(2018-05-06, 02:44 AM)fls Wrote: I think there is general recognition that there is widespread skepticism amongst the scientific community, rather than acceptance.
In the relevant scientific community (of parapsychology), there is widespread acceptance.
This is the scientific community that actually studies the phenomena. If you want to know the scientific consensus on a physics theory, you don't ask biologists or appeal to "the scientific community" in general - you ask physicists.
If you want to know the scientific consensus on the strength of evidence in the field of parapsychology, you ask parapsychologists.
They've been asked. There's a consensus.
(This post was last modified: 2018-05-06, 04:09 AM by Laird.)
(2018-05-06, 04:03 AM)Laird Wrote: In the relevant scientific community (of parapsychology), there is widespread acceptance.
This is the scientific community that actually studies the phenomena. If you want to know the scientific consensus on a physics theory, you don't ask biologists or appeal to "the scientific community" in general - you ask physicists.
If you want to know the scientific consensus on the strength of evidence in the field of parapsychology, you ask parapsychologists.
They've been asked. There's a consensus.
Wonderfully said.
(2018-05-05, 11:11 PM)malf Wrote: Why would that be upsetting?
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/upsetting
![[-]](https://psiencequest.net/forums/images/collapse.png)
The following 1 user Likes Guest's post:1 user Likes Guest's post
• Obiwan
(2018-05-06, 07:14 AM)Chris Wrote: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/upsetting
Phew. Nobody’s getting upset then.
(This post was last modified: 2018-05-06, 07:34 AM by malf.)
![]()
(2018-05-06, 02:44 AM)fls Wrote: Regardless of what anybody believes, I think there is general recognition that there is widespread skepticism amongst the scientific community, rather than acceptance.
No doubt that's true, but clearly it's a completely different statement from your previous one about the weight of the evidence being on the sceptical side.
As laird points out, the opinion of any group of people about a scientific question is only as good as their familiarity with the relevant evidence.
The fact is that only the tiniest percentage of the population - whether scientists or lay people - has a serious interest in parapsychology. I mean an interest serious enough to read published papers, look at sceptical criticisms and weigh up both sides of the argument. I worked in a multidisciplinary scientific research group in a British university for more than a decade, and I remember parapsychology being discussed only once by my colleagues, and that in passing.
You cannot seriously be suggesting that the majority of the scientific community has an adequate familiarity with the parapsychological literature to reach an informed conclusion about the evidence. Sometimes I wonder whether more than a hundred people in the whole world are equipped to do that.
![]()
(2018-05-06, 07:34 AM)malf Wrote: Phew. Nobody’s getting upset then.
How strange. I came to the opposite conclusion. I suppose that's the trouble with URLs as a means of communication. 
The following 3 users Like Guest's post:3 users Like Guest's post
• Obiwan, malf, Valmar
(2018-05-05, 05:50 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: I'd even say it goes outside of evidence. If the skeptics are right you have no free will, there's no objective morality, and within the tiniest fraction of a moment in the universe's long history you'll be shuttled off into oblivion.
Why even worry about Truth in that case? Just take the proponent side as at least somewhat right, or possibly right, and live as a good person until the atoms of your body cast you into Nothingness.
This reply set me thinking of some related ideas which don't seem to really belong in this thread, regarding the experiences and writing of Leo Tolstoy. I may post a separate thread if I get my thoughts together.
(This post was last modified: 2018-05-06, 09:55 AM by Typoz.)
(2018-05-06, 03:47 AM)Dante Wrote: I'm not really focusing on that information. I'm focusing on challenging your notion that this is as objective as you're suggesting, which you haven't responded to.
Because I'm not a masochist. 
Like I said, this has been gone over many times before. I doubt there is any progress to be had on it. I'm not asking you to change your opinion.
Quote:Widespread skepticism in the scientific community can be for a variety of reasons. That's a nice appeal to authority that doesn't take your argument anywhere. People who aren't members of that community are also capable of thinking for themselves and critically and reasonably assessing evidence, though it has always seemed clear that you believe otherwise.
What the scientific community says about any given topic is not creed or automatically, unassailably correct.
Also a subject we've gone over many times before. The point of evidence is to spread an idea beyond true believers, to scientists who are skeptical of the idea. I can't think of an example offhand, where evidence has failed to do so.
Linda
(This post was last modified: 2018-05-06, 10:46 AM by fls.)
![]()
(2018-05-06, 10:46 AM)fls Wrote: Also a subject we've gone over many times before. The point of evidence is to spread an idea beyond true believers, to scientists who are skeptical of the idea. I can't think of an example offhand, where evidence has failed to do so.
Your experience obviously differs from that of Max Planck, who famously wrote:
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle
Indeed, it sounds almost as though Planck had never known sceptics to be convinced by evidence of a new scientific truth. Still, what did Max Planck know?
|
