Phi for All

If you want to discuss science, you need to think of your idea as a constant, with evidence and assertion as directly proportional variables. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You're making a lot of claims that sound like a teacher reading from the textbook about already accepted science, rather than speculating on your decidedly non-mainstream idea. This tells us you've already made up your mind that you're right, rather than asking for a review of your idea. Right now, you're using unfamiliar terminology you made up to satisfy what's going on in your head, and it's leaving the rest of us in the dark. In fact, think of your idea as a streetlight; the more you make assertions filled with terms we're not likely to understand, the farther away from the streetlight you're moving, the darker and more unclear you're making your idea. This is inversely proportional.

There's a regular Joke section in the Lounge.

In science, the best explanations have the most evidence to support them. The methodology trains people who use it to think in terms of ways to verify observations, set up experiments that test an idea and allow accurate predictions to be made. The explanations can then be trusted to be the best available to us. Religion doesn't use evidence. In fact, many people think faith is worthless if you're asking for evidence. So religious beliefs are emotionally based, not tied to reason of any kind. The conflict happens, imo, because you can't reason with someone who came to a conclusion without using reason. The less we actually know about something, the more susceptible we are to misinformation about it. We're easily fooled when we accept something as true (or worse, True) without knowing very much about it.

! Moderator Note OK, we once again find that when someone takes a stance they can't objectively defend, no amount of reason will dissuade them. Thank you to the participants, these types of threads are frustrating, but necessary to show others why the only people truly stuck in the mud are those who won't take the time to learn the best explanations we've accumulated. Thread closed.

Last week, the White House announced they were releasing hi-res elevation datasets of Africa, in order to help local populations better prepare for climate change. Secure World Foundation, based near me, along with NASA, NOAA, USGS, and the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, is providing training and workshops for examining this data. I think the best thing for Africa right now is knowledge. I'd like to see more schools built, with a modern curriculum free of religious or cultural bias.

I've had to distinguish, for myself, between faith, hope, and trust as types of belief. Faith is belief with no evidence whatsoever, believing based on gut feelings, persuasive arguments, and emotions. Hope is what you describe above, you want it to be true but don't feel as strongly as someone with faith would. You aren't likely to change your life about this, but it's a belief you won't be able to rid yourself of until you learn more. Trust is belief in things you can verify, phenomena that have been studied using the scientific method, reviewed and re-reviewed by many people trying to find the most reliable explanations. Things you believe in that have little or nothing to support them, these are almost impossible for you to get rid of. You'll be the most adamant believer because you don't have all those pesky facts and evidence against to deal with. Oddly though, as much as some people think scientists are caught up in their theories and refuse to think outside the box, if you were to take any, I repeat ANY mainstream theory, and provide equal or greater evidence for a counter theory that explains more or explains it better, and if nobody could refute your claims, the scientific community would embrace your theory as the new mainstream.

You're trying so hard to paint science in a bad light. You've spent 15 pages telling us how you think science should be, and we keep telling you it works better than anything humans have ever tried. The fact that you want to change it without understanding it fully should tell you something about the way you approach learning.

Looking more like the Religion section all the time.

What do you know so far?

No, it's not. It's a reminder to read the rules before posting. Oh, wait, you're going to tell me that rules are censorship, aren't you? I guess just about anything is bad if you torture the definition of it enough.

This is a great example of confirmation bias mistakenly strengthening a conclusion that was not reached by reason. You've always believed in this bit of misinformation about the bumblebees, but until today didn't know why it was wrong. It was explained very rationally from multiple sources, yet you remain convinced "we overlooked something here too". Until you actually study the relevant scientific concepts, you'll remain convinced of your "belief" in chi. Nobody will ever be able to convince you that chi doesn't exist. But when you learn to see explanations for natural phenomena rationally, with a critical eye towards the processes and evidence that support them, you'll be able to understand why the way we reach our conclusions needs to be as trustworthy as possible.

This would be the type of claim I would expect to see some supporting evidence for. I can't imagine anyone who could do this NOT setting up a video experiment with external verification.

Our dimension?! A dark dimension?! You keep using this word, I don't think it means what you think it means.

In much the same way you'd have fun running onto a basketball court, grabbing the ball from one of the players and starting a game of soccer with it. Fun for you, frustrating for the people who are playing basketball. Gah, I'm done analogizing. I thought it might help, but it's only making sense to those who already understand.

All we know is that it's because of something YOU did.

What?! Debunking an idea isn't resisting change. If the idea was sound, it couldn't be debunked. I would expect everyone, especially xyzt, to look even harder at the idea then. We would all see that the foundations you created for your idea were sound, and that we couldn't find fault with your logic or methodology. At that point, evidence should be available that will support the idea, and there would still be nothing to refute it. If you shared the parameters of any testing you'd done on models, we should be able to recreate those ourselves and see if our results tally with yours. We'd all still be looking for errors, anything at all that might refute your idea. If we found something, everyone would look at the evidence against to see if IT had merit. But if the idea is easily refuted at the beginning, and no evidence that supports it can be found (or at least not provided by the person with the idea), then why move forward? The methodology is what you have problems with, and no scientist is going to give it up, not when its produced so many fantastic results. The scientific method is the key to getting in; that you don't understand this is like trying to review a movie without watching it, or even buying a ticket.

! Moderator Note The thread has taken a decidedly philosophical turn. Let's see how it progresses when we move it to that section.

We don't have nearly that many. Not even if you combine Canada and Mexico with the US.

Why not? It's stimulus/response. If you don't like the chemical mix you have running through your system right now, raise your arms above your head in the victory stance and you'll get a refreshing change.

I think it's more like two people trying to navigate down a dark path, along a cliff covered in fog, to a potential goal. The first person decides to carefully feel his way so he makes sure the ground is solid, using tools designed to ensure each step is trusted and precise. This person can sense the goal but knows he needs to be smart if he wants to get there safely. This person also wants to make sure the path is trustworthy for the people who'll try to follow him. For this person, establishing a proper path to the goal shares equal if not more importance to reaching the goal. The second person senses the goal and considers it to be more important to reach it by any means. This person takes leaps onto uncertain ground, hoping he can skip over all the tedious inching forward and slow progress. This person scoffs at the tools others use and develops his own unique tools that are easier for him to use, but can't be shared because he's the only one who knows what they're for. This person inevitably ends up stranded on a spit of land he leaped onto, only to find that his next step in any direction falls into the abyss. Yet this person still insists his way is better, even when he fails to reach the goal, and continues to tell the first person that he's wrong. It's all a bit like ... the race is over, but the hare is still screaming at the tortoise that he's faster.

This is a discussion forum, but this thread seems like a tutorial. Did you want to discuss this idea, or teach it to us?

This is an area where I lean Libertarian. We have all kinds of laws in place to prevent and prosecute crimes committed while under the influence. I think legalizing all drugs and requiring quality assurance similar to all the other poisons we sell legally is the only way to eradicate the criminal aspect and allow people to alter themselves any way they like, as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others.

There are probably many factors, but it looks like you already had your own question answered before posing it. I predict this is going to be a thread bashing mainstream science. Somehow, inexplicably, it will probably be tied back to Darwin at some point. Honestly, I think one of the worst barriers to understanding is our own cognitive biases. Critical thinking can overcome this, but too many people never learn it, and the rest of us have to suffer.

Mainstream explanations serve as the physical limit we must respect. We also call it "the box", and you seem to pride yourself in your ability to think outside it. Unfortunately, for some strange reason, you talk about limits for ideas but don't use the perfectly good limits the scientific method provides. You're standing obstinate, still demanding proof (which I told you before, science isn't interested in), claiming to be scientific while not using any of the tools correctly. You obviously didn't like my engineer analogy, but I'm going to try again. If you're putting together one of those build-it-yourself desks from IKEA, do you use the instructions and tools they give you? If it calls for wood glue to hold wooden pegs in holes, do you use wood glue? If the instructions tell you that you have to put the body of the desk together BEFORE you put the drawers in, are you able to understand why? If you answered yes, then why do you insist on trying to do science without using the tools and instructions required? You and cladking both seem to think scientists are unchanging robots who rely on rote learning to join the rest of "the herd" in their wrong assumptions about the natural world. Everyone's wrong but you're right. And so you avoid the very thing that could help you with your perspective, using "the box" the way it was meant to be, as a repository of the best explanations we have to date on various phenomena. That's what you guys are missing out on, and falling behind in knowledge because YOUR explanations are the ones that don't change.