Pseudoscience for the Responsible [Debate]

[John Phoenix]

Honestly, no. Remove the pseudoscience that surrounds ghosts and you have nothing to discuss. Without some sort of evidence to base speculation on, well, you may as well just write pure fiction - a form of speculation itself, just not the sort that opens new options.

 

You are saying there can be no speculation based on observation?

 

 

What about all the phenomena that occurs when people claim to see ghost, such as all the tools ghost hunters use.. temperature getting colder, images showing up on thermal scans, EM fields fluctuating, EVP recorders.. these are scientific devices that measure our surroundings. If a correlation is observed when these things happen and the time of seeing of ghosts is not that a good scientific place to start?

 

How can you say there is only pseudoscience associated with this then? As INow mentioned, at some point there must be a time when pseudoscience takes on more validity and becomes science.

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You seem to be referring more to "complimentary" medicine, not "alternative" medicine.

 

You should watch this special (it's incredibly accessible and interesting):

 

 

 

A synopsis:

 

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/264223

This interview contains a lot of very important information, regardless of how one feels about CAM [Complimentary and Alternative Medicine]. Professor Baum starts by explaining the difference between complementary and alternative medicine. For him, complementary medicine is everything that improves the quality of life of a patient undergoing medical treatments, possibly for life-threatening diseases such as breast cancer. Alternative medicine, on the other hand, seeks to replace scientific medicine. Says Michael Baum:

I'm obviously against alternative medicine, because to me, alternative, by definition, means it does not work. If it works, we would use it.

 

As an example of that, he cites a few medicines of herbal origin that are being used for cancer therapy such as vinca alkaloids form periwinkle and taxanes from yew trees.

 

<...>

 

Later on, they talk about what Baum politely calls "post-modern relativism," the idea that everything is but an opinion. I have an opinion, but you have read some other books and you have therefore another opinion and both opinions are equally valid. As a result, we have now alternative medicine, alternative teaching methods, alternative legal advocates, "but," he says "we haven't yet come up with an alternative Boeing 747 pilot".

 

He links this to the MMR vaccine crisis where people are being told by alternologists and are convinced that there is a conspiracy of the medical establishment and the government that, in order to protect themselves, they were willing to sacrifice countless children to autism. "This is simply a lie," he says, and he adds that even among his closest friends, there are people who are not immunizing their children and that these children are now unprotected as a result.

 

<...>

 

Dawkins asks Baum if he can cite a few examples of complementary/alternative therapies for which he does have time. Baum cites art therapy as an example of complementary therapy in which he has invested quite some time. He also cites acupuncture, which is bonkers as an alternative complementary medicine belief system but which does have some value as a complementary therapy, for example in pain management. Still, his belief doesn't seem to go very far.

 

He goes on giving an example of the importance of clinical trials and tells a story about how he was chairing a meeting in Florence, Italy on the role of CAM in the treatment of breast cancer. He was in serious pain at the time, so much so that he was limping. An acupuncturist offered him a treatment. The next day, he was completely without pain, and even visited the Uffizi gallery for a few hours. The interesting part is that she offered the treatment, but that he didn't accept it. Had he accepted it, the result would have been so spectacular that he would have become a convert. A nice illustration of the importance of controlled trials.

 

Baum is also telling Dawkins about how many alternologists always go back to some "golden age" of medicine, and argues that there is no such thing as a golden age of medicine in the past, that the golden age is now, and that it will become more golden if only science can continue. He gives the example of Victorian England where life expectancy was not much more than about 40 years and where 30% of the children died shortly after birth whereas now most children survive, and that we now have life expectancies of close to 80 years, leading us to work longer than in the past.

 

Dawkins and Baum talk about the importance of science education. Baum tells Dawkins that we have a scientifically illiterate population, a scientifically illiterate house of commons and, worse, that they actually take pride into their scientific illiteracy. Scientists have an important task here, he says, and children should be taught the scientific method from early secondary school in order to have a scientifically literate population. <

more at the link

>

 

You are right. According to Dr Baum's definitions I should have said complimentary medicine.

[JillSwift]

You are saying there can be no speculation based on observation?

Useful speculation must be based on evidence gained by objective observation. Otherwise the conversation is a discussion of imagination - make-believe.

 

What about all the phenomena that occurs when people claim to see ghost, such as all the tools ghost hunters use.. temperature getting colder, images showing up on thermal scans, EM fields fluctuating, EVP recorders.. these are scientific devices that measure our surroundings. If a correlation is observed when these things happen and the time of seeing of ghosts is not that a good scientific place to start?

Because, like the ghost orb photos, all the "samples" taken by these folks are badly skewed by various problems with methodology. Remove the pseudoscience and what science is there gives us no evidence of ghosts at all.

 

How can you say there is only pseudoscience associated with this then? As INow mentioned, at some point there must be a time when pseudoscience takes on more validity and becomes science.

With all due respect to iNow, pseudoscience never becomes science. Because science is a methodology. Pseudoscience is a failure to adhere to that methodology and use scientific-sounding, but otherwise unsound, forms of making an idea seem valid.

 

Ideas with pseudoscience behind them do have potential of becoming ideas with science backing them, but only if pseudoscience is abandoned in favor of science, and only if the idea has an actual basis in reality.

 

This is an important point, so I'll say it again: Pseudoscience is discarding methodology in favor of seeking ways to convince others of the validity of an idea or phenomenon without evidence or in spite of contrary evidence.

 

Until and unless objective evidence is presented that suggests "ghosts" (which, by the way, also needs a definition that can be falsified) any discussuin about them is nothing more than fiction writing. All made up.

[Mokele]

Pseudoscience is discarding methodology in favor of seeking ways to convince others of the validity of an idea or phenomenon without evidence or in spite of contrary evidence.

 

This deserves to be quoted for further repetition - it's the method that matters.

[John Phoenix]

Useful speculation must be based on evidence gained by objective observation. Otherwise the conversation is a discussion of imagination - make-believe.

 

Because, like the ghost orb photos, all the "samples" taken by these folks are badly skewed by various problems with methodology. Remove the pseudoscience and what science is there gives us no evidence of ghosts at all.

 

 

With all due respect to iNow, pseudoscience never becomes science. Because science is a methodology. Pseudoscience is a failure to adhere to that methodology and use scientific-sounding, but otherwise unsound, forms of making an idea seem valid.

 

Ideas with pseudoscience behind them do have potential of becoming ideas with science backing them, but only if pseudoscience is abandoned in favor of science, and only if the idea has an actual basis in reality.

 

This is an important point, so I'll say it again: Pseudoscience is discarding methodology in favor of seeking ways to convince others of the validity of an idea or phenomenon without evidence or in spite of contrary evidence.

 

Until and unless objective evidence is presented that suggests "ghosts" (which, by the way, also needs a definition that can be falsified) any discussuin about them is nothing more than fiction writing. All made up.

 

I don't want to discard correct scientific methodology. I just think it can't be done at this time because we lack information. But one day in the future it could. We have no scientific evidence that proves ghost do not exist as of yet. This tells me we need to study the phenomenon further and valid scientific discussion can take place. How can you wait until you already have "Until and unless objective evidence is presented that suggests "ghosts" " before you start looking for this same evidence? This makes no sense to me. You will never get that unless you discuss it and search for it.

 

To say unless you have that "any discussuin about them is nothing more than fiction writing. All made up" is to say that Unless someone gives me evidence that the sun shines I refuse to believe it.. the only difference is the sun can be proven with science and ghost at this time cannot.

 

What scientific methodology could you come up with to study the ghost phenomenon. I challenge you to try to see if you can do this. Then perhaps you may see that scientific discussion about ghost is valid. Yes I agree that a lot of ideas about ghost may fall into the pseudoscience category.. But they all do not have to be. What if you yourself were in control of those same experiments with the ghost hunter tools.. you know.. to be sure all strict methodology was followed.. would you agree that it's possible to have valid scientific discussion about ghost then?

 

I think " any discussuin about them is nothing more than fiction writing. All made up." is more of a belief than based in fact simply because science cannot dis-prove the existence of ghost either.

[JillSwift]

I don't want to discard correct scientific methodology. I just think it can't be done at this time because we lack information. But one day in the future it could. We have no scientific evidence that proves ghost do not exist as of yet. This tells me we need to study the phenomenon further and valid scientific discussion can take place. How can you wait until you already have "Until and unless objective evidence is presented that suggests "ghosts" " before you start looking for this same evidence? This makes no sense to me. You will never get that unless you discuss it and search for it.

 

To say unless you have that "any discussuin about them is nothing more than fiction writing. All made up" is to say that Unless someone gives me evidence that the sun shines I refuse to believe it.. the only difference is the sun can be proven with science and ghost at this time cannot.

 

What scientific methodology could you come up with to study the ghost phenomenon. I challenge you to try to see if you can do this. Then perhaps you may see that scientific discussion about ghost is valid. Yes I agree that a lot of ideas about ghost may fall into the pseudoscience category.. But they all do not have to be. What if you yourself were in control of those same experiments with the ghost hunter tools.. you know.. to be sure all strict methodology was followed.. would you agree that it's possible to have valid scientific discussion about ghost then?

 

I think " any discussuin about them is nothing more than fiction writing. All made up." is more of a belief than based in fact simply because science cannot dis-prove the existence of ghost either.

Science does not dis-prove things. Science only gathers evidence, makes hypothesis, and tests those hypothesis to make theories, which are in turn tested and re-tested as new evidence is found.

 

Dis-proving something is effectively impossible.

 

There have been folks who have used measuring devices of all sorts to examine claimed ghosts. They followed science methodology rigorously. No evidence of ghosts was found at all.

 

Cold spots tend to be ventilation or poor insulation.

Changes in magnetic fields tend to be house electrical wiring.

Ghost orbs tend to be dust.

Etc.

 

In short, when scientific methodology is brought to bear on ghosts, nothing shows up. Thus, there is no evidence for ghosts.

 

Does this dis-prove ghosts? No.

 

But it doesn't do much for their existence, either.

 

And that leaves any useful speculation about ghosts rather empty. If we can't even establish the phenomenon of the existence of ghosts, what does one speculate about? "Do they exist?" "They might." Isn't much of a conversation.

 

Speculation as to why people continue to believe in ghosts in spite of the lack of evidence - well, there's an established phenomena we can talk about.

[padren]

How can you wait until you already have "Until and unless objective evidence is presented that suggests "ghosts" " before you start looking for this same evidence? This makes no sense to me. You will never get that unless you discuss it and search for it.

 

To say unless you have that "any discussuin about them is nothing more than fiction writing.

 

John, first please consider "the discussion" you are referring to. Without evidence, you would really just be discussing the "stories" that are shared that give the impression that ghosts may exist - which are second or third hand, unverifiable and unrepeatable. It is fine to discuss those stories but those will not be scientific discussions as they don't contain any scientific information to evaluate. They may encourage someone to get some equipment and go try to gather evidence at an allegedly haunted location and that is also fine - it may be noted however that such discussions have lead to such endeavors in the past repeatedly with no valuable results and as such it will be very hard to get excited by the news someone else is going to give it a try.

 

The most conflict that comes up from such discussions is when someone takes those non-scientific stories as "too compelling" to disregard and aggressively tries to convince others of this in a science forum style community. It is okay for someone to decide they feel the stories are too compelling to disregard, but that's a personal decision and not a scientific analysis. When they become aggressive and obstinate in their arguments and resort to accusations of character flaws as the only reason others may not draw the same conclusions it becomes a very ugly discussion overall. It also happens a lot, especially around here.

While it is possible to have polite discussions on these topics it is so rare for them to not become derailed that they are dissuaded entirely.

 

The key though is to understand the nature of the "discussion" that can be had at any given moment. The evidence of mermaids has lots of non-scientific anecdotal stories, but every scientific endeavor to find them has come up empty. The only evidence we have about anecdotal evidence in general is the studies on the general reliability of such evidence, which suggests it is not very compelling. So honestly, all that can really be discussed scientifically is that there is not much to discuss scientifically, which is generally not what the topic starter wants to discuss.

[mooeypoo]

If it wasn't clear, the sticky thread "Pseudoscience for the responsible" is an extension of the forum rules, and is not quite up for debate about the rules. Since the debate exists, you may continue it here, on the non-sticky extension, but the actual RULES - which all have agreed to abide to by clicking "I AGREE" in the registering process - are on the sticky post, here: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=43786

 

Have fun.