tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post1882929422218553848..comments2024-03-18T09:58:09.828-04:00Comments on <center>Sandwalk</center>: Denyse O'Leary: Catholics & EvolutionLarry Moranhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comBlogger141125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-56132785291504459452012-06-05T11:48:47.567-04:002012-06-05T11:48:47.567-04:00SETI Finds No Signs of E.T. Nearby
http://www.tec...SETI Finds No Signs of E.T. Nearby<br /><br />http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428038/seti-finds-no-signs-of-et-nearby/The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-28201638428232555112012-06-04T07:21:42.125-04:002012-06-04T07:21:42.125-04:00SLC, having looked a bit more into your Bob Parks,...SLC, having looked a bit more into your Bob Parks, it would seem that he's of the unusual opinion that there is "other life" and that it stays home and doesn't want to make contact with "other life". If that's the case, not having read his book, I'd guess he'd be likely to see SETI and the such as being folly. Has he ever expressed his skepticism on the topic of exo-bio as science? It would seem, considering the distances involved and the time factor, that he'd be at least as skeptical of that as I am.The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-70477547325460861752012-06-03T18:14:40.399-04:002012-06-03T18:14:40.399-04:00If "practically the answer is no" then w...If "practically the answer is no" then why would you think that a microbalance would give a definitive test of the kind of phenomenon Radin demonstrated in the double slit experiment? If "theoretically the answer is yes" then the experiments in Radin et al's paper aren't outrageously. <br /><br />So, how about entanglement at a macro level? <br /><br />"Relative to exo-life, what Mr. McCarthy proposes is what is known as a catch 22 situation. He opposes the government funding exo-life explorations until some evidence is produced that such exists but we can't produce such evidence until our instrumentation is improved which can't be done without spending money." <br /><br />1. I don't recall opposing government funding "exo-life explorations until some evidence is produced". Where did I say that? As always, with pseudo-skeptics, I'll have to insist on actual quotes with links because I'm skeptical of the ethics of name callers. <br />2. What I said was that until an example of "exo-life" is found then you can't study "exo-life", what you're studying is speculation which may, somewhere in the universe, correspond to something but there isn't any way to know that. In other words, you can't know if you're finding reliable information about the universe, science, or if you're just producing science fiction.<br />3. "catch 22". Actually, what you've described is Ray Hyman's never to be met requirement for PSI research.<br /><br /><i> In addition to a community of shared concerns and paradigms with respect to a given problem, the observations must be made with standardized and proven procedures, the observers and their instruments must be reliable, the data must be reported according to conventional categories and attributes, and the settings and tasks must be ones in widespread use or ones that have gone through preliminary checks and standardization. In addition, especially if the reported results are anomalous or at variance with current theories and presuppositions, they must be systematically studied under a wide variety of conditions, and they should be repeatable by investigators in independent laboratories. </i> <br />(Hyman, 1981, p. 136) <br /><br />Child (1987) commented:<br /><i> This is a very fine statement of what might be theoretically desirable. In practice, it seems to offer a recipe for guaranteeing that anomalies will never be studied. For it prescribes that no one in the scientific world should pursue the study of an anomaly until a large number of scientists have already pursued it at great expense. The preliminary work required by this statement of principles might well require many times the budget of all the existing parapsychology laboratories and many times the number of trained scientists ever to have worked on the problem of psi. But none of these scientists should start working on the problem until after the large-scale preliminary work has been completed. This seems to be a Catch-22 statement of principles. (p. 223) </i><br /><br />http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/HymanReview.htm<br /><br />So, it seems you've mixed me up with Ray Hyman. As I said, if you or Dean Radin has got the evidence to study, I've got no problem with studying it. Without that, you've got no evidence to study.The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-80224142252746683412012-06-03T17:51:04.230-04:002012-06-03T17:51:04.230-04:00Apparently the file-drawer effect that Langmuir se...Apparently the file-drawer effect that Langmuir seems to imply Rhine was guilty of has also also analyzed in relation to his work. I saw two figures, one is that it would have taken 428,000 unpublished studies averaging no better than chance to negate the results of the 188 experiments Rhine described in 1940. A more conservative method of analysis, though, puts the number at a mere 9,800 studies averaging no better than chance, or 52 unpublished studies for every one published. It's just about impossible to believe that that many unpublished studies exist, if you don't understand that. <br /><br />http://tinyurl.com/838qo54The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-18673210901922298102012-06-03T17:37:54.635-04:002012-06-03T17:37:54.635-04:00SLC, it's been raining here for a while so I h...SLC, it's been raining here for a while so I had a few minutes to look up whether or not Rhine ever responded to Langmuir and found this:<br /><br />" Famed scientist Irving Langmuir, awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1932, devoted most of one day attempting to prove to Rhine that ESP was a myth and Rhine ’s methodology ridiculously inept and inadequate. What had aroused Langmuir was the behaviour of a nephew at M.I.T., who read Rhine ’s first book, Extra-Sensory Perception, and immediately plunged into his own ESP experiments, which gave positive results. In vain Langmuir tried to ridicule the nephew into quitting, then predicted that if he persisted in the tests he would eventually and inevitably get chance results. After telling Rhine of the foolish nephew, Langmuir concentrated on the foolish Rhine . First he gave Rhine a long list of definitions of science and of nonscience. Then he described one of Rhine ’s experiments and said that every single approach he had defined as “nonscientific” was manifest in that experiment. “True,” Rhine replied to Langmuir. “If I had done the experiment the way you’ve described it, I’d agree with you that it was nonscientific. But you haven’t read my account. I didn’t do it the way you’ve described.”<br />The Enchanted Voyager' 1982 - Denis Brian<br /><br />I haven't read the book but it would seem the habit of having strong opinions of things that haven't been read, on full display all over this comment thread, was shared by Langmuir. <br /><br />Apparently after your boys revived the incomplete tape of Langmuir's talk you depend on, after Rhine was dead, his daughter also responded to it.<br /><br />"We can vigorously point to arguments that data were not selected even back in the early 30's when experimental methods were not as sophisticated as they are today."<br /><br />http://zetetique.canalblog.com/archives/2007/10/index.html<br /><br />The rest of the post is interesting but you'll have to read French to read it.The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-13675301132299131052012-06-03T17:33:59.943-04:002012-06-03T17:33:59.943-04:00Re Anthony McCarthy
So, does Park or do you belie...Re Anthony McCarthy<br /><br /><i>So, does Park or do you believe that any phenomena that are observed at the scale of matter relevant to the double slit experiments in Radin's paper would have to have demonstrable effects on larger scales in order to actually exist? Why don't you answer that question as I've already said I haven't considered the question you asked. I'd assume you would believe that in order for your question to be relevant,</i><br /><br />Theoretically, the answer is yes. Practically, the answer is no. Thus, as an example, one can solve Schrodinger's equation for, say, the Sun/Earth system, replacing the universal gravitational constant with the permittivity of the vacuum, and the charge on the proton/electron with the masses of the Sun and the Earth. One doesn't need to do any work, the solution will be the same as for the hydrogen atom, with Legendre polynomials for the axial part and Laguerre functions for the radial part, which will yield quantized energy levels and quantized angular momentum. However, the energy and angular momentum levels are so close together that, as a practical matter, they are indistinguishable from a continuum. In addition the lifetimes of the excited states are many orders of magnitude larger then the age of the universe.<br /><br />Another example would be throwing golf balls at a picket fence. In theory, there would be interference and diffraction patterns observed behind the fence, assuming the separation of the pickets was much larger then the size of the golf balls. As a practical matter, this would be impossible to observe. <br /><br />Relative to exo-life, what Mr. McCarthy proposes is what is known as a catch 22 situation. He opposes the government funding exo-life explorations until some evidence is produced that such exists but we can't produce such evidence until our instrumentation is improved which can't be done without spending money.SLCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-83235723709471060162012-06-03T14:57:05.547-04:002012-06-03T14:57:05.547-04:00You see, SLC, I don't feel it's necessary ...You see, SLC, I don't feel it's necessary to call names in discussing these issues, preferring to rely on other things like citations and reason. <br /><br />So, does Park or do you believe that any phenomena that are observed at the scale of matter relevant to the double slit experiments in Radin's paper would have to have demonstrable effects on larger scales in order to actually exist? Why don't you answer that question as I've already said I haven't considered the question you asked. I'd assume you would believe that in order for your question to be relevant. <br /><br />I know full well why you don't want to answer the question, which is why I asked it. <br /><br />I don't find any link in your last sentence. Maybe you'd like to ask "Denny" my question, which is the same one I have of any assertions about exo-biology, how do you know without any evidence to go on? But, then, you see, I'm old fashioned enough to think that you need evidence to actually obtain reliable information with science. That used to be something that materialists used to claim to believe, though, as can be seen in that list I give above, only when it suits their ideological purpose. They're just as willing to go evidence-free when they imagine they can further their ideological purposes and that pesky need for evidence gets in the way.The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-22149137990278030042012-06-03T14:40:59.844-04:002012-06-03T14:40:59.844-04:00It really gets tiresome attempting to have a discu...It really gets tiresome attempting to have a discussion with a numbskull like Mr. McCarthy but I'll ask again, how does Mr. McCarthy expect us to find evidence of exo-life if we don't spend any funds to improve our instrumentation, given that what we currently have is inadequate? <br /><br />In other words, PK is so weak that the microbalance experiment proposed by Prof. Park can't measure it. It only manifests itself on the atomic level where it lies hidden barely out of the noise level.<br /><br />And for the information of Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Denny produced his comments on a thread on <b>this</b> blog.SLCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-25625807776032159412012-06-03T13:13:07.338-04:002012-06-03T13:13:07.338-04:00Mr. McCarthy would be 200% in favor of "exo-l...Mr. McCarthy would be 200% in favor of "exo-life research" if there was the first evidence of such life available to be subjected to the normal methods of science. Which blog does "Denny" comment on? I'd like to ask him how the blazes he knows what he's asserting any more than the most febrile exobiological groupie believes they know about it.<br /><br />I never expressed myself on the topic of "exo-planets" in the 1990s, the 1980s, or any other decade going back to the 1940s. I believe that since about the age of seven I'd have assumed the existence of planets around other stars was probable. As of today identifying the existence of other planets would seem to be far easier than identifying the exitence of "other life". Are you asserting that's not the case, SLC? On what basis?<br /><br />I have expressed no opinion about the "use of a microbalance to attempt to measure the force of PK", having been engaged too much in the refutation of ideologically motivated historical falsification to have thought a lot about it this week. Does Park assert that a microbalance would be required to measure any force in nature that is able to have an effect at the level in the double split experiment? Does he believe that all phenomena documented at that level of matter is manifested on a larger scale? Does SLC?The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-49098876743737302402012-06-03T12:30:41.216-04:002012-06-03T12:30:41.216-04:00So Mr. McCarthy, have you written to NASA demandin...So Mr. McCarthy, have you written to NASA demanding that they forthwith cease and desist funding any and all research into exobiology, since according to you it's not science? Have you written to your congress-critters and senators demanding that they vote to zero out all research on exobiology? <br /><br />IMHO, the reason why ex-life has not yet been found is because our current technology is not capable of finding it. How does Mr. McCarthy expect us to obtain evidence for exo-life if all research is defunded and more advanced instrumentation is not developed? <br /><br />The real reason why Mr. McCarthy is against exo-life research is the same reason he doesn't want researchers to use a microbalance to attempt to measure the force of PK. He's afraid we might find it, just as he's afraid that the microbalance will find no measurable force of PK.<br /><br />I and others on this blog have engaged in extensive discussion and debate on another thread on this blog with a moron calling himself Denny who insists that the only life in the universe is on this planet and I really see little other then heat to be generated by continuing that discussion on this thread.<br /><br />Relative to the discussion between Mayr and Sagan in the mid nineties, the Anthony McCarthys of the world would have argued at that time that there was no evidence of the existence of exo-planets and hence some evidence should be found before spending resources on finding them. We can see how that would have worked out.SLCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-90322529496446176752012-06-03T11:40:07.260-04:002012-06-03T11:40:07.260-04:00How is noting that your "essay" isn'...How is noting that your "essay" isn't an essay but a sloppy transcript of a talk and that it presents a decades old conversation in the form of attributed quotes a "smear"? Oh, I'm forgetting the pseudo-skeptical rule that they get to do things like that by virtue of their greater sciencyness. <br /><br />As I said, the humanities have somewhat higher standards for those kinds of things. At least they try to.The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-60451753915708180592012-06-03T11:37:11.269-04:002012-06-03T11:37:11.269-04:00As for what you say about Linus Pauling, you might...As for what you say about Linus Pauling, you might want to word search the list of his publications using the term "ascorbic".<br /><br />http://www.girinst.org/~zeke/test.bit.pdf<br /><br />Note where he and his colleagues published and compare the record of Sagan's Amniotic Universe and the record of Kurtz, Abell, Zelen, Klass, Randi, et all, re the sTARBABY scandal to see who was working within the normal methods of science. Which is all I said about Pauling's vitamin C activity. Research is always being refuted within the normal practices of science, that's not unusual, unlike what Sagan and the CSICOPs were up to in their one and only "scientific" investigation. Sagan, not to mention Hyman, didn't exactly cover himself with glory in that one, either.The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-13410324154350895602012-06-03T11:33:18.328-04:002012-06-03T11:33:18.328-04:00As could have been predicted, Mr. McCarthy adds La...As could have been predicted, Mr. McCarthy adds Langmuir to his list of smearees. By the way, what objection does Mr. McCarthy have to Prof. Park's suggestion of using a microbalance to measure the force exerted by PK?SLCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-60424376453693226822012-06-03T11:26:30.414-04:002012-06-03T11:26:30.414-04:00Where's the first example of "other life&...Where's the first example of "other life" for the "SCIENCE" of exo-biology to study? <br /><br />I'm not about to accept any alleged science that doesn't have even one example of what it purports to study available to subject to the methods of science. Sagan vs. Mayr is a bit premature as not a single example of "other life" is known, never mind what that life is like, never mind that we don't know if, perhaps, life on Earth is the only life that exists anywhere in the universe. Even finding Martian squigglies would give us a grand total of two, perhaps, independent lines of life in what may well be a mindbogglingly stupendous number of possible venues. <br /><br />Wittgenstein famously said, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." but, then, he didn't take into account PhDs on the make and their ability to substitute repute and authority for having, you know, ANY EVIDENCE before they get funded. You don't know how funny it is to get told all the time that you guys are all about evidence in the face of this kind of thing but it's highly risible at times like this.The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-30848086672286802412012-06-03T11:16:24.942-04:002012-06-03T11:16:24.942-04:00SLC, I'll see if this third attempt to post a ...SLC, I'll see if this third attempt to post a comment on your Langmuir "essay" goes through.<br /><br />I say "essay" in quotes because what you link to is apparently a transcript of a talk, apparently an incomplete transcript as it contains this ellipsis (A section of the speech is missing at this point. It evidently described some tests that gave scores below <br />5. ). Well, maybe that's what's missing and maybe not, which points out only one of the problems with it as evidence of anything except, perhaps, Langmuir's predisposition. It contains what are, apparently, purported to be quotes from Rhine reported decades after Langmuir says he talked with him and, apparently, third-hand content from his nephew. <br /><br />Do you know if Rhine ever responded to what he's alleged to have said? As the conversation is reported to have happened about 1934, do you know if what was alleged is reflected in Rhine's published work before or after that date? I wonder what the statisticians who said that Rhine's mathematical methodology was sound after that date would have made of it. Here's what someone else had to say about that.<br /><br /><i> Between 1934 and 1940, a flurry of critical articles appeared, mainly in the psychological literature, that challenged the evaluative methods and experimental conditions used in the card-guessing ESP studies. All the major counterhypotheses that have been raised against ESP were aired during this period. Critical attention initially focused on the mathematics of evaluation used to assess statistical significance (Kellogg, 1936). These criticisms were later withdrawn (Kellogg, 1940) after a number of mathematicians - including the president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Burton H. Camp - approved the evaluative techniques. </i><br /><br />continuing on<br /><br /><i> By 1940 the active methodological controversy over ESP research methodology had subsided considerably but not completely (Diaconis, 1978). For the most part, recent critical attacks (Price, 1955; Hansel, 1966) have accepted the statistical and methodological adequacy of the better-controlled ESP studies but have focused on the possibility of dismissing even these studies by assuming the incompetence or dishonesty of the principal investigators. Although providing no evidence to support allegations of investigator fraud, these critics reason on a priori grounds that any explanation, regardless of how unlikely it seems to be, is mole likely than ESP. Such extreme charges are not uncommon in the history of science. The extent to which normal science protects its favored doctrines and theories from anomalous data has been well documented (Kuhn, 1962). However, Price retracted his allegations in an apology to Rhine and Soal (Price,1972). </i><br /><br />A. Freedman and H. Kaplan ed. The Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, Volume 3, Third Edition, Chapter 56, Section 15, pp. 3235-3245, 1980.The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-48554000904107295372012-06-03T10:55:34.579-04:002012-06-03T10:55:34.579-04:00So Mr. McCarthy considers Exobiology to not be a r...So Mr. McCarthy considers Exobiology to not be a respectable science. This is one of the hottest fields of current research in biology and astronomy, in fact in all of science, along with and concurrent with, the search for exo-planets. The current scientific thinking is that abiogensis will likely occur where conditions are right. The issue of the inevitability of the evolution of intelligent life is another story, which I have discussed on a thread on Panda's Thumb. Why does Mr. McCarthy think that NASA is planning further exploratory trips to Mars, Europa, and Titan? The answer is for the specific purpose of looking for evidence of exo-life.<br /><br />It is interesting to note that there was an internet debate between Sagan and Ernst Mayr on the subject of the prevalence of intelligent life in the universe, where Sagan argued that such life might be quite plentiful and Mayr argued that such life would be quite rare. Note that the subject was intelligent life, not life in general. It should be noted that the debate took place before the discovery of the first exo-planet.SLCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-80116675158361774902012-06-03T10:24:25.151-04:002012-06-03T10:24:25.151-04:00If one is going to reject evolution because of a c...If one is going to reject evolution because of a connection between evolution and eugenics, then one ought to be consistent about that, and reject <br /><br />(1) "micro"evolution, evolution within a "kind", in particular within "mankind"<br /><br />(2) goal-oriented, purposeful, "intelligent design" selection<br /><br />And if one has an opinion about "macro"evolution and natural selection, it must be on some other basis than a relationship with eugenics.<br /><br />Yet a great many advocates of creationism in its various forms, including Young Earth Creationism and Intelligent Design insist upon both (1) and (2), and therefore they are as tainted with eugenics as anybody. Unless, of course, there is no connection between evolution an eugenics.<br /><br />TomSAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-77515755431119740512012-06-03T09:14:52.710-04:002012-06-03T09:14:52.710-04:00Your Langmuir link isn't to a paper, it's ...Your Langmuir link isn't to a paper, it's a transcript (?) of a speech, quite a bit of its reporting is third hand. And you might have missed this ellipsis (A section of the speech is missing at this point. It evidently described some tests that gave scores below 5. ) Or maybe not? I'd like to know if Rhine agreed with the account of a conversation, given in quotes as if he'd actually said what is attributed to him, apparently decades after he allegedly said it. You have anything better than this? Did Rhine ever answer him? Do you have any evidence that Rhine's publication record shows what Langmuir alleged? I'd like to know if the statisticians who said that Rhine's statistical methodology was sound addressed this. I believe Langmuir said that Rhine was honest (it's hard to tell what's what in the text) and he knew that everything he did was looked at by his critics so I doubt he'd have tried to conceal his methods. <br /><br />Maybe if you had higher standards of evidence your allegation might be more convincing. <br /><br />You might want to check Linus Pauling's publication record, as well before repeating yourself. Do a word search for "ascorbic", noting where he and his colleagues published. <br /><br />http://www.girinst.org/~zeke/test.bit.pdf<br /><br />Compare that to the CSICOP record in sTARBABY (google Rawlins sTARBABY) or Sagan's Amniotic Universe to see who was making an attempt to practice science and who clearly wasn't, which was the only point I made about it.The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-21771198671398369012012-06-03T08:50:58.984-04:002012-06-03T08:50:58.984-04:00Sagan's record of being a sucker for the outer...Sagan's record of being a sucker for the outer fringes of psychology go far past that one abomination, and that's not to mention the several historical whoppers he had a role in propagating. Not to mention his part in spreading the annoyingly widespread habit of misusing terms of formal logic instead of applying logic among pseudo-skeptics and new atheists. I'd take what he said about planets within the solar system, up to the time of his death, seriously. Outside of that he was often of variable reliability if not totally out to sea. Or maybe that should be in to sea. "Exobiology", a "science" that has no examples of the supposed object of its study available to study is his counterpart to evo-psy and abiogenesis, producing a simulation of science to be plugged into ideological polemics but useless to tell us anything reliable about the universe.The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-16728635923567820032012-06-03T08:48:51.969-04:002012-06-03T08:48:51.969-04:00It didn't come up in the first ten pages of my...It didn't come up in the first ten pages of my search. Having given a number of links to primary sources in my comments on this blog I wonder why you haven't been backing up what you say.<br /><br />Did you happen to note this insertion into the text of Langmuir's talk: <br /><br />(A section of the speech is missing at this point. It evidently described some tests that gave scores below 5. )<br /><br />An informal talk on this subject with that omission wouldn't constitute a reliable report. Do you happen to know if Rhine answered it or, since he's reporting something that he says happened in 1934 if Rhine's decades of reports after that is in line with Langmuir's allegations? I believe the reports I've seen of analyses by statisticians of Rhine's statistical methodology date from after that, though I'll need to go to the library to check that. <br /><br />"Prof. Pauling was not following the accepted protocols of science relative to his advocacy of vitamin C."<br /><br />You should word search "ascorbic" and see Pauling's publication record on the subject, published mostly in scientific journals.<br /><br />http://www.girinst.org/~zeke/test.bit.pdf<br /><br />You can compare that publication record with the record of Kurtz, Abell, Zelen, Randi, Klass, and the rest of CSICOP on sTARBABY and Sagan on The Amniotic Universe, to see if my contention that Pauling's record was not far more in keeping with normal proceedures of science than Sagan and the CSICOPs. I didn't endorse what Pauling and his co-authors said, I just said that he was following scientific procedures in contrast to your heroes.The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-23924679938780122522012-06-03T08:02:48.819-04:002012-06-03T08:02:48.819-04:00Apparently, Mr. McCarthy's Google skills are r...Apparently, Mr. McCarthy's Google skills are rather lacking. A Google search on Joseph Rhine and Langmuir turns up the following essay written by the late Prof. Langmuir in 1953, published on Princeton University's web site and not filtered through Bob Park. It confirms what Prof. Park said in his book about Langmuir's visit to Rhine's lab in <b>Voodoo Science</b>.<br /><br />http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~ken/Langmuir/langC.htm<br /><br />Prof. Pauling was not following the accepted protocols of science relative to his advocacy of vitamin C. He made his proposal relative to the efficacy of using vitamin C as a cancer treatment without a jot or a tittle of evidence and he continued to promote the idea, even though he could produce no evidence nor could anyone else. The verdict of the scientific community is that a once distinguished scientist greatly damaged his reputation, or as the British would say, blotted his copybook. Pauling had no expertise in medical research and was completely incompetent to pontificate in that area of science.<br /><br />As for the late Carl Sagan's proposal that near death experiences could be attributed to trauma encountered during birth, he was wrong. Big deal. Isaac Newton was wrong about a great number of issues, including spending inordinate amounts of time on alchemy and religious speculation. Doesn't detract at all from his accomplishments which exceed all but a very few scientists in history.SLCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-62198538191326510382012-06-03T05:44:17.152-04:002012-06-03T05:44:17.152-04:00Geezer, what are your qualifications to practice m...Geezer, what are your qualifications to practice medicine? Are you more than a BS? Blog "Skeptic"? <br /><br />It's always so interesting to find out what happens when the normal practices of history or the humanities, actually looking at primary sources, applying reason to what people say in primary sources, meets the culture of pop-sci and pseudo-skepticism. Considering the practices of those, it's no wonder that consulting the actual record looks like a mental aberration.The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-45786963983457133312012-06-03T00:26:31.471-04:002012-06-03T00:26:31.471-04:00Mr Criminal,
Have you ever been diagnosed with bi...Mr Criminal,<br /><br />Have you ever been diagnosed with bipolar or other mental disorder(s)?<br /><br />GeezerAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-11847419146744194992012-06-02T21:38:43.468-04:002012-06-02T21:38:43.468-04:00Where did I say "One also shouldn't diss ...Where did I say "One also shouldn't diss Linus Pauling over his crackpot vitamin C activities"? All I pointed out was that compared to The Amniotic Universe and CSICOP's one and only scientific investigation in the infamous sTARBABY affair Pauling was following regular scientific methods of research. I could have added a number of other popular hobby horses including just about anything done in any of the social or behavioral sciences. As someone once pointed out, if the standards Ray Hyman demands of PSI research were applied to his field, psychology, it would disappear. I'd add evo-psy and most of the rest of behavioral sci to that observation. <br /><br />I have not commented on Langmuir's claim because I can't find it online in anything but a third hand version that I suspect is filtered through Park's book, typical of just about anything to do with that area of research. If there's one thing that the pseudo-skeptics are good at, it's distorting the discussion. Nor have I seen any answer from Rhine or his associates or other reviewers of it, though I have seen statisticians who said that Rhine's statistical methodology was sound. You want to show me where I can find Langmuir unfiltered through the CSICOPiscope? Have you read it, yourself? <br /><br />You seem to forget that you're the one who has been bringing up every Paul Bill and Kerry to try to discredit Dean Radin. And that you've yet to establish any connection among them and Radin that is anything like the connection between Francis Galton and Charles Darwin.The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-65621126587659414152012-06-02T19:43:58.351-04:002012-06-02T19:43:58.351-04:00As I have stated on several blogs on many occasion...As I have stated on several blogs on many occasions, Brian Josephson is a once productive scientist who has embraced ESP, PK, and cold fusion and has turned into a crackpot. <br /><br />Strings does not, as we sit here today qualify as a theory as it has produced no testable hypotheses, currently predicts nothing that is observable, and is not falsifiable. Of course, results from the LHC may change this but, as I said, as we sit here today. By the way, the string theorists probably don't think much of Lawrence Krauss either.<br /><br />So apparently, one shouldn't diss William Shockley, first class racist. By the way, a million years ago, I had an interaction with the good professor when he sent me copies of some of his papers on the alleged inferiority of black Americans. I found it amazing that so distinguished a scientist could write such tripe. One also shouldn't diss Linus Pauling over his crackpot vitamin C activities, according to Mr. McCarthy. How about Lynn Margulis, J. Allen Hynek, and Kerry Mullis? Are they also not to be dissed?<br /><br />What about J. J. Thompson? He was wrong about the plum pudding atom but so what. As Enrico Fermi once said, a scientist has never been wrong is a scientist who has never accomplished anything.<br /><br />And Mr. McCarthy has not commented on Langmuir's claim about Joseph Rhine nor about Bob Park's proposed experiment to observe PK.SLCnoreply@blogger.com