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Michael Shermer: Often wrong |
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| Sep6-05, 12:13 PM | #1 |
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Michael Shermer: Often wrong
I like Shermer but some of things he says are silly. In fact he often misrepresents issues in order to make his point, which really makes him a debunker with a bias rather than skeptic.
Here is a good example of something I just caught on the History Channel's History's Mysteries. The show was about superstitions, but Shermer uses a poll from the early nineties which indicates that something like 66% of all people in the US believe that they've had a psychic experience. Well, first of all, this is not a superstition. It is a belief based on an experience. The definition of superstition is "an irrational belief arising from ignorance or fear". Now, one might argue that it is irrational to believe that anyone ever has psychic experiences, but this is a statement of faith that, in this case, denies about 200 million claims based on nothing more than Shermer's personal opinion. He then continued to describe how dangerous superstitions are by referencing cults that have committed mass suicide. So here is my question to Mr. Shermer: Of all of the people who have superstitious beliefs, how many commit suicide due to those beliefs? It sounds to me like Mr. Shermer is a little superstitious. |
| Sep6-05, 02:31 PM | #2 |
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The fact is that, after more then a century of research, no conclusive experiment was performed that confirms the reality of psychic experiences. To believe in something with no evidence is either religion (if it is your belief) or superstition (if it is other people´s beliefs). |
| Sep6-05, 04:10 PM | #3 |
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If something exists which is random, or seemingly so, not reproducible by its very nature, or at least not for now, but still we find hundreds of millions [and really billions if we consider all people alive today] of people who in many cases tell compelling accounts that deny pedestrian and prosaic explanations, science has very little to say about it other than it can't be quantified as yet. To ignore hundreds of millions of testimonials is ludicrous. Edit: And note also that we don't have to accept any particular belief in order to consider the claims. But to outright deny all claims is outrageous. This is not science or skepticism, this is a faith based reaction by those who don't want to believe that it could be true. |
| Sep6-05, 05:40 PM | #4 |
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Michael Shermer: Often wrong |
| Sep6-05, 06:28 PM | #5 |
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I've had many an instance where I was thinking about someone and the phone rings and it's them, which it is very hard not to attribute to something like telepathy, but, really, it could have just been coincidence. I don't actually hear "hundreds of millions" of "testimonies", either. I hear the occasional anecdote, some more convincing than others, none of which is checkable. SGT is right. The number of claims in a case like this is irrelevant. I would, indeed, prefer 20 really solid reports to hundreds of millions of stories that could be people overreacting to coincidences and other stuff. |
| Sep6-05, 06:33 PM | #6 |
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Name one person who claims to have a belief that is not based on an 'experience.' |
| Sep6-05, 11:00 PM | #7 |
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| Sep6-05, 11:08 PM | #8 |
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Most scientists will tell you that anecdotal evidence is the lowest form of evidence in Science. But, as is unavoidably implied, it is still evidence. So then we consider how much evidence we have. It seems that if we could interview everyone in the world, the answer is that we have billions of testimonials. Here in the US, hundreds of millions.
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| Sep6-05, 11:32 PM | #9 |
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| Sep6-05, 11:40 PM | #10 |
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I think all sorts of people believe all kinds of crazy things for no reason whatsoever other than because someone said so. |
| Sep7-05, 01:17 AM | #11 |
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I agree with what you're saying, Ivan and personally, I would really like to see more scientific exploration of potential psychic phenomena. Singularity of consciousness seems to be more of an assumption of science rather than a demonstrated fact. If things like ESP existed, it might have consequences for our interpretation of relativity and quantum mechanics.
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| Sep7-05, 03:22 AM | #12 |
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I believe James Randi is willing to offer a “one-million dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event.” I would say that Michael Shermer has every right to dismiss 200 million people who claim to posses psychic abilities.
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| Sep7-05, 04:19 AM | #13 |
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Or take Galileo: his one good claim that objects of different weight fall at the same rate backed by evidence, overturned thousands of other claims that heavier objects fall faster. I realize you're not trying to prove psychic phenomena, but you're wrong about the weight that should be given to the number of claims in a case like this. |
| Sep7-05, 10:48 PM | #14 |
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------- Late Edits -------- |
| Sep7-05, 10:51 PM | #15 |
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I wish some of you people would learn to read before posting. |
| Sep7-05, 10:56 PM | #16 |
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Another common tactic of the debunkers is to misquote anyone they disagree with. That way we get to argue all day long about something that was never said.
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| Sep7-05, 11:39 PM | #17 |
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Without arguing for or against the existence of psychic phenomena, SGT and I are just pointing out that the number of claims do not make it more possible. You are claiming that the more people who say they've had it, the more foolish it is for anyone to ignore it. That's not correct. As vast pointed out, it is quite faddish to believe in psychic stuff and there is, in fact, an industry fostering belief in it, so, in this case, the number of reports is irrelevant. |
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