Michael Larkin
Member
The importance of Tarpley's work is that it gets to the very early history of how the "soul" got ripped out of science, and the rise of the materialistic/physicalistic world view. For example, a big part of what happened around 1710 was that Newton went on a campaign to discredit Leibniz by accusing him of plagiarizing calculus. This causes Leibniz to be ignored pretty much right up to the present. Yes, everyone used his calculus notation, but Leibniz left behind thousands of pages of writing. And most of these were about resolving the mind-body dualism. Had Leibniz caught on back in the 1700s we would not be here at skeptiko rallying against the materialists out there today who think we are just "electric meat". So, I think it is very instructive to study this era and see the early origins that led to people like Searle or the other materialists, who, as I increasingly learn this history, I think are dupes of a scam perpetrated 400 or so years ago. Best wishes, David. -DonI think Alex, Michael and I are well aware of the fact that the science of AGW is a joke! I guess Tarpley's idea fits pretty well.
David
Hi David. The one I would add to the list is the habitation of the American continents prior to the Europeans. This too has a lot of evidence that many races, Nordic, Chinese and possibly even Indian got here in prehistoric times. My understanding is there is controversy in this area too.My impression of modern science, is that while in some areas it is well pinned down by practical considerations of making electronic chips, navigating the earth and solar system, or curing people of serious diseases, in other areas it can drift badly away from the truth, and it doesn't seem to find it easy to correct itself anymore.
Bogus, or overconfident science betrays itself in a number of ways:
1) Proponents of the dominant view call dissenters "Deniers" or "Science deniers", or other Ad Hominems. This is used as an excuse for not debating with such people, or letting them publish in key journals. The crucial point is that these "Deniers" were formally respected members of the science community, or bring some other expert skill - such as statistics - to the problem.
2) The central hypothesis is repeatedly elaborated to cope with new data that is seemingly inconsistent with the supposedly established theory.
3) Proponents cite the fact that most scientists agree with them - which really isn't how normal science works.
My partial list of probable bogus areas of science would include the following:
A) Global Warming.
B) The theory that saturated fat causes high blood cholesterol which in turn causes heart disease/strokes seems false in both associations! The original saturated fat evidence was based on a cherry picked graph. The trick was exposed, but the medical advice persists to this day! Something similar also seems to apply to the supposed harmful effects of salt
C) Haltern Arp (formerly highly respected astronomer) seems to have produced a lot of evidence that not all cosmological red shifts are caused by the Doppler shift, and therefore that they cannot be used to deduce distance.
D) Henry Bauer and other formerly respected medical researchers suspect that HIV does not cause AIDS. Their ideas are quite complex, but imply that huge numbers of people are being poisoned by retrovirals for no reason.
E) Alexander Unzicker has published a book, "The Higgs Fake" that makes a reasonable case that a lot of modern particle physics is false. Despite the fact that he is not a physicist, he seems to have a remarkable knowledge of the subject. There isn't really room in the margin of this post to do him justice - best to read his book!
F) String theory, which has dominated theoretical physics for many years, is now being criticised even by mainstream physicists as being unable to make any testable predictions. The lack of super symmetric particles at the LHC has strengthened these criticisms.
G) The theory of evolution seems to be under much threat (as we have already discussed) and yet it is presented as beyond scientific argument, and its opponents get vilified as non-scientists.
H) The concept that we can confidently see and interpret fluctuations in the microwave background. Indeed even the idea that the microwave background has to have come from a Big Bang seems dubious. This must be particularly so if red shifts can be misleading (point C above).
I) Then there is science's response to ψ.
Feel free to add some of your own!
David
David and Don: I'm enjoying the interchange between you. I'll just throw in the old adage about following the money. In theory, science just seeks to discover the truth. In practice, because of the way science is funded, and the scientific institutions are organised, it's become an elaborate game governed by gatekeepers or gatekeeping principles. The scientists ensnared by the system are either so inured to it that they can't see what it's doing, or if they can see that, are too afraid to raise their heads above the parapet and call it out for what it is. Those brave enough to do so risk everything, including their careers.
Meanwhile, a lot of non-scientists, who still have a mental model of science as a universally noble enterprise (at least in areas that they find conducive to their world views), have a new sacerdotal class and new holy texts they can substitute for priests and the bible. They may be quite unaware that a lot of science these days is driven by mythological narratives. The traditional function of myth is in its right place: but some of the modern myths of science, in being taken as literal truth, are out of place and functioning in a pathological way; and that only happens, in the end, because the bulk of the money goes towards supporting the narratives. Too few seem concerned any longer with the pursuit of truth for its own sake; but I do see a glimmer on the horizon, and I think the Internet is a significant factor in facilitating change.
Don, I liked this:
Yes, there are very complex things the brain is doing that correlate with physical phenomena. To me, the picture is clear enough now that the brain is acting like a radio receiver and consciousness is like the radio wave. The brain is somehow serving as a machine that allows consciousness to be held at this lever of materiality. The sense organs and brain convey information about what happens at this level of materiality into consciousness and there is some process where increasingly finer levels of materiality convert the signal that eventually appears in conscious awareness.
That's been said before, but I think you've said it particularly well. And, I can go along in principle with the idea that there are increasingly finer levels of manifestation of the fundamental "stuff" of the universe. What a pity that we don't seem to have a common word that can connote this "stuff" that doesn't also connote the conventional notion of concrete material. Maybe a neologism like "manifestand" is required. All manifestands could be of the same fundamental nature, just manifest in different ways that are more, or less, perceptible according to the state of consciousness of the percipient.
So linguistically embedded are we, that words like "matter", "physical" and so on come to be reified; to seem utterly concrete and to belong to their own ontological realm. Language is structured around the most common state of conscious awareness, and we are left at at loss to describe what we can perceive in different states of awareness. I appreciate that Yoga might have a lexicon that allows for the expression of that, but as David intimated, it's a big problem in that it's in a different language and comes from a different time and historical setting. It takes considerable effort to familiarise oneself with the terminology, let alone with its intended meaning; and all we have to describe that meaning is the language we're more familiar with. It may be different if one is being taught in person by someone who genuinely knows whereof s/he speaks, because there may be other channels that can be employed in that case, including, who knows, the direct transmission or initiation of different states of consciousness in learners.
A change in state of consciousness may bring the perception of manifestands that aren't usually perceived, and a knowing sense of what they signify and how they relate to ordinary perception; but those can't be described using the ordinary lexicon. It may not even be describable using the lexicon of Yoga or other spiritual traditions unless learners have also experienced what is being referred to.
I'll add that I'm sceptical of the role of psychoactive substances: in a number of traditions, their use is frowned upon or proscribed because it's said the experiences they invoke are counterfeit and misleading. Many people here will have heard that from me before, and indeed we've argued about it in the past, so little point arguing it all over again. But you don't know that's my view, and so won't know that it affects what weight I place on what people say. May as well be up front about it, though.
Opps, sorry Michael, I got confused by all the quotes and closed off my message to you as "David". Hehe, but I meant "Michael". :)David and Don: I'm enjoying the interchange between you. I'll just throw in the old adage about following the money. In theory, science just seeks to discover the truth. In practice, because of the way science is funded, and the scientific institutions are organised, it's become an elaborate game governed by gatekeepers or gatekeeping principles. The scientists ensnared by the system are either so inured to it that they can't see what it's doing, or if they can see that, are too afraid to raise their heads above the parapet and call it out for what it is. Those brave enough to do so risk everything, including their careers.
Meanwhile, a lot of non-scientists, who still have a mental model of science as a universally noble enterprise (at least in areas that they find conducive to their world views), have a new sacerdotal class and new holy texts they can substitute for priests and the bible. They may be quite unaware that a lot of science these days is driven by mythological narratives. The traditional function of myth is in its right place: but some of the modern myths of science, in being taken as literal truth, are out of place and functioning in a pathological way; and that only happens, in the end, because the bulk of the money goes towards supporting the narratives. Too few seem concerned any longer with the pursuit of truth for its own sake; but I do see a glimmer on the horizon, and I think the Internet is a significant factor in facilitating change.
Don, I liked this:
Yes, there are very complex things the brain is doing that correlate with physical phenomena. To me, the picture is clear enough now that the brain is acting like a radio receiver and consciousness is like the radio wave. The brain is somehow serving as a machine that allows consciousness to be held at this lever of materiality. The sense organs and brain convey information about what happens at this level of materiality into consciousness and there is some process where increasingly finer levels of materiality convert the signal that eventually appears in conscious awareness.
That's been said before, but I think you've said it particularly well. And, I can go along in principle with the idea that there are increasingly finer levels of manifestation of the fundamental "stuff" of the universe. What a pity that we don't seem to have a common word that can connote this "stuff" that doesn't also connote the conventional notion of concrete material. Maybe a neologism like "manifestand" is required. All manifestands could be of the same fundamental nature, just manifest in different ways that are more, or less, perceptible according to the state of consciousness of the percipient.
So linguistically embedded are we, that words like "matter", "physical" and so on come to be reified; to seem utterly concrete and to belong to their own ontological realm. Language is structured around the most common state of conscious awareness, and we are left at at loss to describe what we can perceive in different states of awareness. I appreciate that Yoga might have a lexicon that allows for the expression of that, but as David intimated, it's a big problem in that it's in a different language and comes from a different time and historical setting. It takes considerable effort to familiarise oneself with the terminology, let alone with its intended meaning; and all we have to describe that meaning is the language we're more familiar with. It may be different if one is being taught in person by someone who genuinely knows whereof s/he speaks, because there may be other channels that can be employed in that case, including, who knows, the direct transmission or initiation of different states of consciousness in learners.
A change in state of consciousness may bring the perception of manifestands that aren't usually perceived, and a knowing sense of what they signify and how they relate to ordinary perception; but those can't be described using the ordinary lexicon. It may not even be describable using the lexicon of Yoga or other spiritual traditions unless learners have also experienced what is being referred to.
I'll add that I'm sceptical of the role of psychoactive substances: in a number of traditions, their use is frowned upon or proscribed because it's said the experiences they invoke are counterfeit and misleading. Many people here will have heard that from me before, and indeed we've argued about it in the past, so little point arguing it all over again. But you don't know that's my view, and so won't know that it affects what weight I place on what people say. May as well be up front about it, though.
David and Don: I'm enjoying the interchange between you. I'll just throw in the old adage about following the money. In theory, science just seeks to discover the truth. In practice, because of the way science is funded, and the scientific institutions are organised, it's become an elaborate game governed by gatekeepers or gatekeeping principles. The scientists ensnared by the system are either so inured to it that they can't see what it's doing, or if they can see that, are too afraid to raise their heads above the parapet and call it out for what it is. Those brave enough to do so risk everything, including their careers.
Hi DavidWhile money is the biggest factor, I think there are a number of other factors that are ruining science in the modern era.
1) A lot of research is now done by machine. Blood samples, for example, will be analysed by machine, the results may be transferred to a computer automatically, then the 'researcher' presses one or two buttons to obtain a statistical correlation with something else - reported level of exercise, say. While there seems little point in requiring a graduate student to do what a machine can do better, the problem is that researchers don't develop any gut feeling about the various problems that can occur with the various processes he/she is invoking.
2) Fast computers let people try any number of statistical techniques, find one that 'works', and rationalise the choice after the fact.
3) Computer models are particularly dangerous. Every model is in a sense a computer program, and as everyone knows, programs need to be debugged before they work - but how do you debug a huge program once it seems to be giving results that are expected? Models also have zillions of parameters that can be tweaked - they are like the ultimate flexi-curve - ready to fit any data, or to make any desired prediction! Furthermore, the output from a program can look terrifyingly authentic - such as the weather forecast for January 1, 2090!
4) Most people in science find they end up pretending to understand rather more than they really do - I certainly did! That makes them cautious to step out of line and say something controversial even if they believe it. For example, Alexander Unzicker points out how very few particle physicists really know the details of the detectors in particle physics experiments.
5) Researchers are judged on the number of high impact papers they have published - not whether their ideas are holding up well.
David
Thank you, Ian! Done and done! -DonHi Don. You can just hit the "edit" link on your post, then copy the content and post it in the other thread, then come back here and delete this one. :)
Got it, thanks Michael!Don: Just C&P your post over to the Graziano thread and then delete it here. It'll only take you a few seconds.
Yes, people use machines and don't know how they work. That is always a problem. Blood samples is not the best example, because automated blood sampling happens in seconds after getting the blood and prevents all kinds of side reactions and artifacts that can happen when running the assays by hand the old fashioned way. But your point is well taken.
Stepping back a bit further, we can apply the logistic curve to science: it grew exponentially, enjoyed a steady state for a while and is now in a period of decline. Happens to everything after a while. Yay!
Ah, thanks for explaining about the blood...considerably subtler than I was thinking and in the context you convey you are certainly correct.I was actually thinking not of proteins in the blood, but pico-polutants in the blood - such as bisphenol A etc. The concentration of scores of such substances are recorded and correlated against scores of possible medical conditions, and the almost inevitable significant correlation is reported with taking into account the Bonferroni principle which is supposed to correct for the increased probability of a chance correlation if you do multiple correlations in one go - fishing for a result.
I am glad to work in software - at least in that sphere things either work or they don't!
Maybe science can find a new way of working - one that is more closely tied to stuff that works. Imagine a completely new approach where researchers would go out into space and check that the Michelson–Morley experiment really gave a null result even far outside the orbit of Pluto, and would experiment with an ESP experiment in which it was possible to determine whether communication was limited by the speed of light, etc.
My feeling is that science has been way too keen to settle on theories before the dust has really settled, and way too keen to apply 'heroic' statistical methods to data sets that are basically noise. Perhaps it can mend its ways - particularly if there are one or two spectacular crashes (say the earth cools for a decade or two) to sober it up!
David
wow, after all the talk about the AGW, I was worried you didn't have an ecological point of view at all.5. Once the process of exchanging meaning is established, then build cool meaning structures by sharing meanings.
It is a simple thing mediated by what I consider one of the most important phrases: "what do you mean?"
But even though the tool is simple, you can construct unbelievable thought structures. Just as a saw, hammer and nails can get you pretty far building stuff.
What I am saying is I believe it is more effective to even get across one minor meaning to someone than to attempt to convince them wholesale of some specific context or world view. If I can get a Christian to begin to associate the words "God" and "infinity", then the seed has been planted in their mind. At that point you have to trust it to take root and grow, which is their problem, not mine at that point. Again, it is a "Johnny Appleseed" mentality. Toss the seeds out and how they take and grow.
Ok, that is my 2 cents on words. We are supposed to use them. We should not let them use us.
Hi Sciborg,
I enjoy your posts and links a lot... So I guess I am introducing myself here, I suppose. (Hi, Sciborg! I am Doppelgänger, nice2meetya.)
I thought this was a good thread to bring this up, as you are knowledgable in this topic and it was already brought up earlier in the thread. What do you think about the Hindu-Indian caste system and the impact of British colonial-rule on it? I am genuinely curious and I don't know that much, but trying to learn.
I have seen you post about this before but not in the context of the impact of the British on that system. If you did, I missed it.
wow, after all the talk about the AGW, I was worried you didn't have an ecological point of view at all.
People talk of randomness and determinism as if that were the only two. If consciousness is the ground of all being, then we have another. Agency. An agent can choose to initiate a causal chain of deterministic effects. Quite apparent and relevant in light of quantum effects.
It is very important to realise that being anti AGW does not mean that I am anti-ecology, and it presumably doesn't mean that for Don, Michael, or Alex. Once you realise that restricting CO2 is not in any way useful, you start to think of all the harm this policy has done:
Thanks for sharing! I just jumped in and offered Don some aid. Don and I have been in communication for some time. While we come from different starting points, our work is pointed in the same direction. I very much enjoy Frank's site at integral world and have learned a lot from it, but I think there is often an uncritical acceptance of science just because it is science, like for example, Falk citing evolutionary psychology in his critique of Don's article, as if evolutionary psychology is some fool proof position to take. As we have been debating on this forum, there are many weaknesses with Darwinian theory. Its application to brain evolution, while a natural extension of this approach, suffers all the same weaknesses as application of the model to biology in general. So thank you, Sir.In keeping with the topic of yoga & science, specifically in relation to Psi, here's an interesting series of posts by psychologist Don Salmon:
1) THE CHALLENGE OF WRITING ABOUT SRI AUROBINDO'S INTEGRAL PSYCHOLOGY
2) Hysterical skeptical screed against 1)
3) Don's reply -> Inviting Open-Minded Skepticism of the Materialist View. It's actually this last I'd consider most important as it offers a rebuttal of the usual materialist evangelical talking points.