|
|
|
BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 09:25:51 [Permalink]
|
What have double-blind tests proved? Do you live on this planet? Here's the answer in Gary form,
|
"...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 |
 |
|
|
BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 09:27:23 [Permalink]
|
| So you also claim to know what is and is not possible to invent in the future, nice. Go away please. |
"...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 |
|
|
|
H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
 Posted - 08/28/2008 : 09:29:59 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Gary 7.1
It's obvious it can never be done. So why all the horsing around and play acting?
It doesn't mean that psychic stuff is just imagination, though. It's just something that lies beyond the understanding of limited human understanding and beyond the limited measuring parameters of the tools that our limited intelligence can design and manufacture. |
Well, if objective scientific tests are of no value, then what do you use to determine the validity of dousing? Put it this way: You say dousing and psychic phenomena are real. But if dousing were "just imagination," how would you, Gary 7.1, be able to tell?
|
"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
|
|
|
Gary 7.1
Skeptic Friend
51 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 09:30:10 [Permalink]
|
If I suffered under the strange delusion that Pink Elephants exist - could science come to my aid and prove to me that there aren't actually any?
Should I not be more skeptical of science than pink elephants if science was not up to the job? |
|
|
|
Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 09:32:55 [Permalink]
|
Golly; what a bunch of codswallop!
| Please give me some examples of what double-blind tests are capable of proving and more importantly what things have they ever manged to prove? |
A wide bunch of stuff. Double blind refers to an experiment where both the patient and the experimenter are unaware who gets the treatment.
It is very commonly used in scientific experiments.
A very common test is to have two treatment group, one tested with a drug (or food adjuvant or toxin or what have you) and one with a placebo.
If the treated group reacts differently from the control (for example, positively in case of a drug) it strongly suggests that it has an effect.
Double blinding is useful to avoid unconscious bias (for example, in the case of a food additive, feeding more the treatment group unconsciously...)
Any experienced dowser knows that any scientific testing of dowsing would come out negative. Dowsing is a form of communication with the higher consciousness. Pendulums often give false positives and negatives, but this, is an important part of the communication process and there are reasons for it. Under laboratory conditions these false positives cannot be categorized and assessed properly.
More importantly people are offering a million dollars to anyone capable of demonstrating psychic powers under strict laboratory conditions. It's obvious it can never be done. So why all the horsing around and play acting?
It doesn't mean that psychic stuff is just imagination, though. It's just something that lies beyond the understanding of limited human understanding and beyond the limited measuring parameters of the tools that our limited intelligence can design and manufacture. |
No, but in means that we can not differentiate them from imagination and that they can not be reliably applied and, hence, real or not, are just about as useful as it they were, indeed, imagination.
|
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
|
|
|
Gary 7.1
Skeptic Friend
51 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 09:36:16 [Permalink]
|
Well, if objective scientific tests are of no value, then what do you use to determine the validity of dousing?
|
That's just it - what is valid?
Do we just go along with what experts and scientists have decided for us with their limited resources and capabilities or do we develop higher levels of consciousness? |
|
|
|
Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13481 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 09:38:17 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Gary 7.1
Originally posted by Kil
Gary:
What if in the double blind tests the users were not sufficiently competent to use their dowsing instruments - does that disprove dowsing?
The dowsers may had years of dowsing experience behind them, but did they engage in other activities to sensitize their dowsing skills?
Were they even aware of the need to do so? |
It should be pointed out to Gary that the protocols of any scientific test for dowsing were agreed upon by the dowser. And the dowser had the right to reject or alter the test if he felt that what was proposed would not produce positive results. Great latitude is given to the dowsers in the test designs. That is for the obvious reason that the dowser should not have the excuse of accepting a test unfairly weighted against testing his claimed skills. So far, under agreed protocols, all testers have not done better than chance, and often worse.
Because the dowser must agree to the protocols, often helping to design them, any charge that the tests are unfair is just whining. Most dowsers have been very gracious at the time of their failures.
There is also the perception by folks like Gary that the skeptics want the dowser to fail. That is not true. What skeptics seek is empirical evidence that the claim has validity. Many, like myself, would welcome a positive result of a paranormal claim.
How cool would that be?
But Gary can't go there. To admit that the tests have been fair and that so far have ended in failure would blow his perception of us as evildoers standing in the way of progress as he sees it. He has no choice because, unlike us, he is armed with a certainty that makes correction impossible. He is stuck and closed-minded. He is blind to the fact that the very tests that he deplores are an example of our open-mindedness. He doesn't get that we have a willingness to be wrong if that is where the evidence takes us.
We only doubt. Doubt is the motivator of inquiry. Gary is unencumbered with doubt and is therefore unmovable, unreasonable and trapped. Trapped because Gary can only accept evidence that confirms his beliefs. And if the evidence doesn't confirm his beliefs he will yell foul or torture the evidence until it fits.
It's sad, really...
|
Any experienced dowser knows that any scientific testing of dowsing would come out negative. Dowsing is a form of communication with the higher consciousness. Pendulums often give false positives and negatives, but this, is an important part of the communication process and there are reasons for it. Under laboratory conditions these false positives cannot be categorized and assessed properly.
More importantly people are offering a million dollars to anyone capable of demonstrating psychic powers under strict laboratory conditions. It's obvious it can never be done. So why all the horsing around and play acting?
It doesn't mean that psychic stuff is just imagination, though. It's just something that lies beyond limited human comprehension and beyond the limited measuring parameters of the tools that our limited intelligence can design and manufacture.
|
Thanks for making my point. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
|
|
|
Gary 7.1
Skeptic Friend
51 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 09:43:31 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Simon
Golly; what a bunch of codswallop!
| Please give me some examples of what double-blind tests are capable of proving and more importantly what things have they ever manged to prove? |
A wide bunch of stuff. Double blind refers to an experiment where both the patient and the experimenter are unaware who gets the treatment.
It is very commonly used in scientific experiments.
A very common test is to have two treatment group, one tested with a drug (or food adjuvant or toxin or what have you) and one with a placebo.
If the treated group reacts differently from the control (for example, positively in case of a drug) it strongly suggests that it has an effect.
Double blinding is useful to avoid unconscious bias (for example, in the case of a food additive, feeding more the treatment group unconsciously...)
|
A strong suggestion is not proof.
Strong suggestions are used by people with agendas e.g. selling drugs
We are therefore back with so-called scientific data being used for mind control.
As a skeptic I reserve the right to challenge the validity and morality of this. |
|
|
|
Gary 7.1
Skeptic Friend
51 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 09:50:50 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
What have double-blind tests proved?
|
It seem that these tests are designed to sway an argument in a certain direction in order to benefit some interested parties.
They prove that man is capable of both self deception and the deception of others.
Science is just politics then? |
|
|
|
Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 09:59:03 [Permalink]
|
A strong suggestion is not proof.
Strong suggestions are used by people with agendas e.g. selling drugs |
Except, of course, that a strong suggestion is the best you'll ever have. EVER.
Let's get back to the example of the drug.
We have 100 patients affected with, let say the plague.
We want to see if antibiotics work, we give a treatment to half of them and a placebo to the other half.
After a week, the 50 patients that got the antibiotics are cured and the 50 that did not are dead.
Most people would consider it close enough of a proof of the validity of antibiotic treatments.
Except... that it is always possible for some people to be naturally very resistant to the disease. And for some people to be naturally very sensitive (indeed we know it to be the case).
If all the naturally resistant were randomly assigned to the treatment group, and the sensitive to the non-treatment group, it is totally possible to obtain the same results even without the antibiotics being non-efficient, by mere chance.
You could repeat the experiment with 1000 patients, 10,000... You will not totally eliminate the chance of your results being due to a pure coincidence, just reduce the likelihood of that happening to an insignificant level.
That is why Science always deal with theories.
The fact that you apparently fail to grasp this concept suggest to me that you have little understanding as to how science works. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
|
|
|
Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
 Posted - 08/28/2008 : 10:07:44 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Gary 7.1
If I suffered under the strange delusion that Pink Elephants exist - could science come to my aid and prove to me that there aren't actually any?
Should I not be more skeptical of science than pink elephants if science was not up to the job?
|
No.
And yet, if some deluded people was to accost you in the street telling you that pink elephants existed, wouldn't you ask for some positive proof before accepting his say?
This is an example why the objective, commonly accepted truth is a better guide than personal delusions.
Similarly, if you were to suffer under the strange delusion that dowsing works -could science come to your aid and prove to you that it does actually not?
No.
And yet, it is your task to provide us with a positive proof before we accept your say.
*Edited to fix some spelling* |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
| Edited by - Simon on 08/28/2008 10:08:45 |
|
|
|
Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13481 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 10:08:01 [Permalink]
|
Single blind tests are sufficient for testing dowsing. That is, the observers of the test don't know where the targets are located. Control groups are not necessary. The stuff gets buried or hidden by one group and another group observes. That way the dowsers can read no clues off of body language or facial expressions of the observers. Much the same as the dowser would face in the field. Gary keeps claiming that strict scientific testing will foil any test. But in reality, the test is only strict in the sense that one group knows where the items are because they put them there. And that group is not present for the test until it comes to an end and the results are tabulated.
Bottom line is, for the dowser, it should be business as usual.
|
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
|
|
|
Gary 7.1
Skeptic Friend
51 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 10:15:22 [Permalink]
|
There is also the perception by folks like Gary that the skeptics want the dowser to fail. That is not true. What skeptics seek is empirical evidence that the claim has validity. Many, like myself, would welcome a positive result of a paranormal claim.
How cool would that be?
But Gary can't go there. To admit that the tests have been fair and that so far have ended in failure would blow his perception of us as evildoers standing in the way of progress as he sees it. He has no choice because, unlike us, he is armed with a certainty that makes correction impossible. He is stuck and closed-minded. He is blind to the fact that the very tests that he deplores are an example of our open-mindedness. He doesn't get that we have a willingness to be wrong if that is where the evidence takes us.
We only doubt. Doubt is the motivator of inquiry. Gary is unencumbered with doubt and is therefore unmovable, unreasonable and trapped. Trapped because Gary can only accept evidence that confirms his beliefs. And if the evidence doesn't confirm his beliefs he will yell foul or torture the evidence until it fits.
It's sad, really...
|
Nicely written, but aren't you being a bit arrogant making so many assumptions?
The real arrogance is on the part of the testers, who think they have the capability of proving things with their inadequate testing and resources. They must have known nothing would be achieved by this - so who asked for the tests to be done and what was the real purpose behind them? To write a book, sway public opinion or, god forbid, honest scientific inquiry?
It reminds me of those silly myth busting TV shows - but that's all about entertainment, TV ratings and money etc.... and mind control.
|
|
|
|
Gary 7.1
Skeptic Friend
51 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 10:23:46 [Permalink]
|
And yet, if some deluded people was to accost you in the street telling you that pink elephants existed, wouldn't you ask for some positive proof before accepting his say?
This is an example why the objective, commonly accepted truth is a better guide than personal delusions.
|
But is commonly accepted truth really a better guide or is it just all about programming and mind control?
Conspiracy theories suggest the media is constantly lying to us and we are constantly being told things that simply aren't true.
Did George Bush need positive proof to invade a country looking for weapons of mass destruction and did he find any? |
|
|
|
Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13481 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 10:26:59 [Permalink]
|
And Gary, if your claim is that no testing will ever verify this higher reality that you speak of, and you are right about that, why bother us with it? While dowsing is testable, a higher reality is not because it is not a falsifiable claim. It is no different than any God claim. You have your faith. Is that not sufficient for you? Is yours a proselytizing religion? Do you need converts? Why look here?
So far, your arguments fail on every level. Your evidence is all anecdotal just like every other religious faith. Anecdotal evidence fails because humans are easily deluded. And so far, you have provided us with nothing to cause us to think that you are not deluded as well.
Let's face it Gary. You're just pushing another religion.
|
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Shirley Maclaine & Kevin Ryerson
