Double slit experiment - just bouncing particles?

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I think that this debate highlights one of the problems that we, as proponents of a more spiritual or consciousness-based worldview, have in the world at large. Particularly since these anti-vaccination, Covid-is-a-hoax, conspiracy theories gained widespread support in the USA. Those CTs are, rightly in my view, considered anti-science by the mainstream scientific orthodoxy and many media opinion makers. However, that seems to give license to those who would like to include anything else that they consider anti-science, such as the paranormal, psychics, religious beliefs and anything considered "fringe" such as natural health remedies, etc.

As I understand it, science does not have a position. It does not hold to a philosophy. It is just a means of inquiry. If we start mistakenly crowing about "science" being debunked then we leave ourselves open to the charge of being anti-science and justifying those who would label us likewise.
I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension.
Freeman Dyson
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  • Typoz
(2021-09-05, 02:21 AM)Kamarling Wrote: Yes, I tend to agree. I doubt that science can be debunked, only scientific theories. Bloodletting and leeches were once considered scientific but only because the practitioners held to the theory that they were effective. It was science that debunked those theories (as ever).

Interesting example. Perhaps rather surprisingly, leeches are still in current use:
https://www.ouh.nhs.uk/patient-guide/lea...Pleech.pdf
Quote:When the leech attaches to an area it releases three important substances. These pass into the area, whilst the leech draws the clotted blood away. These substances are:
•  a natural local anaesthetic (to reduce the pain)
•  a local vasodilator (to improve the blood supply in that area)
•  hirudin and calin (natural anticoagulants, which prevent further clotting).
(This post was last modified: 2021-09-05, 04:45 AM by Typoz.)
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(2021-09-05, 03:21 AM)Kamarling Wrote: As I understand it, science does not have a position. It does not hold to a philosophy. It is just a means of inquiry. If we start mistakenly crowing about "science" being debunked then we leave ourselves open to the charge of being anti-science and justifying those who would label us likewise.

Some of the views are no doubt coloured with remnants of the Skeptiko history, and even a book declaring 'science is wrong' over there. I hope here at Psience Quest we can quietly let that part drop, this place is a separate venture, and yes we do support science, it is part of the name here. Though it is necessary to recognise there are limitations, both for human, individual reasons as science is carried out by human beings, and in that many areas have not yet even been looked at. As well as that, I don't think (unless with some religious fervour) anyone would consider science is enough. It is just a part. At school, we learned science, but we also learned art and we learned music. Some learn dance. There are many aspects to the whole.
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(2021-09-04, 11:23 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: When you speak of science do you think of the community of scientists, the documented observations, interpretations of those observations, and/or the methodology of making observations of change/stability in order to discover patterns in Nature?

Obviously someone trying to conflate the practice of science with the materialist-atheist faith is in error, and this is an issue with parts of the scientific community. And there are issues with method (peer review, p-hacking, etc).

But not sure how one can gravitate around science rather than the PsienceQuest forum?

Well I would say that most of us really want the truth about psychic matters. OTH in science there are huge pressures to speak someone else's 'truth'. Big Pharma, to take one example, exerts a massive financial push on researchers. Many books have been written about this malign practice, but it continues unabated. Cosmology has something similar - admit that Halton Arp has a point and that more research on the origin of red shifts really is needed, and their edifice also tumbles down.

I say it with some relish because those responsible should never have let science decay this way.

When it comes to psi, the pressure comes more from institutional science. Acknowledging psi would immediately raise issues about whether experiments can ever be disentangled from mental influences.
(This post was last modified: 2021-09-05, 11:03 AM by David001.)
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(2021-09-04, 07:58 PM)David001 Wrote: That doesn't follow, because science has so much kudos at the moment that wrong doers will gravitate around it far more than around other pursuits, such as this forum for example.

David

Now you are just being silly David, and i think you know it.
"The mind is the effect, not the cause."

Daniel Dennett
(2021-09-05, 08:11 AM)Sparky Wrote: Now you are just being silly David, and i think you know it.

Have you noticed how few of your posts contain any actual science - just pointless verbal play.
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(2021-09-05, 08:07 AM)David001 Wrote: Well I would say that most of us really want the truth about psychic matters. OTH in science there are huge pressures to speak someone else's 'truth'. Big Pharma, to take one example, exerts a massive financial push on researchers. Many books have been written about this malign practice, but it continues unabated. Cosmology has something similar - admit that Halton Arp has a point and that more research on the origin of red shifts really is needed, and their edifice also tumbles down.
Conspiratorial thinking is one way one can use to choose where to disagree with scientific findings if they don't confirm your personal believes.
   

Quote:I say it with some relish because those responsible should never have let science decay this way.
Translation: They should never have allowed science to disagree with me

Quote:When it comes to psi, the pressure comes more from institutional science. Acknowledging psi would immediately raise issues about whether experiments can ever be disentangled from mental influences.
That is an old and stale excuse.
Psi research seems to be eternally stuck in trying to prove psi exists, not by the actions of skeptical scientists, but by the inaction of psi researchers.
All i ever saw here and over at Skeptiko were endless discussions rehashing old experimental results, i never saw anything going beyond that.
For what you repeat to make any sense, there should be at least one experiment that works with some reliability.
If we would have that, experiments could be devised that investigate what you are talking about.
Do you know of such an experiment?
"The mind is the effect, not the cause."

Daniel Dennett
(2021-09-05, 11:03 AM)David001 Wrote: Have you noticed how few of your posts contain any actual science - just pointless verbal play.

What do you expect from responses to pointless verbal play?
Have you forgotten what sparked this discussion?
Where is the actual science in statements as "OTH it is lovely when someone succeeds in debunking science!"?
"The mind is the effect, not the cause."

Daniel Dennett
(This post was last modified: 2021-09-05, 12:09 PM by Sparky.)
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