Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Mind research

The error of mind-body dualism - Beliefnet

If you have a better excellent summary [of mind research] to hand, grateful if you lay it on us.
BlĂĽ
"If I had one I would. The science is still barely in its infancy. It was almost aborted by the skeptic crowd and Randi who declared that anything but the standard five senses was by definition either supernatural or magic. Most of it was, but they intimidated research into neurosciences and consciousness research. Partly by setting standards for success waaaaay to high. And partly because it was infringing on the forbidden territory of God's duality.

Esp as an example is an intensely emotional phenomenon. The Rhine and PEAR studies have foundered on trying to produce results without the emotional content. But ask an early pair bonded couple how they know it is the right pair, and all you get is a shrug. We just know. Ask teilhard how he knows God, and all you get is E-X-P-E-R-I-E-N-C-E. Guess what? He is telling the truth. Science won't touch that with a double insulated 20 foot pole.

Science is still afraid of esp it is a grant killer big time. People on the periphery will earnestly try to find "rational" explanations for obvious esp phenomena like the dog knowing when master is getting off the bus a block away, or how a school of fish avoid a predator. Or how a quintet synchronizes everything they do including the emotional content of the music even if the pianist is blind. I was at a concert last night where a chamber choir performed an extremely difficult new music piece commissioned just last year. The choir was scattered around the stage in no apparent order with at least 6 ft. spacing between singers. How they held it together was either God, esp, or magic. I will bet on esp.

It is only recently that the kinesthetic senses are being investigated, although gymnasts, pianists, and dancers have known about them almost as long as they have been doing their thing. Ask a pianist how they play an Ab minor arpeggio and they look at you funny and say what do you mean how? You just play it. I recently found out I have a muscle memory disability. I have known about it since I took typing in high school, but everybody said I was just stupid. It is easier to say stupid, than research a tenuous phenomenon

If I sound bitter, it is because I had a very frustrating childhood, I could do anything physically as long as it was one thing at a time. 40 WPM no mistakes first week in typing class. But I still can't type my name without doing it one letter at a time. Stupid, lazy, careless, just some of the names used instead of disability. I finally figured it out for myself, after crashing routinely on a double back with a full twist. It was one too many things to do in the time I had to do it, and the muscle memory wasn't there to help. 30 years later science caught up. No esp there, that is a different subject. Just a different brain function. And science wouldn't touch it."

I have no doubt that infringing on the remaining gaps filled by God, as in "God helped me do it" is still intimidating to scientists. The right wingers have no problem with exposing "wasteful grants" for what they deem useless research.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Religion, Philosophy and Science

What Do Atheist Believe In? - Beliefnet

Religions are not an expression of the principle [of rational investigation.] While religion, science and philosophy are based on inquiry, it's the nature of that inquiry that separates them. Religion is based on faith. Questions asked are answered by some prophetic source, which is relied on as authority. Philosophy is based on reason. Questions asked are answered by persons who claim no special authority other than the weight of reason. Their answers are then scrutinized by a community of peers, each of whom has the same opportunity to question or criticize the answers given.

Philosophy recognizes no authority figures, per se, just the power of reason to find errors in logic. Unlike religion, which not only privileges faith but divides communities by allegiance to one prophetic source or another, philosophy is a bit more cannibalistic. Philosophical communities are built on analyzing and criticizing the answers put forth, even by the most respected figures. This process, which is more critical and competitive, tends to produce lines of thought that don't build so much as evolve toward more sophisticated ways of addressing a given issue.

Science, on the other hand, is based on the empirical method. Just as Moses and Isaiah would have made lousy philosophers, Aristotle would have made a poor scientist. That's because Aristotle - who did a decent job of analyzing the different constitutions of Greece - was too much of an armchair 'scientist' to engage in the scientific method. He asked questions, came up with reasoned answers and usually left it at that. Science, on the other hand, relies on empirical testing. A question is posed. A hypothesis is formed. A carefully constructed experiment is then used to test the hypothesis. The test results are then reviewed. If the experiment is a failure, the hypothesis is adjusted and further tests are devised. If the experiment is a success, test results are published so that the test may be replicated by peers.

Not every philosophical question makes a good fit for the scientific method. Some philosophical questions are basically definitional. ('What is Justice? What is truth?') The kinds of questions appropriate to science are those which can be empirically tested. Religion, on the other hand, is neither open to reason or testing. It is something taken on faith. Even where religious disputes involve reason, it's more a question of interpretation of a text that is taken, on faith, as authoritative. The role of reason is limited to a dispute over textual interpretation. In certain instances, reason is employed to propagate or defend the faith, but this is called scholasticism. It's really the rhetorical use of reason, reason as a weapon of propaganda. It's not about answering questions through reason.
BillThinks4Himself
"

A brilliant analysis of the differences I just couldn't ignore. Thanks Bill.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Get rich quick: take a joy ride.

Turning Bumpy Roads into an Electrifying Product: Scientific American:

"One carefree summer day in California, a few college students went for a joy ride. It was the perfect day to don the shades, roll down the windows, and crank up the tunes.

But then someone noticed all the bumps in the road. These were engineering students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the group got to thinking: Isn't there energy in that?

From the battlefield of ideas to the proving ground
MIT's technology licensing office, for example, researched where the device could fit in the market. They found the biggest bang in the biggest vehicles: heavy-duty trucks and military vehicles.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Science as a Bridge to God

The blue roads of thinking: The Human Condition:
To restore to science as a whole, for mathematics as well as psychology and sociology, the sense of its origin and veritable destiny as a bridge leading toward God---not by diminishing, but by increasing precision in demonstration, verification and supposition---that would indeed be a task worth accomplishing.
Simone Weil

Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.
- Simone Weil, Faiths of Meditation; Contemplation of the divine
the Simone Weil Reader, edited by George A. Panichas (David McKay Co. NY 1977) p 417

J'C: So we come full circle. To restore to science its destiny as a bridge leading toward God it must be purged of that religious view of humans as God's failure to create, at the very least, a species with no need for a re-birth mediated by religion but fully capable of themselves awakening the supernatural connection to God. All scientists I know who have made this connection, and they are many as I tend to live in a science dominated world, see their mission in science not as saving their souls, but to discover the world God has created with themselves as an integral part of it along with all other humans. They have purged themselves of the need for consolation or salvation of their religion and have made that direct empowering connection to God. Most Christian scientists have done this by a return to the Synoptics and the empowering first Commandment "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." [Emphasis mine.] There is no room in that commandment for consolation or salvation.

Friday, December 25, 2009

What is Science?

If science is based on process and obscured with unfamiliar words, it nonetheless grew out of a fundamentally human, childlike curiosity. What makes the sky blue, why does ice float, what is "blood," how does the mind work? What child fails to ask those questions? What child fails to draw what she sees, or sing what he knows.
Jon Franklin, The Wolf in the Parlor, 2009. p.3.


In fifty-eight words he has explained to everyone what scientists have been trying to tell as long as scientists have been doing science, and everybody else has been asking WTF are you guys doing? Just brilliant.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Speed Dating

Head Lines: Men Are Choosy, Too: Scientific American: "Ladies must be picky because they invest more in their offspring, according to the oft-repeated evolutionary theory. But when researchers made the simple switch of having women do the table hopping while men stayed seated, the two sexes suddenly became equally choosy,"

So much for evolutionary explanations for a dumb experiment.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Personal Evidence

Antitheism? - Discuss Atheism:
But faith, as such, is blind - not reasonably justified by evidence...
Clardan
I don't think that is true. Whilst there may be debate about the 'reasonably' bit of 'reasonably justified,' my faith (and I can only speak for my own) is not without evidence.
I fear you are misled by Richard Dawkins and his ilk. Faith, says Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, 'means blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence.' He is mistaken.
Lavengro
Actually Lavengro, I thought this independently of Dawkins, but how is he mistaken? I take it you agree that it is not reasonable to believe in things independently of evidence, and that a belief can only be rationally justified by sufficient evidence. How then is your faith rationally justified ?
Clardan
Dawkins is mistaken by the common fundie mistake of assuming some=all. He compounds that by the common atheist mistake of refusing to consider personal evidence. If I am convinced I have had a (Kantian) transcendental experience, and have examined that experience dispassionately as the scientist I am and found evidence that it was indeed transcendent, there is no possibility of reproducing that evidence for another. It happened to me. It was based on the integration of all of the mental and psychological factors that make up my mind which cannot be imposed on another. But if you trust my judgment as a scientist why can you not trust my evaluation of my experience as transcendent. "

Friday, August 14, 2009

Gene Mutation Tied to Needing Less Sleep - NYTimes.com

Gene Mutation Tied to Needing Less Sleep - NYTimes.com: "What distinguishes the two women in the study and other naturally short sleepers is that they go to bed at a normal time and wake up early without an alarm. The two women, one in her 70s and the other in her 40s, go to bed around 10 or 10:30 at night and wake up alert and energized around 4 or 4:30 in the morning, Dr. Fu said."

Sounds like I carry the gene. Although 6 hours seems a bit excessive. The 10pm crash time sounds about right, but socially midnight is better, and getting up at breakfast time is important.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Science and God

Why does anyone believe in G-d? - Discuss Atheism - Beliefnet Community: "Science and many religious people are unable to explain God because they both are looking in the wrong places to find God. Both science and some believers are looking for external evidence for a supernatural omnipotent alpha humanoid that exists outside the minds of believers. Those who are able to find God are those who are willing to look where the only evidence exists that is in the minds of believers.

Science has a hard time even finding experiments to do although the God Helmet at least is trying to establish a data point of where God exists in the brain. Science and skeptics in particular simply refuse to study the most important evidence for God that is available, that is the anecdotal testimony of what a believer is experiencing in church especially but whenever a believer feels hesh is in contact with God."

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Penis-shaped mushroom named after frog expert: Scientific American Blog

Penis-shaped mushroom named after frog expert: Scientific American Blog: "Herpetologist Robert Drewes will forever be remembered for his two-inch Phallus.

In the upcoming issue of the journal Mycologia, scientists describe a new species of stinkhorn fungus from Africa, which they christened Phallus drewesii in honor of their expedition leader."

With colleagues like these you don't need any hecklers.

Monday, January 12, 2009

How Science Works.

Do White Blood Cells Make Cancer Deadly?: Scientific American: "The issue contained a letter from three Czech doctors asking whether the fusion of tumor cells and white blood cells could cause cancers to spread, or metastasize. At the time, Pawelek was also reading a book by evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis, who pioneered the idea that life on earth was revolutionized by ancient cells engulfing one another and fusing together, forming hybrids that had better chances at survival. “I was really excited by the connection,” he recalls. “Since there was a precedent for hybridization in evolution, why not in cancer?”"

J'C: The article goes on to describe Pawelek's 15 year investigation of this hypothesis and starting with mice and finally moving on to human studies. It looks like he is on the verge of some important information on the mechanism of metastasis.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Science, theology and OBEs

Don't Stereotype Atheists - Beliefnet Forums: "It may well be that at the current stage of scientific understanding of mental phenomena the theological explanation for OBEs may be as likely as the scientific."

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Religious v. Rational worldviews

Religious v. Rational - Beliefnet Forums: "High intelligence and the ability to use it effectively is quite compatible with the religious worldview, and indeed some have applied that intelligence to understanding their worldview, that is explaining why having faith is beneficial to their lives. But the faith is not questioned, nor is their worldview about the purpose and meaning of their lives (and their science.)"

Friday, May 23, 2008

Judging the Harvard Monkey Lab Moral Sense Test

Intuitive vs. Rational thinking - Beliefnet Forums: "I spent the better part of a day reviewing their protocols, the rationale for their study, and took a few of their tests that were available on line. At the end of the day I decided that the study was sufficiently flawed that for my purpose, which is the justification of atheistic morality, their study warranted no more of my time."