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@Glow said:
Questioning your understanding of science because your characterization of the aforementioned situation completely ignores the nature of the peer review process does not constitute a No True Scotsman fallacy.
No, but your statement:
The version of science being spoken of here reflects a deep misunderstanding of science and how it functions and what the process entails.
comes pretty close.
As far as my knowledge of science, goes, I am the son of a microbiologist and an organic chemist. I grew up around men and women of science. I was encouraged to study sciences in college, and ended up in anthropology and was employed, for years, on archaeological digs, and labs - excavating, cataloging, reports and even did a buit of work helping with research design and grant proposal.
As far as that anthropologist goes, you'll have to settle for what I offered. It's even more sordid that you imagine, this same anthropologist, withheld important data from my mentor, prevent him from completing his doctoral dissertation. Prior to that the anthopologist in question, tried to block my mentor's admittance to the university's doctoral program, but was foild by an even more famous archaeologist and the department head who threatened the bad guy with no tenure if he didn't relent.
There are many other episodes of corruption and disregard of process. I could damned near write a book. And not just in the social sciences. Hard sciences too. Why do you think I went into software development? I loved archaeology. The science, the discipline, the lure and joy of discovery, the adventure .....
I think it's awesome you had a better experience than I.
@Chaz, fair enough. I didn't intend at all to invalidate your experience. FWIW, I don't doubt that things like that happen. Something you might find an interesting read is Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. The title is a bit inflammatory, but it talks about similar things to the things you mentioned and makes some very important points. And there is also much science out there that is beholden to corporate or institutional agendas. Still, I think science as a system generally works well to provide us with a consistently more and more workable understanding of the natural world.
I see science and religion as siblings, and not as enemies. The literary critic Harold Bloom once posited that the literary canon might be seen as an alternative wisdom tradition. I see science as an alternative wisdom tradition following an separate, though parallel trajectory in humankind's attempts to make sense of this world. I don't put science up on a pedestal and argue that it's perfect or even superior to other traditions.
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HamsakagoosewhispererPolishing the 'just so'Veteran
@Chaz said:
Science doesn't consider all posibilities and can be just as dogmatic as the most old-school religion.
And when it comes to the mind and the brain and any relationship therein, you KNOW it's going to go very hard for a lot of them.
Using electromagnetivity (sic?) to identify brain regions that control speech (like in a tumor removal) or to make a person go unconscious does not mean that the brain is the source of the mind, but I get that is the consensus. When you step back, it is quite a leap and not exactly 'scientific'. There are probably some great arguments for it, but a person would have to accept assumptions a Buddhist would not accept -- and since they are just assumptions . . .
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HamsakagoosewhispererPolishing the 'just so'Veteran
@Glow said:
Who is this Science you speak of? (snip)
The scientific process is the 'science' I thought we were talking about. There is only one scientific process, not a multiplicity of them.
@AldrisTorvalds I have seen sheldrake's work and it had plenty of evidence and data to back up his claims... I'm not familiar with all of his work but his research on things like the paranormal is very intriguing, I saw him at TED and what he presented to back up his theorie's was pretty solid.
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
@Hamsaka said:
Using electromagnetivity (sic?) to identify brain regions that control speech (like in a tumor removal) or to make a person go unconscious does not mean that the brain is the source of the mind, but I get that is the consensus. When you step back, it is quite a leap and not exactly 'scientific'. There are probably some great arguments for it, but a person would have to accept assumptions a Buddhist would not accept -- and since they are just assumptions . . .
@Jeffrey said:
If a scientist hooked your brain up to electrodes and told you were thinking of an elephant, but really you were thinking of a sunset would you believe the doctors and science or would you believe your own experience?
Scientists are not to be trusted.
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Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
edited July 2014
@Woah93 I really can't argue with you. There's a peer-review process to find problems with individual scientists' work, and I think Sheldrake's data and experiments are only compelling before you dig in deeper. That's what other scientists would be doing, not looking at it like "wow this is persuasive, guess it's true!", but "this is persuasive, let's see if it holds up to scrutiny". It's the scrutiny where it fails.
We can't trust an individual scientist, or at least I can't, because I know there are scientists who actually believe Intelligent Design and Young Earth Creationism are scientifically sound theories. I trust the process of Science. I trust peer-review. I trust that they're going to call each other out. It'll take time, but I'm much less wary of the scientific process than of individual scientists or groups with pet theories they would like to be true. Despite the backlash against it by a lot of people, "evolution" still made it... so I'm sure some new breakthrough isn't going to be held back because people don't like it.
I was not familiar with Sheldrake, but just read the Wikipedia article about him. When I find a sentence such as, "Despite the negative reception Sheldrake's ideas have received from the scientific community, they have found support in the New Age movement, such as from New Age guru Deepak Chopra", I become very suspicious of the subject of the article. It appears that he has received critical reviews from some very notable scientists.
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Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
edited July 2014
@vinlyn Yeah Deepak Chopra is where I got the recommendation to read Sheldrake's book. I think woo is attracted to woo.
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
And I don't necessarily discount all of "new Age" "stuff", but the line between it and real science is sometimes very fuzzy.
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Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
edited July 2014
If I'm remembering correctly, Sheldrake had a theory where dogs "knew" when their owners were coming home and would wait for them at the window. He took video, and when later correlating times when the dogs were at the window when the owners were on their way home, even off-routine, it was amazing... it was a huge percentage correlation! Surely that's persuasive? Surely that means the theory is correct? Sheldrake concluded that it was conclusive.
On second look though, it was a case of counting the hits and discounting the misses. The common term is "confirmation bias", and scientists suffer from this too. The dogs would go to the window many times throughout the day, but that data was left out when it came to the analysis and conclusion.
That's bad science. That's the kinda thing peer-review discovers. I may be wrong that it was Sheldrake, but it sounds up his alley. He didn't just have the "one" theory (the resonance thing). He had many pet theories, pun intended. The things he say sound good, but they don't pass muster. I read his whole book, even when I was getting the feeling that he felt disenfranchised by the scientific community, and then I watched video lectures he gave and read other info. This was a couple years ago, which is why I may be misremembering, so please anyone correct me if I'm mistaken.
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Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
I had a dog that knew precisely when my H was coming home. I didn't know why then, I don't know why now, and frankly, I'm quite comfortable with that, as far as it goes.
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Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
edited July 2014
I know of three dogs that know when their owner is coming home, at least when she's not working overtime. Then they seem to be confused (or upset). Two and a half different breeds too (one is a mix).
I don't mind at all if it seems like animals know stuff (they very well may), I only mind when scientists don't do their jobs thoroughly... I fear for the loss of respect that Science would suffer if it let through something that wasn't actually true because they didn't do their due diligence. All Science has is its reputation as a reliable process; if it becomes unreliable, we're all going to be screwed. The world is full of "pseudosciences" already that people believe, before even getting into the paranormal (like psychics).
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
I risk steering the topic off-stream, but there's a difference between my dog and those of this woman;
My ex-H was an Office systems engineer working for IBM; he used to repair photocopiers, typewriters (yes, you read that right) and other IBM-branded office equipment. Sometimes, depending on how his job calls went, he would be home at 4, other times later, anything between 4.30 and seven pm.... no matter when, or what time, 20 minutes before his unspecified arrival home, (before the general spread and use of mobile phones) the dog would go and lie by the front door. Then I knew H was on his way home. And about 5 minutes before the car even appeared in the road (it was a cul-de-sac, and we could see the main road from our window), the dog would run to the couch in front of the window, stand on it, look out, and begin to wag his tail.
Sure-fire way of knowing when to heat dinner up and pop kettle on.... Never failed, ever.
As a dog behaviourist, I know why this lady's dogs behave the way they do, but that's the O/T part, so I'll stop there.
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
@AldrisTorvalds This is what I mean. Such bias. The dogs going to the window all the time wasn't left out at all, he even mentions this numerous times.
I saw the graph and everything is accounted for. The amounts of the animals going to the window when the owners weren't going home was very small compared to when they were.
They drove home at random times with an independent taxi to make sure it wasn't the noise of the car.
This is just one experiment he did, he also performed similar experiments with people using phones guessing who calls out of 4 other participants who randomly received a phone number, and people behind blinds guessing when they were being looked at.
The vast amount of times they performed these things show accurate "guesses" that are pretty much impossible to be attributed to chance or occasional cheats.
Anyway of course you shouldn't believe this based on one individual but I have not seen anyone actually take interest in this and deciding to further research to actually prove him wrong or right, instead they are all arguing and finding details in HIS work which may or may not disprove his points.
I really don't discredit scientists based on reputation by others but what they present and what mr. sheldrake presented seems pretty coherent and solid.
This is a video where he discusses these things btw.
I doubt that you'll see this @Woah93, but you are criticizing science basically because it has bias. This is a universal human trait. You have even showed bias in your discussion here. And so have I. And so have everyone else. To be without bias is to form no opinions.
To say that global warming due to humans has been proven, is to show bias. To say that global warming by humans is a fairy tale, is to show bias. The only safe thing for science to say is that "the preponderance of evidence shows..."
The theory of evolution has not been definitely proven.
In these two examples I have given -- as a person with 2 degrees in the geosciences -- I have a viewpoint. I believe that global warming has been rapidly speeded up due to human factors (and we'd better do something about it). I believe in general in the theory of evolution (though Darwin and others were quite off on some aspects of it). So I have biases.
Why is bias natural? Take anything you observe in a day. For example, yesterday while walking a dog, a rabbit came up fairly close to me. My previous experiences told me that the rabbit was no risk. That was my bias. Yet, in reality, I know of at least one person that was attacked by a wild rabbit and bitten. But, my bias told me -- no problem.
We make judgements (bias-based judgements) all the time. And so do scientists. Some scientist studying cures for cancer can't start from scratch every time. He or she begins from a place based on certain background that seems to be true about cancer. If they couldn't start from some place and move in one direction, they'd start from scratch and have to go off in hundreds of different directions. And yes, even when science comes to certain conclusions, it can sometimes be completely wrong. Example in point: new research shows that when you have a serious heart attack, that tissue may not be "dead: after all, but rather can be rejuvenated through treatment with stem cells. This would completely revolutionize the treatment of heart attacks. So before, scientists weren't wrong, so much as they hadn't fully advanced yet. And now, suddenly, a basic assumption of how heart attack patients should be treated over the long haul has changed as a long-standing bias was debunked. And yet, with everything known up until that point, their early conclusions were reasonable.
@vinlyn said:
I doubt that you'll see this @Woah93, but you are criticizing science basically because it has bias. This is a universal human trait. You have even showed bias in your discussion here. And so have I. And so have everyone else. To be without bias is to form no opinions.
I agree. To have a bias is to essentially make a distinction. We all our have own biases, such as what views we have and what we based those views on.
In Buddhism, for example, some people place higher value on certain textual sources or teachers than others. That's a bias. Some have certain experiences that inform their views. That's also a bias. Having a bias isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, e.g., I have a bias against cult leaders, which I think is a skillful bias.
Instead of eschewing our biases, I think it's better (and more realistic) to try to be open-minded about things while also being as rigorous as possible in forming our biases, making sure that our sources are reliable and that our actions aren't causing harm a la MN 61.
@vinlyn said:
The theory of evolution has not been definitely proven.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a scientific theory is never 'definitely proven'; it stands until proven wrong, and Darwin's theory of evolution has firmly stood for the last 155 years.
That may change; but the evidence thus far strongly supports it (albeit refining certain aspects of it), and nothing has 'disproved' it, making it as close to a 'fact' as science can get (which reminds me of a saying I once read: "Proof is for mathematics and alcohol").
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HamsakagoosewhispererPolishing the 'just so'Veteran
@vinlyn said: I doubt that you'll see this @Woah93, but you are criticizing science basically because it has bias.
I don't know why not, your post was an excellent explanation of bias, now natural and ubiquitous it is, how that to have an opinion about anything makes bias necessary. Maybe I misunderstand you?
Following a bit on your explanation of bias ... "the pot calling the kettle black" ought to be easy enough to recognize in yourself unless one is manufacturing some 'self' out of the misperceived 'differences'. "My thinking is better than science's thinking" or something like that.
The critiques of 'science' I hear or read are generally done by people who can't define 'science' properly. But as Buddhists (or whatever we are), with honesty and as little self-ing as possible, science can be questioned alright but not collapsed into just another belief system (self-ing bias, "I'm a Creationist" bias, "I'm generally uneducated and pissed off at a world that won't do what I want it to, so everything is bullshit" bias).
The example about cardiac tissue NOT being 'dead' after a heart attack is something I didn't know (wondered how stem cells were supposed to work with dead tissue, d'oh!).
Speaking of heart health, red meat and high fat diet weren't found to be detrimental by these researchers . Stuff the average person is clueless about, unless they read scientific journals for their diet tips instead of Women's Magazine :eek:
@Jason said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a scientific theory is never 'definitely proven'; it stands until proven wrong, and Darwin's theory of evolution has firmly stood for the last 155 years. That may change; but the evidence thus far strongly supports it (albeit refining certain aspects of it), and nothing has 'disproved' it, making it as close to 'fact' as science can get.
Yes, exactly, well, almost. I guess it depends on what you mean by "proven". Back in my days of studying invertebrate paleontology, and in particular certain types of Paleozoic corals, trilobites, and brachiopods, certain patterns in evolution were very clear. For example, as most genera evolve, the tendency over time is to become larger and more complex. My bias is that the general concept of evolution has been proved. However, as an excellent National Geographic article points out: "He was right about evolution, that is. He wasn't right about everything. Being a restless explainer, Darwin floated a number of theoretical notions during his long working life, some of which were mistaken and illusory. He was wrong about what causes variation within a species. He was wrong about a famous geologic mystery, the parallel shelves along a Scottish valley called Glen Roy. Most notably, his theory of inheritance—which he labeled pangenesis and cherished despite its poor reception among his biologist colleagues—turned out to be dead wrong. Fortunately for Darwin, the correctness of his most famous good idea stood independent of that particular bad idea. Evolution by natural selection represented Darwin at his best—which is to say, scientific observation and careful thinking at its best." (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0411/feature1/fulltext.html)
So essentially, in terms of the big picture, Darwin was right. But he was wrong in many of the details.
To me, evolution is fact, but I can understand why others still see it as a theory. What I can't understand is that some dismiss the concept entirely.
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
When you consider, however, the plethora of different means at our disposal for testing theories, as opposed to the scant resources available in Darwin's heyday, one can excuse him his mistakes....
Yes, I agree. And I give him even wider latitude since his evolving theory (no pun intended) was truly breaking new ground.
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personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
A pet peeve of mine is the way theory gets thrown around. There is a difference in meaning between a scientific Theory and the common usage of the word. Nevermind the use of Creationist in this picture, its really just the everyday use.
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personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
Regarding Sheldrake, I too have found his research on psychic phenomena convincing. His idea of morphic resonance sounds interesting but lacks any real testable evidence, in fact he tried a few public experiments that failed
@Woah93 said:
I guess I like to believe some things exist until they are proven wrong rather than the other way around. It keeps some sense of wonder in the world
And that is a great way to look at it!
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
Just as "bad". One extreme is cynicism. the other is gullibility.
Catharsis theory was put forward by Freud and there are a good number of therapists who believe it is effective to vent. Indeed, most of the therapists I have spoken too believe venting is an effective way to deal with anger. The research says differently however.
Had to share this awesome quote as it reminded me of this thread
Prof. William James, the eminent instructor at Harvard University: "When from our present advanced standpoint we look back upon the past stages of human thought, whether it be scientific thought or theological thought, we are amazed that a universe which appears to us of so vast and mysterious a complication should ever have seemed to anyone so little and plain a thing. Whether it be Descarte´s world or Newton´s; whether it be that of the materialists of the last century, or that of the Bridgewater treatises of our own, it is always the same to us incredibly perspectiveless and short. Even Lyell´s, Faraday´s, Mill´s and Darwin´s consciousness of there respective subjects are already beginning to put on an infantile and innocent look."
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HamsakagoosewhispererPolishing the 'just so'Veteran
@Woah93 said:
I guess I like to believe some things exist until they are proven wrong rather than the other way around. It keeps some sense of wonder in the world
That is a lot like me . . . I hesitate to use the word 'believe', though. It's more like "I entertain the idea' that certain things exists until they are proven wrong rather than the other way around.
I wouldn't put money on them, I wouldn't make significant life decisions about them, I wouldn't argue or debate another person about them much less try and convince them. They sit there like little eggs in a nest, little possibilities. They may hatch, or not, and if they do, what comes out of the egg may be completely unexpected.
What is harder to do is be ready to change my 'preferences' in the face of evidence to the contrary. I am too willing to go to bat for what I already believe or assume, instead of allow a more factual or logically compelling idea to replace or surpass it. It's a work in progress, for sure.
I think you can be mindful of your biases and correct them. For example I have deep rooted non-intellectual racial prejudice just from living in society. I mentally check my actions to get a handle on my wrong perceptions and fairness and kindness.
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HamsakagoosewhispererPolishing the 'just so'Veteran
It's hard not to, @Jeffrey and the cultural inculcation is so subtle that once you denounce the grosser prejudices what you have left are the subtle ones that pop up and make your face turn red with shame, randomly. I have deep rooted sexist prejudices, deep rooted religious prejudices, presuppositions about how animals experience their worlds, how other human beings experience their world . . . our brains seek patterns and the certainty (thus, safety) they bring. Note our brains seek patterns and make very stupid and illogical conclusions from them, besides seeing patterns where there really are none. In a way, we are constantly in a battle against our own neurobiology. Oh yeah, I think the Buddha mentioned something about this . . .
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HamsakagoosewhispererPolishing the 'just so'Veteran
Oh, I remember you deal with schizophrenia @Jeffrey and wanted to make sure I was clear that everyone's brain, including 'normal' non-suffering-from-whatever-brains, make patterns out of nothing and draw dumb-butt conclusions from them, I was thinking about this is in a completely general way.
One thing to keep in mind is that scientific facts are always in a context. The problem with the media is they take a result of study and spin a web of social context. Laypersons are not scientists. I'm sorry I cannot think of an example. The actual facts can be reduced to measurements. So there are two levels. The scientist is the steward of gleaning meaning from the measurements into an understanding. For that they have built up theories from hypotheses and measurement. But then the task of the reporter is to make a story of the science. For example I read about inorganic complexes that can exist in seven states (quantum?). The grant money comes because of the possibilites dreamed up of making computers with 7 state switches rather than 2 states and computers the size of a drop of water. So then what if the media reported on that? It would be like a lot of articles I see that say 'a cure for cancer' or 'cars powered by water'. Yes I have seen those. I like how they give hope but I am trying to show, probably unsuccessfully, data in a lab get ballooned into a story. The scientist writes an abstract, introduction, results, experimental, and conclusion. This is the time tested way of passing along scientific results in the case of if they write it up. So it is hard to get that translated into what it means for a consumer. And add to that even for scientists to understand things it probably needs to be their field of science, but at least they understand that in general things get distorted going from scientific understanding and the press publishing a story.
"I spent many years trying to distinguish fruitfully between one or more scientific methods, and various methods used by historians, lawyers, medical doctors, people in general, etc. I used to teach courses in history of science, and occasionally philosophy of science for a philosophy department. I was never able to find a convincing set of arguments which showed that the methods of scientists differed in some fundamental way from methods used in other fields. That is, logical reasoning was of the same nature throughout, uses of precedent and past experience were of the same nature, uses of observation, evidence and (when available) experiment were of the same nature, and so on." - Gordon Fisher
Taken from: http://www.dharma-haven.org/science/dispelling-myth-magical-science.htm#Method
..My basic view is that science means using reason and direct experience to arrive at conclusions about truth or reality. I see no reason to think that "method" is restricted to any particular branch of knowledge.
Comments
No, but your statement:
comes pretty close.
As far as my knowledge of science, goes, I am the son of a microbiologist and an organic chemist. I grew up around men and women of science. I was encouraged to study sciences in college, and ended up in anthropology and was employed, for years, on archaeological digs, and labs - excavating, cataloging, reports and even did a buit of work helping with research design and grant proposal.
As far as that anthropologist goes, you'll have to settle for what I offered. It's even more sordid that you imagine, this same anthropologist, withheld important data from my mentor, prevent him from completing his doctoral dissertation. Prior to that the anthopologist in question, tried to block my mentor's admittance to the university's doctoral program, but was foild by an even more famous archaeologist and the department head who threatened the bad guy with no tenure if he didn't relent.
There are many other episodes of corruption and disregard of process. I could damned near write a book. And not just in the social sciences. Hard sciences too. Why do you think I went into software development? I loved archaeology. The science, the discipline, the lure and joy of discovery, the adventure .....
I think it's awesome you had a better experience than I.
@Chaz, fair enough. I didn't intend at all to invalidate your experience. FWIW, I don't doubt that things like that happen. Something you might find an interesting read is Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. The title is a bit inflammatory, but it talks about similar things to the things you mentioned and makes some very important points. And there is also much science out there that is beholden to corporate or institutional agendas. Still, I think science as a system generally works well to provide us with a consistently more and more workable understanding of the natural world.
I see science and religion as siblings, and not as enemies. The literary critic Harold Bloom once posited that the literary canon might be seen as an alternative wisdom tradition. I see science as an alternative wisdom tradition following an separate, though parallel trajectory in humankind's attempts to make sense of this world. I don't put science up on a pedestal and argue that it's perfect or even superior to other traditions.
And when it comes to the mind and the brain and any relationship therein, you KNOW it's going to go very hard for a lot of them.
Using electromagnetivity (sic?) to identify brain regions that control speech (like in a tumor removal) or to make a person go unconscious does not mean that the brain is the source of the mind, but I get that is the consensus. When you step back, it is quite a leap and not exactly 'scientific'. There are probably some great arguments for it, but a person would have to accept assumptions a Buddhist would not accept -- and since they are just assumptions . . .
The scientific process is the 'science' I thought we were talking about. There is only one scientific process, not a multiplicity of them.
@AldrisTorvalds I have seen sheldrake's work and it had plenty of evidence and data to back up his claims... I'm not familiar with all of his work but his research on things like the paranormal is very intriguing, I saw him at TED and what he presented to back up his theorie's was pretty solid.
>
"Electromagnetism".
.
Scientists are not to be trusted.
@Woah93 I really can't argue with you. There's a peer-review process to find problems with individual scientists' work, and I think Sheldrake's data and experiments are only compelling before you dig in deeper. That's what other scientists would be doing, not looking at it like "wow this is persuasive, guess it's true!", but "this is persuasive, let's see if it holds up to scrutiny". It's the scrutiny where it fails.
We can't trust an individual scientist, or at least I can't, because I know there are scientists who actually believe Intelligent Design and Young Earth Creationism are scientifically sound theories. I trust the process of Science. I trust peer-review. I trust that they're going to call each other out. It'll take time, but I'm much less wary of the scientific process than of individual scientists or groups with pet theories they would like to be true. Despite the backlash against it by a lot of people, "evolution" still made it... so I'm sure some new breakthrough isn't going to be held back because people don't like it.
I was not familiar with Sheldrake, but just read the Wikipedia article about him. When I find a sentence such as, "Despite the negative reception Sheldrake's ideas have received from the scientific community, they have found support in the New Age movement, such as from New Age guru Deepak Chopra", I become very suspicious of the subject of the article. It appears that he has received critical reviews from some very notable scientists.
@vinlyn Yeah Deepak Chopra is where I got the recommendation to read Sheldrake's book. I think woo is attracted to woo.
Reminds me of It is time. Woo.
And I don't necessarily discount all of "new Age" "stuff", but the line between it and real science is sometimes very fuzzy.
If I'm remembering correctly, Sheldrake had a theory where dogs "knew" when their owners were coming home and would wait for them at the window. He took video, and when later correlating times when the dogs were at the window when the owners were on their way home, even off-routine, it was amazing... it was a huge percentage correlation! Surely that's persuasive? Surely that means the theory is correct? Sheldrake concluded that it was conclusive.
On second look though, it was a case of counting the hits and discounting the misses. The common term is "confirmation bias", and scientists suffer from this too. The dogs would go to the window many times throughout the day, but that data was left out when it came to the analysis and conclusion.
That's bad science. That's the kinda thing peer-review discovers. I may be wrong that it was Sheldrake, but it sounds up his alley. He didn't just have the "one" theory (the resonance thing). He had many pet theories, pun intended. The things he say sound good, but they don't pass muster. I read his whole book, even when I was getting the feeling that he felt disenfranchised by the scientific community, and then I watched video lectures he gave and read other info. This was a couple years ago, which is why I may be misremembering, so please anyone correct me if I'm mistaken.
Actually I remembered right, just found this: http://www.sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/dogs-that-know-when-their-owners-are-coming-home
I had a dog that knew precisely when my H was coming home. I didn't know why then, I don't know why now, and frankly, I'm quite comfortable with that, as far as it goes.
I know of three dogs that know when their owner is coming home, at least when she's not working overtime. Then they seem to be confused (or upset). Two and a half different breeds too (one is a mix).
I don't mind at all if it seems like animals know stuff (they very well may), I only mind when scientists don't do their jobs thoroughly... I fear for the loss of respect that Science would suffer if it let through something that wasn't actually true because they didn't do their due diligence. All Science has is its reputation as a reliable process; if it becomes unreliable, we're all going to be screwed. The world is full of "pseudosciences" already that people believe, before even getting into the paranormal (like psychics).
I risk steering the topic off-stream, but there's a difference between my dog and those of this woman;
My ex-H was an Office systems engineer working for IBM; he used to repair photocopiers, typewriters (yes, you read that right) and other IBM-branded office equipment. Sometimes, depending on how his job calls went, he would be home at 4, other times later, anything between 4.30 and seven pm.... no matter when, or what time, 20 minutes before his unspecified arrival home, (before the general spread and use of mobile phones) the dog would go and lie by the front door. Then I knew H was on his way home. And about 5 minutes before the car even appeared in the road (it was a cul-de-sac, and we could see the main road from our window), the dog would run to the couch in front of the window, stand on it, look out, and begin to wag his tail.
Sure-fire way of knowing when to heat dinner up and pop kettle on.... Never failed, ever.
As a dog behaviourist, I know why this lady's dogs behave the way they do, but that's the O/T part, so I'll stop there.
Found this:
So... even scientists know that some scientists are bunk....
@AldrisTorvalds This is what I mean. Such bias. The dogs going to the window all the time wasn't left out at all, he even mentions this numerous times.
I saw the graph and everything is accounted for. The amounts of the animals going to the window when the owners weren't going home was very small compared to when they were.
They drove home at random times with an independent taxi to make sure it wasn't the noise of the car.
This is just one experiment he did, he also performed similar experiments with people using phones guessing who calls out of 4 other participants who randomly received a phone number, and people behind blinds guessing when they were being looked at.
The vast amount of times they performed these things show accurate "guesses" that are pretty much impossible to be attributed to chance or occasional cheats.
Anyway of course you shouldn't believe this based on one individual but I have not seen anyone actually take interest in this and deciding to further research to actually prove him wrong or right, instead they are all arguing and finding details in HIS work which may or may not disprove his points.
I really don't discredit scientists based on reputation by others but what they present and what mr. sheldrake presented seems pretty coherent and solid.
This is a video where he discusses these things btw.
I doubt that you'll see this @Woah93, but you are criticizing science basically because it has bias. This is a universal human trait. You have even showed bias in your discussion here. And so have I. And so have everyone else. To be without bias is to form no opinions.
To say that global warming due to humans has been proven, is to show bias. To say that global warming by humans is a fairy tale, is to show bias. The only safe thing for science to say is that "the preponderance of evidence shows..."
The theory of evolution has not been definitely proven.
In these two examples I have given -- as a person with 2 degrees in the geosciences -- I have a viewpoint. I believe that global warming has been rapidly speeded up due to human factors (and we'd better do something about it). I believe in general in the theory of evolution (though Darwin and others were quite off on some aspects of it). So I have biases.
Why is bias natural? Take anything you observe in a day. For example, yesterday while walking a dog, a rabbit came up fairly close to me. My previous experiences told me that the rabbit was no risk. That was my bias. Yet, in reality, I know of at least one person that was attacked by a wild rabbit and bitten. But, my bias told me -- no problem.
We make judgements (bias-based judgements) all the time. And so do scientists. Some scientist studying cures for cancer can't start from scratch every time. He or she begins from a place based on certain background that seems to be true about cancer. If they couldn't start from some place and move in one direction, they'd start from scratch and have to go off in hundreds of different directions. And yes, even when science comes to certain conclusions, it can sometimes be completely wrong. Example in point: new research shows that when you have a serious heart attack, that tissue may not be "dead: after all, but rather can be rejuvenated through treatment with stem cells. This would completely revolutionize the treatment of heart attacks. So before, scientists weren't wrong, so much as they hadn't fully advanced yet. And now, suddenly, a basic assumption of how heart attack patients should be treated over the long haul has changed as a long-standing bias was debunked. And yet, with everything known up until that point, their early conclusions were reasonable.
I agree. To have a bias is to essentially make a distinction. We all our have own biases, such as what views we have and what we based those views on.
In Buddhism, for example, some people place higher value on certain textual sources or teachers than others. That's a bias. Some have certain experiences that inform their views. That's also a bias. Having a bias isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, e.g., I have a bias against cult leaders, which I think is a skillful bias.
Instead of eschewing our biases, I think it's better (and more realistic) to try to be open-minded about things while also being as rigorous as possible in forming our biases, making sure that our sources are reliable and that our actions aren't causing harm a la MN 61.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a scientific theory is never 'definitely proven'; it stands until proven wrong, and Darwin's theory of evolution has firmly stood for the last 155 years.
That may change; but the evidence thus far strongly supports it (albeit refining certain aspects of it), and nothing has 'disproved' it, making it as close to a 'fact' as science can get (which reminds me of a saying I once read: "Proof is for mathematics and alcohol").
I don't know why not, your post was an excellent explanation of bias, now natural and ubiquitous it is, how that to have an opinion about anything makes bias necessary. Maybe I misunderstand you?
Following a bit on your explanation of bias ... "the pot calling the kettle black" ought to be easy enough to recognize in yourself unless one is manufacturing some 'self' out of the misperceived 'differences'. "My thinking is better than science's thinking" or something like that.
The critiques of 'science' I hear or read are generally done by people who can't define 'science' properly. But as Buddhists (or whatever we are), with honesty and as little self-ing as possible, science can be questioned alright but not collapsed into just another belief system (self-ing bias, "I'm a Creationist" bias, "I'm generally uneducated and pissed off at a world that won't do what I want it to, so everything is bullshit" bias).
The example about cardiac tissue NOT being 'dead' after a heart attack is something I didn't know (wondered how stem cells were supposed to work with dead tissue, d'oh!).
Speaking of heart health, red meat and high fat diet weren't found to be detrimental by these researchers . Stuff the average person is clueless about, unless they read scientific journals for their diet tips instead of Women's Magazine :eek:
Yes, exactly, well, almost. I guess it depends on what you mean by "proven". Back in my days of studying invertebrate paleontology, and in particular certain types of Paleozoic corals, trilobites, and brachiopods, certain patterns in evolution were very clear. For example, as most genera evolve, the tendency over time is to become larger and more complex. My bias is that the general concept of evolution has been proved. However, as an excellent National Geographic article points out: "He was right about evolution, that is. He wasn't right about everything. Being a restless explainer, Darwin floated a number of theoretical notions during his long working life, some of which were mistaken and illusory. He was wrong about what causes variation within a species. He was wrong about a famous geologic mystery, the parallel shelves along a Scottish valley called Glen Roy. Most notably, his theory of inheritance—which he labeled pangenesis and cherished despite its poor reception among his biologist colleagues—turned out to be dead wrong. Fortunately for Darwin, the correctness of his most famous good idea stood independent of that particular bad idea. Evolution by natural selection represented Darwin at his best—which is to say, scientific observation and careful thinking at its best." (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0411/feature1/fulltext.html)
So essentially, in terms of the big picture, Darwin was right. But he was wrong in many of the details.
To me, evolution is fact, but I can understand why others still see it as a theory. What I can't understand is that some dismiss the concept entirely.
When you consider, however, the plethora of different means at our disposal for testing theories, as opposed to the scant resources available in Darwin's heyday, one can excuse him his mistakes....
Yes, I agree. And I give him even wider latitude since his evolving theory (no pun intended) was truly breaking new ground.
A pet peeve of mine is the way theory gets thrown around. There is a difference in meaning between a scientific Theory and the common usage of the word. Nevermind the use of Creationist in this picture, its really just the everyday use.
Regarding Sheldrake, I too have found his research on psychic phenomena convincing. His idea of morphic resonance sounds interesting but lacks any real testable evidence, in fact he tried a few public experiments that failed
I guess I like to believe some things exist until they are proven wrong rather than the other way around. It keeps some sense of wonder in the world
And that is a great way to look at it!
Just as "bad". One extreme is cynicism. the other is gullibility.
Sorry it took me so long to answer, I was away.
If you go to page 730 of this study, under conclusion, it lays it out very well.
https://illinois.edu/lb/files/2009/03/26/9293.pdf
Catharsis theory was put forward by Freud and there are a good number of therapists who believe it is effective to vent. Indeed, most of the therapists I have spoken too believe venting is an effective way to deal with anger. The research says differently however.
I'm not gullible, all I'm saying is I put things on the back burner instead of dismissing it with a lot of things, of course there are exceptions lol.
We have a deaf dog who can smell people coming home we think.
Had to share this awesome quote as it reminded me of this thread
Prof. William James, the eminent instructor at Harvard University: "When from our present advanced standpoint we look back upon the past stages of human thought, whether it be scientific thought or theological thought, we are amazed that a universe which appears to us of so vast and mysterious a complication should ever have seemed to anyone so little and plain a thing. Whether it be Descarte´s world or Newton´s; whether it be that of the materialists of the last century, or that of the Bridgewater treatises of our own, it is always the same to us incredibly perspectiveless and short. Even Lyell´s, Faraday´s, Mill´s and Darwin´s consciousness of there respective subjects are already beginning to put on an infantile and innocent look."
That is a lot like me . . . I hesitate to use the word 'believe', though. It's more like "I entertain the idea' that certain things exists until they are proven wrong rather than the other way around.
I wouldn't put money on them, I wouldn't make significant life decisions about them, I wouldn't argue or debate another person about them much less try and convince them. They sit there like little eggs in a nest, little possibilities. They may hatch, or not, and if they do, what comes out of the egg may be completely unexpected.
What is harder to do is be ready to change my 'preferences' in the face of evidence to the contrary. I am too willing to go to bat for what I already believe or assume, instead of allow a more factual or logically compelling idea to replace or surpass it. It's a work in progress, for sure.
I think you can be mindful of your biases and correct them. For example I have deep rooted non-intellectual racial prejudice just from living in society. I mentally check my actions to get a handle on my wrong perceptions and fairness and kindness.
It's hard not to, @Jeffrey and the cultural inculcation is so subtle that once you denounce the grosser prejudices what you have left are the subtle ones that pop up and make your face turn red with shame, randomly. I have deep rooted sexist prejudices, deep rooted religious prejudices, presuppositions about how animals experience their worlds, how other human beings experience their world . . . our brains seek patterns and the certainty (thus, safety) they bring. Note our brains seek patterns and make very stupid and illogical conclusions from them, besides seeing patterns where there really are none. In a way, we are constantly in a battle against our own neurobiology. Oh yeah, I think the Buddha mentioned something about this . . .
Oh, I remember you deal with schizophrenia @Jeffrey and wanted to make sure I was clear that everyone's brain, including 'normal' non-suffering-from-whatever-brains, make patterns out of nothing and draw dumb-butt conclusions from them, I was thinking about this is in a completely general way.
One thing to keep in mind is that scientific facts are always in a context. The problem with the media is they take a result of study and spin a web of social context. Laypersons are not scientists. I'm sorry I cannot think of an example. The actual facts can be reduced to measurements. So there are two levels. The scientist is the steward of gleaning meaning from the measurements into an understanding. For that they have built up theories from hypotheses and measurement. But then the task of the reporter is to make a story of the science. For example I read about inorganic complexes that can exist in seven states (quantum?). The grant money comes because of the possibilites dreamed up of making computers with 7 state switches rather than 2 states and computers the size of a drop of water. So then what if the media reported on that? It would be like a lot of articles I see that say 'a cure for cancer' or 'cars powered by water'. Yes I have seen those. I like how they give hope but I am trying to show, probably unsuccessfully, data in a lab get ballooned into a story. The scientist writes an abstract, introduction, results, experimental, and conclusion. This is the time tested way of passing along scientific results in the case of if they write it up. So it is hard to get that translated into what it means for a consumer. And add to that even for scientists to understand things it probably needs to be their field of science, but at least they understand that in general things get distorted going from scientific understanding and the press publishing a story.
"I spent many years trying to distinguish fruitfully between one or more scientific methods, and various methods used by historians, lawyers, medical doctors, people in general, etc. I used to teach courses in history of science, and occasionally philosophy of science for a philosophy department. I was never able to find a convincing set of arguments which showed that the methods of scientists differed in some fundamental way from methods used in other fields. That is, logical reasoning was of the same nature throughout, uses of precedent and past experience were of the same nature, uses of observation, evidence and (when available) experiment were of the same nature, and so on." - Gordon Fisher
Taken from: http://www.dharma-haven.org/science/dispelling-myth-magical-science.htm#Method
..My basic view is that science means using reason and direct experience to arrive at conclusions about truth or reality. I see no reason to think that "method" is restricted to any particular branch of knowledge.