 24, 2013 by Arbitran

[Big Bad Voodoo]

Let's cross that bridge when we come to it. If we come to it. You still haven't proven anything.

Sure we didnt cross bridge. But I learn something on UM. To not waste time where I dont need so. I want to know what happens if I proove you its out dated and not working method.

So please..

Big Bad Voodoo

[Arbitran]

Sure we didnt cross bridge. But I learn something on UM. To not waste time where I dont need so. I want to know what happens if I proove you its out dated and not working method.

So please..

Big Bad Voodoo

Again, you have to make your proof first. Unless you want to keep dodging it.

(And I know what you're going to say: "No, you're dodging my question." And yes, for now, I am; because it isn't important yet. Because you haven't proven anything yet. You claim proof, so supply it. I of course don't believe you have any such proof. Prove me wrong. Surprise me.)

Edited August 24, 2013 by Arbitran

[Big Bad Voodoo]

You would again claim as you claim now. Thats because you are not true sceptic as I told for some others members here on UM.

To you science is religion.

Or Im wrong?

Big Bad Voodoo

[Big Bad Voodoo]

Thats why I said and still claim that 90% of UM sceptics are not sceptic at all.

And I dont want to waste time on that people.

If is it hard to say to you: "Then I will claim that peer review is not working method." Then you are not scientist niether sceptic. You just have diploma.

Big Bad Voodoo

Edited August 24, 2013 by Big Bad Voodoo

[Arbitran]

You would again claim as you claim now. Thats because you are not true sceptic as I told for some others members here on UM.

To you science is religion.

Or Im wrong?

Big Bad Voodoo

You're absolutely wrong. If you were right, you'd prove it. But instead, you've been disproved at every turn; or, in this case, you don't even bother to give your "proof" at all.

[Arbitran]

Thats why I said and still claim that 90% of UM sceptics are not sceptic at all.

And I dont want to waste time on that people.

If is it hard to say to you: "Then I will claim that peer review is not working method." Then you are not scientist niether sceptic. You just have diploma.

Big Bad Voodoo

You still fail to understand what a skeptic is. If you really had any proof, you'd give it, and we'd all be amazed. But you give nothing. That I elect to spend my time going in philosophical circles with you is my own business. Your excuses are beginning to irritate me.

[Big Bad Voodoo]

I will give proof. But this just prooves me that you are not sceptic at all. Not 1%. And your diploma dont mean you are scientist.

Okay here it goes.

wiki:

Disadvantages

The process tends to be controlled by elites and leads to personal jealousy. Appraisers are critical of the views that are opposite of their own. There is also a bias journals major influence in relation to the impact of the lower magazines. Because of such cases, there is a need for removing the anonymity of the evaluators and the introduction of anonymity.The interposition of editors and reviewers between authors and readers always raises the possibility that the intermediators may serve as gatekeepers. Some sociologists of science argue that peer review makes the ability to publish susceptible to control by elites and to personal jealousy.The peer review process may suppress dissent against "mainstream" theories.Reviewers tend to be especially critical of conclusions that contradict their own views,and lenient towards those that accord with them. At the same time, established scientists are more likely than less established ones to be sought out as referees, particularly by high-prestige journals or publishers. As a result, ideas that harmonize with the established experts' are more likely to see print and to appear in premier journals than are iconoclastic or revolutionary ones, which accords with Thomas Kuhn's well-known observations regarding scientific revolutions.Experts have also argued that invited papers are more valuable to scientific research because papers that undergo the conventional system of peer review may not necessarily feature findings that are actually important

Failures

-Failures of peer review are considered fundamental error within the tested article and royalties fraud. Also appearing and plagiarism and autoplagiarism the same material that the author re-published without quoting his earlier works. The last failure was the peer review appraisers misuse of data from articles that he looked for his own benefit. Peer review in scientific journals assumes that the article reviewed has been honestly written, and the process is not designed to detect fraud.An experiment on peer review with a fictitious manuscript has found that peer reviewers may not detect all errors in a manuscript and the majority of reviewers may not realize the conclusions of the paper is unsupported by the results.

Quotes

Drummond Rennie, deputy editor of Journal of the American Medical Association is an organizer of the International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication, which has been held every four years since 1986. He remarks,

There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too self-serving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print.

Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal The Lancet, has said that

The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability—not the validity—of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.

http://www.eurekaler...u-bse081204.php

British scientists exclude 'maverick' colleagues, says report

Cardiff study shows attitudes differ in UK and Sweden

Scientists in Britain tend to exclude controversial 'maverick' colleagues from their community to ensure they do not gain scientific legitimacy, new research has shown.

A Cardiff University study has found that British scientists' attitudes differ considerably from those of their counterparts in Sweden, when managing dissent.

The research, by Lena Eriksson, a Swedish researcher in the Cardiff School of Social Sciences, has shown that British scientists operated with firm boundaries between 'inside' and 'outside' and believed that controversial scientists needed to be placed outside the community so as to not gain scientific legitimacy.

Swedish scientists were more inclined to ensure that all members 'have their say'. They were more likely to be inclusive, so as not to create adversaries who would threaten the scientific community.

"A good example of this is with new technologies such as Genetically Modified foods," said Dr Eriksson. "The media are often blamed for presenting a misleading image of science, but to some extent, public perception of such scientifically and politically charged issues turns on the way scientists present themselves to the outside world.

"The image of a scientific establishment attacking and punishing individual researchers with contentious results — such as the MMR vaccine controversy - has done little to inspire public trust in science."

Her research centred on a year-long qualitative study, interviewing some 30 scientists in Britain and Sweden, all working with issues regarding genetic modification. It was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), under the Science in Society Programme. The results of the study can be summarised as follows:

• British scientists viewed controversies as events, caused by pre-existing dissenters within the community. The Swedish scientists tended to think of controversies as a process, and of fully-fledged 'mavericks' as the dangerous result of a gradual positioning of disenchanted scientists who ended up attacking a community to which they no longer belonged.
  
• British scientists felt it was crucial to avoid giving scientific legitimacy to scientists that they described as 'mavericks' and that their distancing from the scientific community was therefore necessary. Swedish scientists thought that ousting of dissenting scientists only served to exacerbate problems.
  
• With the exception of university research, mechanisms for control of outgoing material tended to be more elaborate and more strictly followed in Britain, than in Sweden. British scientists also felt that a breach of procedures would have graver consequences, than did their Swedish peers.
  
• British scientists viewed surveying of outgoing material and communication of research as safety mechanisms in place for their own protection, whereas Swedish interviewees to perceive such procedures as a sign of increasing bureaucracy. British scientists felt a greater need for claims to be 'watertight', imagining a potentially hostile response.
  

Suppression Stories

by Brian Martin

http://www.bmartin.c...t/documents/ss/

You can download book on this theme here. For free.

http://www.theguardi...ud-bad-practice

Fraud are threatening science

The Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel was found to have published fabricated data in 30 peer-reviewed papers.

"Outright fraud is somewhat impossible to estimate, because if you're really good at it you wouldn't be detectable," said Simonsohn, a social psychologist. "It's like asking how much of our money is fake money – we only catch the really bad fakers, the good fakers we never catch

http://www.independe...cle.asp?id=1963

It does not work as outsiders seem to think

In following the discussion of global warming and related issues in the press and the blogosphere, I have been struck repeatedly by the assumption or expression of certain beliefs that strike me as highly problematical. Many writers who are not scientists themselves are trading on the prestige of science and the authority of scientists. Reference to “peer-reviewed research” and to an alleged “scientific consensus” are regarded as veritable knock-out blows by many commentators. Yet many of those who make such references appear to me to be more or less ignorant of how science as a form of knowledge-seeking and scientists as individual professionals operate, especially nowadays, when national governments―most notably the U.S. government―play such an overwhelming role in financing scientific research and hence in determining which scientists rise to the top and which fall by the wayside.

I do not pretend to have expertise in climatology or any of the related physical sciences, so nothing I might say about strictly climatological or related physical-scientific matters deserves any weight. However, I have thirty-nine years of professional experience―twenty-six as a university professor, including fifteen at a major research university, and then thirteen as a researcher, writer, and editor―in close contact with scientists of various sorts, including some in the biological and physical sciences and many in the social sciences and demography. I have served as a peer reviewer for more than thirty professional journals and as a reviewer of research proposals for the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and a number of large private foundations. I was the principal investigator of a major NSF-funded research project in the field of demography. So, I think I know something about how the system works.

It does not work as outsiders seem to think.

Peer review, on which lay people place great weight, varies from being an important control, where the editors and the referees are competent and responsible, to being a complete farce, where they are not. As a rule, not surprisingly, the process operates somewhere in the middle, being more than a joke but less than the nearly flawless system of Olympian scrutiny that outsiders imagine it to be. Any journal editor who desires, for whatever reason, to reject a submission can easily do so by choosing referees he knows full well will knock it down; likewise, he can easily obtain favorable referee reports. As I have always counseled young people whose work was rejected, seemingly on improper or insufficient grounds, the system is a crap shoot. Personal vendettas,ideological conflicts, professional jealousies, methodological disagreements, sheer self-promotion, and a great deal of plain incompetence and irresponsibility are no strangers to the scientific world; indeed, that world is rife with these all-too-human attributes. In no event can peer review ensure that research is correct in its procedures or its conclusions. The history of every science is a chronicle of one mistake after another. In some sciences these mistakes are largely weeded out in the course of time; in others they persist for extended periods; and in some sciences, such as economics, actual scientific retrogression may continue for generations under the misguided (but self-serving) belief that it is really progress.

At any given time, consensus may exist about all sorts of matters in a particular science. In retrospect, however, that consensus is often seen to have been mistaken. As recently as the mid-1970s, for example, a scientific consensus existed among climatologists and scientists in related fields that the earth was about to enter a new ice age. Drastic proposals were made, such as exploding hydrogen bombs over the polar icecaps (to melt them) or damming the Bering Strait (to prevent cold Arctic water from entering the Pacific Ocean), to avert this impending disaster. Well-reputed scientists, not just uninformed wackos, made such proposals. How quickly we forget.

Researchers who employ unorthodox methods or theoretical frameworks have great difficulty under modern conditions in getting their findings published in the “best” journals or, at times, in any scientific journal. Scientific innovators or creative eccentrics always strike the great mass of practitioners as nut cases―until their findings become impossible to deny, which often occurs only after one generation’s professional ring-masters have died off. Science is an odd undertaking: everybody strives to make the next breakthrough, yet when someone does, he is often greeted as if he were carrying the ebola virus. Too many people have too much invested in the reigning ideas; for those people an acknowledgment of their own idea’s bankruptcy is tantamount to an admission that they have wasted their lives. Often, perhaps to avoid cognitive dissonance, they never admit that their ideas were wrong. Most important, as a rule, in science as elsewhere, to get along, you must go along.

Research worlds, in their upper reaches, are pretty small. Leading researchers know all the major players and what everybody else is doing. They attend the same conferences, belong to the same societies, send their grad students to be postdocs in the other people’s labs, review one another’s work for the NSF, NIH, or other government funding organizations, and so forth. If you do not belong to this tight fraternity, it will prove very, very difficult for you to gain a hearing for your work, to publish in a “top” journal, to acquire a government grant, to receive an invitation to participate in a scientific-conference panel discussion, or to place your grad students in decent positions. The whole setup is tremendously incestuous; the interconnections are numerous, tight, and close.

In this context, a bright young person needs to display cleverness in applying the prevailing orthodoxy, but it behooves him not to rock the boat by challenging anything fundamental or dear to the hearts of those who constitute the review committees for the NSF, NIH, and other funding organizations. Modern biological and physical science is, overwhelmingly, government-funded science. If your work, for whatever reason, does not appeal to the relevant funding agency’s bureaucrats and academic review committees, you can forget about getting any money to carry out your proposal. Recall the human frailties I mentioned previously; they apply just as much in the funding context as in the publication context. Indeed, these two contexts are themselves tightly linked: if you don’t get funding, you’ll never produce publishable work, and if you don’t land good publications, you won’t continue to receive funding.

When your research implies a “need” for drastic government action to avert a looming disaster or to allay some dire existing problem, government bureaucrats and legislators (can you say “earmarks”?) are more likely to approve it. If the managers at the NSF, NIH, and other government funding agencies gave great amounts of money to scientists whose research implies that no disaster looms or no dire problem now exists or even that although a problem exists, no currently feasible government policy can do anything to solve it without creating greater problems in the process, members of Congress would be much less inclined to throw money at the agency, with all the consequences that an appropriations cutback implies for bureaucratic thriving. No one has to explain all these things to the parties involved; they are not idiots, and they understand how the wheels are greased in their tight little worlds.

Finally, we need to develop a much keener sense of what a scientist is qualified to talk about and what he is not qualified to talk about. Climatologists, for example, are qualified to talk about the science of climatology (though subject to all the intrusions upon pure science I have already mentioned). They are not qualified to say, however, that “we must act now” by imposing government “solutions” of some imagined sort. They are not professionally knowledgeable about what degree of risk is better or worse for people to take; only the individuals who bear the risk can make that decision, because it’s a matter of personal preference, not a matter of science. Climatologists know nothing about cost/benefit considerations; indeed, most mainstream economists themselves are fundamentally misguided about such matters (adopting, for example, procedures and assumptions about the aggregation of individual valuations that lack a sound scientific basis). Climate scientists are the best qualified people to talk about climate science, but they have no qualifications to talk about public policy, law, or individual values, rates of time preference, and degrees of risk aversion. In talking about desirable government action, they give the impression that they are either fools or charlatans, but they keep talking―worst of all, talking to doomsday-seeking journalists―nevertheless.

In this connection, we might well bear in mind that the United Nations (and its committees and the bureaus it oversees) is no more a scientifc organization than the U.S. Congress (and its committees and the bureaus it oversees). When decisions and pronouncements come forth from these political organizations, it makes sense to treat them as essentially political in origin and purpose. Politicians aren’t dumb, either―vicious, yes, but not dumb. One thing they know above everything else is how to stampede masses of people into approving or accepting ill-advised government actions that cost the people dearly in both their standard of living and their liberties in the long run.

Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy at The Independent Institute and Editor of the Institute’s quarterly journal The Independent Review. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, and he has taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College, Seattle University, and the University of Economics, Prague. He has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University and Stanford University, and a fellow for the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation. He is the author of many books.

And my favourite.

Who Reviews the Reviewers?

Sixty-eight percent of the reviewers did not realize that the conclusions of the work were not supported by the results.

Peer reviewers in this study failed to identify two thirds of the major errors in such a manuscript.

http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/9737492

Big Bad Voodoo

Edited August 24, 2013 by Big Bad Voodoo