Re: Evolution and Creationism

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Fri, 20 Aug 1999, Richard Tarara wrote:

> The problem here, IMO, is that the phenomena in question (ghosts, angels,
> UFOs, etc.) are not replicable and therefore science is severely limited in
> what it can do to confirm/disprove such.

I agree, partially.  A great many religious claims are untestable.
However, I strongly disagree that they are untestable by definition.  In
fact, I personally believe that one of the reasons that science avoids
testing religion and other "unexplained phenomena", is that we declare
religion (etc.) to be untestable.  This is suspiciously convenient, and it
justifies our dismissing of any anecdotal evidence.  But are all of these
topics TRUELY untestable?  I suspect that if huge amounts of funding were
available for scientific research into religion, ghosts, UFOs, etc., we
would rapidly discover that there is an amazing amount of testable
phenomena here.  Some of it might even pan out in the end, and form the
basis for new fields of science.

>  It is also probably quite
> difficult to get your "Negative Results Concerning Poltergeist Confirmation"
> published.

Too true.  Sad also, since this sort of paper deserves to have some
publication channels available.  About the only place that publishes such
papers is the Journal of Scientific Exploration, http://www.jse.com
Peer-reviewed and everything!

(Hey, anyone here who finds themself wishing that Science would test
"anomalous claims" rather than just debunking them, should go and join the
SSE or at least slip them a few bucks.  They are a downtrodden minority of
working scientists who think that religion, UFOs, ghosts, etc., should be
investigated and not dismissed out of hand.
http://www.scientificexploration.org )


> Certainly various government and private studies of UFO
> phenomenon have been dealt with seriously (by some) on a scientific level
> but this work is buried in the reports.  Academic level studies of
> 'paranormal' phenomenon exist (have existed) but without achieving
> convincing evidence to sway the scientific community as a whole.

I agree.  In the distant past, parapsychology concentrated on individual
"powerful psychics".  However, since hoaxing can never be entirely
discounted, their results convinced no skeptics.  If scientists are
gullible, and if magician's tricks are a possibility, then even the most
power evidence could be the result of a dishonest subject and a gullible
scientist.

At present, parapsychology searches for widespread micro-effects, and uses
proper statistics to detect whether the phenomena exist or not.  The
"Engineering anomalies project" at Princeton is one such example.  See
http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/.  For a good popular overview of many
contemporary research projects and results, see Radin's book:

  THE CONSCIOUS UNIVERSE by Dr. Dean Radin
  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0062515020/
  Author's page: http://www.psiresearch.org



> I just thought your original note suggested almost a 'conspiracy' level of
> scientific neglect of these topics which I feel is unwarranted.  I think we
> are in agreement about most of the rest.

This is a very important issue.

If the situation is truely as I said in my previous message, then it does
seem like a conspiracy, no?  Yet there is no conspiracy.  Instead there is
bias, and there is scientific concensus.  If scientists as a whole have
decided that research into religion/paranormal/etc. is "unscientific" or
at least inherently misguided, then few funding requests will ever pass
peer review.  If science as a whole maintains a particular stance on an
issue, then obviously this stance, when coupled with peer-review of
funding requests, tends to suppress the voices of dissenting scientists
who oppose that stance.  If dissenting scientists cannot win funding, they
must change their tune, change their field, or they leave their scientific
careers.  T. Gold explores the mechanisms behind this in his excellent
paper:

    NEW IDEAS IN SCIENCE  by Dr. Thomas Gold
    http://www.amasci.com/freenrg/newidea1.html


I prefer to think of it this way:  is there a conspiracy to keep women and
minorities in low-paying jobs?  If women and minorities claim
mistreatment, should we accuse them of paranoid beliefs in nonexistant
concpiracies to suppress them?  Obviously not!  Bias and bigotry are
sufficient explanations of suppression, and no conspiracies are necessary.
Does this mean that I'm acussing science of bias and bigotry in regards to
scientific studies of religion/paranormal/etc.?  Well... yes.

If we decide that a phenomenon is impossible, then we are biased, and we
will reject any positive evidence.  To be able to investigate these topics
at all, we must suspend our belief and, more importantly, suspend our
disbelief.  However, it is common to associate scientific skepticism with
outright disbelief.  But that's not skepticism, that's bias!  Skepticism
is suspension of judgement, not intentional pre-judgement.  Many who claim
to be "skeptics" are really just biased, not properly skeptical.



Also, if publicly refusing to *DIS*believe paranormal/religious/etc claims
is bad for a career in science, then that says unkind things about the
state of modern science.  Must we keep silent about our desire to study
the "weird stuff", or we'll be sorry?  And, if we see a fellow scientist
being ridiculed for their interest in the "weird stuff", maybe we'd better
join in the ridicule, or perhaps the "concensus-mob" will discover our own
leanings in that direction, and we could be its next target?  At least we
must keep silent when we see ridicule taking place, and we dare not
confront those who hurl the ridicule lest we attract attention.
Unfortunately it has some similarity to a witch-hunt atmosphere.  A kinder
description would be "an atmosphere of suppression of dissent."  Science
does not tolerate variety, if "variety" includes scientists who want to
study extremely unorthodox topics.

Here's a paper from the JSE journal on just this problem:

  Strategies for Dissenting Scientists, Dr. Brian Martin
  http://www.jse.com/martin/toc.html

  A Letter to a Dissident Scientist,  B. Martin
  http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/Martin_letter.html


( For the lurkers who've not yet stumbled across it, check out my website
  CLOSEMINDED SCIENCE, http://www.amasci.com/weird/wclose.html.  There are
  many links to other articles like those above, plus a collection of
  my own crackpot ravings along these lines.)   :)


((((((((((((((((((((( ( (  (   (    (O)    )   )  ) ) )))))))))))))))))))))
William J. Beaty                                  SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb@eskimo.com                                  http://www.amasci.com
EE/programmer/sci-exhibits          science projects, tesla, weird science
Seattle, WA   206-781-3320          freenrg-L taoshum-L vortex-L webhead-L