The point is that science lobbies only finance and approve what they see fit. Science should be impartial, it is not.

Every idea should be given the chance to be heard and evolve despite your preconceptions, needs and your taboos. Clearly Sir Peter Atkins had his own preconceptions and wanted to pass on to others his ideas of what it is fact or fantasy that in essence should be censored from scientific talks.

This happens much too often I'm afraid...

I know who is on the phone - I can tell because I have caller ID.

I think the following 'comic' from xkcd is quite appropriate:


If telepathy were real, I think people would have used it. I doesn't fit in any known model, and there are plenty of explanations for some types of telepathy (body language, mainly).

The only problem is that I witnessed an unofficial experiment that proved telepathy is quite real.

Let's analyze the content, and the rhetoric.

Really?

Why? Was he out of line to do so?

They've uncovered evidence?

Oooooo....sounds like there may have been a 'coverup', or some controversial findings.

Some controversy...

Well duh....

Why aren't you thankful no one was burned at the stake for heresy by the leaders of 'science'.

There are no laws preventing anyone from pursuing those scientific endeavours, if they wish.

But, if someone wants to earn a living doing it, they need someone willing to 'buy' the premise, first.

That's the 'game'.

No one is 'buying' it.

Blame the player, not the game.

Fair enough. The problem being that scientists are people and they depend on lots of other people to do their work. They need funding from the financial world and equipment from the engineering world. That stuff is not had lightly and the people who do that work are also people who depend on other people.

And so on down the line...

Granted, I don't think that it was appropriate for that old fart to demand "a proper balancing counter argument." Science works or not by putting the information out there and letting it sink or swim. If you stop to think about it, how is that demand so much different from the creationists arguing for “equal time” in biology text books?

Past that, I suspect that you may have missed a large part of what science really is. I will assume that you have seen the scientific method written out formally. However, it can also be written out otherwise to show the underbelly of science. Allow me to do so.

Science begins when a scientist realizes that a certain set of facts may not quite add up the general way that is thought. He says “that's funny” and starts to think about matters.

Eventually, he has to guess at an answer. Really, if there were no guesses, there would be no science.

Now he needs to do some experimentation. This takes money. In the modern world, it often takes quite a bit of money and the scientist has to go to the money people to get it.

When the money people get involved, then questions that are not directly about science come to the fore. The scientist may need an expensive laser. The money people are aware that a laser that is good enough was bought for a different guy a couple of years ago and that other guy is now done with it. So the deal for the first experiments is that stuff that the university does not already have can be bought but the laser is going to have to be reused.

Really, the scientist is not required to know the details of every laser in the whole university. He only needs to ask for an expensive laser. After some back and forth discussion, all parties eventually come to an agreement on the money and time that will go into the new idea.

A year later, the scientist may not have really world wide news level information but he may have preliminary information that is worthy of another round of funding. With luck, the second round might be more on point than the first round.

At some point, a paper will be produced and it ultimately has to go out into the world to sink or swim.

No!

Why can't this (http://www.sheldrake.org/Articles&Papers/papers/telepathy/exptests_abs.html) investigation be funded? Do you fear the claims that may come or are just questioning the method? If you are afraid of the claims then you have prejudice and preconceptions inside your mind which are enemies or scientific progress.

If you are refering the method, fine by me. It seems Rupert Sheldrake followed those formalities and got published on a science journal. In fact this is obvious since he was at a science presentation! People are indeed trying to make serious investigations about "woo" but as you can see from Focus article it is very very hard... and this is just an example. For starters few people and institutions finance these kind of investigation and then comes the prejudice and shunning from inflated egos. 

If you want to pay for it go right ahead, my taxes are already high enough.

If the US Congress isn't going to pay for PBS, Education or the Clean Air Act why should a woo project be funded. There has been enough tax dollars spent studying the mating habits of praire dogs.

You want it, you pay for it.

I'm not even sure you read my whole post, lol.

No human being is perfect. Even outside the issue of religion, we can all fall for something because we are not being skeptical enough.

In my race to get into a house, because my mom was moving to a retirement home, I allowed the Real Estate bully me when I asked questions. As a result of not being more forceful, or dumping him all together, I "trusted him", Now, the house is not terrible by any stretch. But after finding quite a few things wrong with it, it opened my eyes up to what human beings are capable of selling.

I get so tired of people accusing me of being negative by simply pointing out another point of view that questions their position.

Even on issues of drinking and driving. I have a policy, even if one beer is involved, you don't drive, or I don't get into a car with you. I have allowed people to convince me "you're being paranoid", and maybe in some cases I am. But all it takes is that ONE TIME, and even if I am not driving, I could be arrested for DIP or have to walk home are call for a ride or get stuck where I am at. ALL a pain in the ass.

Thinking about an issue ANY ISSUE and questioning it isn't a matter of hating the person who makes the claim. It is a matter of quality control to insure quality of output of data.

If I had known before I bought the house the little tricks they used to masked the problems the house had, I would have called them on it.

"Wear your safty belt" isn't assuming that you are going to have an accident. It is a recognition of scientific study that if you wear it, when you get into an accident you are more likely to survive.

Skeptics also attack bullshit like JFK conspiracies, Big Foot, and even claims that the Transporter from "Star Treck" is a real possibility.

It is the same healthy skepticism I have when some dreamy eyed Redskin fan says, "Well have a great team next year due to this draft and our trades", I'll have to wait and see because 17 years of data since the last Super Bowl would not indicate that.

So to the believers reading this. WE REALLY DO NOT HATE YOU. But your claims and some in your camps drive us nuts with your naked assertions and your behaviors. Our skepticism is pragmatic and healthy, and can help you, the believer, see why we say what we say, and it really is ok to be wrong. Being wrong isn't the worst thing in the world, it simply means that you get to learn something new.

But no, skepticism isn't just about god or superstition. It can also keep you from a high interest credit card, bad home loan, or bad used car.

If whomever is selling a claim says "trust me" run the other way unless they allow you to verify.

It has been noted that the more carefully and rigorously the tests for these phenomena and 'abilities' are set up, the smaller are the deviation from chance.

This is a good indicator that there is nothing there.

It is possible however hard... What I have comprehended from his methods, the examiner called the participant after he knew who was going to be the caller, so he could note his guess. The only way the participant could get a subliminal message was by the voice tone of the examiner since they were over the phone. Since they were not familiar I find this hard to believe. But yes this is preliminary not just because of that but because of the size of the sample which I find to be a bigger problem than the double blind thing.

Again my point is to criticize the reaction of some people who apparently want to censor some areas of investigation calling for more skepticism (even when there is) and conveniently forgetting to be more skeptical in other areas which really need to be more criticized

I knew there was something fishy about people who put cream in their coffee... I'll bet Hitler put cream in his coffee too.

Randi is possibly one of the most serious and truly skeptical people, in the best sense, in the area of investigating fringe stuff of all kinds. He is acutely aware of all the ways people can mis-perceive things, fool themselves, especially if they become too attached to an idea.

Yes.

This is called the 'control' group. They are random, everyday, people, who are tested to establish a 'baseline'.

If there are people who are thought to deviate from the 'baseline', they are tested seperately, using the exact same methods as the 'control' tests.

Then, you measure the deviation between the two groups, and measure the 'deviation', in order to isolate what the differences were.

Yes, science is not unreasonable by any stretch of the imagination.

Anyone who is not happy with scientific findings, is simply disappointed in themselves, that their predictions failed.

It is unwarranted.

Don't blame the game, blame the player.

Science only demonstrates the differences between claims, and reality. (1)

Then what are we talking about?

His rights stop, where other's rights begin.

He's entitled to make his own opinions, but he's not entitled to his make his own facts.

When people make up their own opinions, without actually having anything that cannot be falsified or certified(*) as a fact, then all they have is an argument.

IOW, tell it to the judge, and ignorance, is not a defense.

(*) = proof

So?

What were their counter arguments?

I don't think you understand.

There is no ban, or order for him to cease his experiments.

But, scientists bid for grants (money) to finance their studies. The ones that are most compelling, or most promising, are the ones that get chosen over others.

If you want to complain about the reasons why they fail to be compelling, see my explanation from earlier on where the disappointment really is. (1)

I would, but I don't know where you would find anyone who would qualify as more serious than either of those two.

You're alleging something that I do not agree with.

Are you asking me to find you more elaborate scientific methods of testing these types of phenomena?

They did many of them decades ago, in both the US, and in the USSR, for the military. The military investigated many claims of supernatural. They would have loved to find supernatural powers.

They wanted to believe.

They were desperate to gain any edge they could over their adversaries.

They would have spent any amount to develop supernatural powers.

But the claims did not manifest themselves when they were observed.

There aren't many lab experiments done anymore, on these types of single blind tests by busy scientists. They have more important things to work on.

They simply don't have the time to indulge in weak claims.

That's a bad analogy.

If they were conducting tests that showed how inept they were, they would seriously undermine their credibility in their fields of study.

I don't see any evidence of that. As a matter of fact, I see evidence to the contrary...

If there really was something to any of these claims which have been dismissed, we would expect to see them manifested somewhere, by something, or someone, in a really strong and totally undeniable way, instead of as marginal levels of statistical variation.

Really being able to predict the future, or see clearly what was over the next hill, behind all the trees, read other minds like a book, etc, could be expected to a really useful ability to enhance by evolution or long training.

Evolution has come up with a remarkable of physical skills, various kinds of flight, ability to dive to great depths in the ocean, survive in hot springs, very acute sight in eagles, etc. But nothing showing an undeniable, widely visible, 'paranormal' ability, unless you want to count that octopus that was supposed to be able to predict the winner of the Soccer World Cup...

Paranormal, psychic, etc 'powers' have been studied for centuries now, and they still haven't advanced remotely to the degree that other areas of study have, which is a dam good reason for not taking them seriously until they can come up with more than a slight deviation from statistical 'noise'.