Re: Making your mind up

On 4/28/24 8:40 AM, Martin Harran wrote:

On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 16:32:48 -0700, Mark Isaak
<specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
 

On 4/27/24 1:09 AM, Martin Harran wrote:

 [big snip for focus]
 

>
No, my issue is not with science favouring the study of one of them
because it is relatively easy to study it using well-established
practices that have produced good results in other areas; my issue is
science *ruling out* one of them out in principle. To some extent,
that is understandable because of it being so much less amenable to
study using those well-established practices but in the same way as we
figured out gravity, I think we should be able to figure out ways of
studying the effects and symptoms that would come from dualism.

>
As I understand it, lots of people *have* figured out ways to study
effects that would come from dualism, and those effects are not there.

 If there were *lots* of them then it shouldn't be hard for you to give
an example or two.

Dualism implies that brain stimulation should not affect mind (it does), and an organ through which mind influences brain (never found).

Thus we reject dualism not because it is hard to study, but because it
has been studied and found wanting.
>

I get the impression, however, that it goes deeper than just being
difficult to study, there seems to be near-paranoia about opening a
door that might let God in. Take, for example, the early work done by
Rupert Sheldrake. He came up with the idea of 'morphic resonance',
that there is something like a cloud of collective memory that
everything adds to and draws from. He did some research using chickens
and published it in book form. Sir John Maddox viciously attacked the
book in an editorial in Nature, in a statement that caused
considerable jaw-dropping in the scientific ommunity, described it as
"the best candidate for burning there has been for many years."

>
Sheldrake's proposal is quackery. Anyone with more than a passing
familiarity with the many and various forms of quackery does not need to
read past the two words "morphic resonance" to by 99% sure that it is hokum.

 Thank you for providing that perfect example of what I was talking
about.
 The irony in all this is that Sheldrake is a self-declared atheist who
started his work with the aim of finding scientific answers that would
dispel supernatural ideas.
 

>

I don't have an opinion either way on Sheldrakes' ideas and I'm
certainly not seeking to defend them, but what disturbed me was that
Maddox made no scientific attempt to critique his ideas and research,
baldly claiming in a BBC interview that "Sheldrake is putting forward
magic instead of science, and that can be condemned in exactly the
language that the Pope used to condemn Galileo, and for the same
reason. It is heresy."

>
How does one give a scientific critique of magic?

 Who asked for a scientific critique of magic? Certainly not me.
 An explanation of why you think Sheldrake's work was magic and not
science would be useful.
 

If anything can
happen, how do you test for "anything"?
>

'Heresy' is a word that should not have any place in science.

>
Why not? Surely metaphors have a place in science, and "heresy" is
useful as a metaphor.

 Maybe it's something to do with my understanding of science where the
driving force is the effort to find answers to new questions and new
answers to old questions without being hidebound by existing
orthodoxy. Thankfully, there have been some exceptionally successful
scientists who shared that understanding.

This raises the larger issue of pseudoscience as a whole.  It is a humungous field, which includes issues that range from wasting people's time to killing people outright to starting world wars. Scientists are reluctant to most of such issues because (a) they *are* a huge waste of time, and (b) responding is often cited by the crackpots as proof that they are being taken seriously, so they must be right. If the issues get big enough (e.g. homeopathy), then they are worth debunking. But usually not before.
Sheldrake was enough of a scientist to know how to make his case scientifically. He tried to do so. And his case has been unproductive. Some of his studies can't be replicated.  Others are vague.  If he is right, then where are all the telepaths he says exist?
--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell