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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
 Posted - 07/04/2005 : 21:58:58 [Permalink]
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We could also be looking at eroded terminals somewhere along the wiring from the battery to the stereo-system. I recall Storm mentioning the truck started again after some 10-15 minutes? It could simply be a bad connection somewhere, possible a grounding fault. I had that in a stereo in one of my cars some 5 years ago, and it started to behave really funky: suddenly without notice it would stop playing from the CD-exchanger and start playing the radio, then just as suddenly after a random interval start playing the CD again from where it stopped.
I finally found the grounding fault, some soldering and the worked like a charm again. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Paulos23
Skeptic Friend
USA
446 Posts |
Posted - 07/05/2005 : 07:27:00 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Kil
quote:
Ricky:
And I'm sorry for all the times I'm going to do it in the future too.
PC users have settled for quantity over quality. So, whatever...
But quantity has a quality of its own.  |
You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -- Aldous Huxley |
| Edited by - Paulos23 on 07/05/2005 07:30:08 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 07/05/2005 : 10:03:49 [Permalink]
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I hope you are getting the point of most of the above posts, Storm. You must always look for known natural causes first. Explanations beyond what we know exists should not even be considered until all other possibilities are ruled out. That is, if you are truly invested in using science or critical thinking as your guide for exploring the unknown. That's the number one lesson that many of us have tried, (seemingly in vain) to teach you.
That you do not have a particular expertise in electronics does not mean that you get to speculate on solutions to the problem outside of what we know at this time to be natural. Your speculations amount to an argument from ignorance which, if you've been paying any attention at all, you would recognize as a logical fallacy.
And while the explanations offered above may not be as much fun to you as the notion that maybe you caused the thumping with your own mind, or ghosts did it, if your plan is to have any credibility beyond that circle of believers who love extraordinary explanations, you are just going to have to buckle down and bite the bullet. If your plan is to support your speculations scientifically, then you must accept (at least tentatively) what the science suggests. Even if the results of an investigation are not what you would prefer them to be.
If you choose not to be more disciplined as a paranormal investigator and continue to insist on giving equal weight to known natural explanations for apparent anomalies as your much more speculative ponderings, no matter how sexy those ponderings may be, there can be no choice but to view you as just another blathering woo woo. If it's scientific support for your conjecture that you are after, you are obligated to play by the rules of science.
Perhaps it will be you who will expand our knowledge of how we view the natural world. Perhaps it will be you who will demonstrate that our view of the natural world is in need of some revision. But it will not be you if you attempt an end-run around science…
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 07/05/2005 : 10:15:52 [Permalink]
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| Can I get an AMEN!^ |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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ktesibios
SFN Regular
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 07/05/2005 : 16:25:11 [Permalink]
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Kil, that's a mighty nice summing up of what I was hoping to get across.
I think that speculation can play a useful role in trying to understand a set of observations- if it leads you to propose hypotheses which are testable and falsifiable, to work out ways of testing them and to do the work involved in seeing which can be eliminated.
When I look at that audio file and my "I've seen stuff like that before" neurons start clamoring for attention it leads me to spin hypotheses based on known phenomena which could account for the observations. That's speculating- but the suggestions which come from it are specific and testable. The same applies to Dr. Mab being reminded of previous experience with funky connections- speculation, but leading to a testable hypothesis.
Maybe the criterion for deciding which speculations are worth following up on should be to ask "can I think up a way that I could prove that it ain't so?". |
"The Republican agenda is to turn the United States into a third-world shithole." -P.Z.Myers |
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