Prejudice, science, etc.

[zenmaster]

Mod note: The following 16 posts were split from another thread. The discussion is varied, this thread can be open-ended.

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That's less interesting. What's more interesting is that we are willing to fabricate or to ignore information merely to reinforce our existing prejudices.

[hogey11]

I'm sorry, Zen, but I didn't feel like turning this thread into a political smash mouth piece on Mitt Romney. If you want more evidence of him being a greedy, greasy, obvious elite, i'd suggest you go to the appropriate subforum and poke around the appropriate threads.

What's more interesting is that we are willing to fabricate or to ignore information merely to reinforce our existing prejudices.

Are you implying that I am doing that? just curious... If so, what about yourself?

[Patrick]

...

What's more interesting is that we are willing to fabricate or to ignore information merely to reinforce our existing prejudices.

Are you implying that I am doing that? just curious... If so, what about yourself?

I think he is implying that we all do. I cannot disagree with this.

[hogey11]

If that is what he meant, then I cannot either. If any of us were perfectly impartial or knowledgable, I don't think we'd still be in this density.

[Cyan]

...

What's more interesting is that we are willing to fabricate or to ignore information merely to reinforce our existing prejudices.

Are you implying that I am doing that? just curious... If so, what about yourself?

I think he is implying that we all do. I cannot disagree with this.

Considering i think that the universe is a "fabrication or ignoration of the information that there is no way out of the unity of all which is quite a boring state to be in" I tend to agree with Zenmaster in this.

[Patrick]

If that is what he meant, then I cannot either. If any of us were perfectly impartial or knowledgable, I don't think we'd still be in this density.

Or turning this around (mainly for wanderers), I don't think we can be perfectly impartial or knowledgeable while in this density.

[hogey11]

my question is whether zen meant that for everyone (himself included) or whether he was targeting it... We still haven't heard from him on it..

[Parsons]

Considering ZM has recently been guilty of that particular distortion in his assumption that Dean Radin is a pseudoscientist, I will lump him in with the rest of us and say he has prejudices as well. :p

[zenmaster]

Considering ZM has recently been guilty of that particular distortion in his assumption that Dean Radin is a pseudoscientist, I will lump him in with the rest of us and say he has prejudices as well. :p

I definitely have prejudices, but never said Radin was a pseudoscientist. And since I never said that, that's just more fabrication and ignoring. That's why I said it's interesting - it really is interesting to try to understand rather than to dismiss.

[hogey11]

it really is interesting to try to understand rather than to dismiss.

I couldn't agree with you more

[Parsons]

Considering ZM has recently been guilty of that particular distortion in his assumption that Dean Radin is a pseudoscientist, I will lump him in with the rest of us and say he has prejudices as well. :p

I definitely have prejudices, but never said Radin was a pseudoscientist. And since I never said that, that's just more fabrication and ignoring. That's why I said it's interesting - it really is interesting to try to understand rather than to dismiss.

You never actually said the word pseudoscience, but you essentially defined the term over your posts making Dean Radin out to be the opposite of credible in his scientific pursuits. Go ahead and argue semantics if you like, but I fabricated nothing.

By "quantum physics", I mean the theoretical research field (QT/QM) with peer-reviewed papers being published in some area, as opposed to someone's vague notion that through QT, some anecdotal evidence or phenomenological suspicion may ultimately be explained in theoretical form.

Anyone can have a vague notion about something they experience, or something which they think may be a candidate for research, and simply point to the field of quantum physics as already offering an explanation for it. Problem is, the theoretical support from scientific research is actually not there (i.e. for telepathy). People hijack science in this manner all of the time, perhaps because it makes them feel validated.

Dr. Dean Radin has spent years doing exactly the type of scientific research

No. Radin is a psychologist. This is the kind of hijacking I was talking about.

Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status.

[zenmaster]

Considering ZM has recently been guilty of that particular distortion in his assumption that Dean Radin is a pseudoscientist, I will lump him in with the rest of us and say he has prejudices as well. :p

I definitely have prejudices, but never said Radin was a pseudoscientist. And since I never said that, that's just more fabrication and ignoring. That's why I said it's interesting - it really is interesting to try to understand rather than to dismiss.

You never actually said the word pseudoscience, but you essentially defined the term over your posts making Dean Radin out to be the opposite of credible in his scientific pursuits. Go ahead and argue semantics if you like, but I fabricated nothing.

The context of the discussion began with my assertion that there is no explanation for telepathy provided in quantum physics (QT/QM). That comment was directly addressing a claim made by a prior post.

By "quantum physics", I mean the theoretical research field (QT/QM) with peer-reviewed papers being published in some area, as opposed to someone's vague notion that through QT, some anecdotal evidence or phenomenological suspicion may ultimately be explained in theoretical form.

Anyone can have a vague notion about something they experience, or something which they think may be a candidate for research, and simply point to the field of quantum physics as already offering an explanation for it. Problem is, the theoretical support from scientific research is actually not there (i.e. for telepathy). People hijack science in this manner all of the time, perhaps because it makes them feel validated.

This is a very true statement. Especially among people biased with a dominant faculty of intuition but with an undeveloped secondary function for rationality. And, of course, this comment was made before the mention of Radin and his research.

Dr. Dean Radin has spent years doing exactly the type of scientific research

No. Radin is a psychologist. This is the kind of hijacking I was talking about.

Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status.

Indeed Radin has not come up with a theoretical model for his experiments which are based on QM/QT. Nor would one expect him to do so because of his different background.

[Parsons]

He does actually have mention of quantum physics experiments in his aforementioned book. He lists the very few experiments published in scientific journals, which found successful results (chance was expected at 50% on one experiment, but got a 60% hit rate). There were hundreds of replications of the same trials published in the journals, but sadly were filtered out due to the extreme taboo of this phenomenon in the scientific world. Mainstream science blacklists telepathy/clairvoyance scientific trials from getting into peer reviewed journals, which I have no doubt is the reason for your bias and your uninformed skeptical stance of thinking there isn't any data. There is overwhelming mountains of data for a whole range of experiments, which when compiled into meta data have odds against chance that range from 20-1(the threshold of science to believe there is an 'interesting effect' going on) to several trillion-1. Radin is even fair(always approaches everything with the scientific method) and talks about unsuccessful scientific trials and wrote the book from as a least biased standpoint as possible.

But apparently not all realize educational institutions are just as corrupt as governments and banks. The larger and higher profile the institution, the more potential for corruption. A prime example would be all the peer reviewed stuff getting all the super harmful pharmaceuticals pushed on us by doctors. Ra/Q'uo said that most of them cause more harm than benefit while only treating symptoms, not fixing the root cause. Yet the same pharmaceuticals are considered relatively safe by peer reviewed articles. I hate to sound like a conspiracy monger, but it totally makes logical sense for 'TPTB' to ostracize any talk of telepathy; as if people realized this, many more people would use this information to their advantage and try to apply it to their everyday life. What if you could tell if a politician was completely lying to you about something? They would lose all their power over the half-asleep masses.

[zenmaster]

Getting back to the point, I realize the man creates experiments. Fine. He may suggest someone else's theory may help explain his experimental evidence, but that is a far cry from creating a theory to explain telepathy.

And these experiments should be 'blacklisted' if they can not be reproduced. It's common sense. The public is generally uninformed about how science works, and you're proving to be no exception.

[Parsons]

As I said several times, these experiments have been reproduced many, many times with similar or sometimes nearly identical results. They are finding positive results in plenty of these reproductions. And why do you need a scientific theory to find positive test results valid? Aren't theories devised because of positive test results of effects?

The most common, stereotypical telepathic experiment is "guessing" the suit of the next card flipped over. Since there are 4 suits, if there is no telepathy, people should be guessing correctly at 25% the time. The hit rate for the meta data(with trials dating back to the 1930's) on that specific type of experiment is 34%, implying some sort interesting effect going on.

[Cyan]

You create/have three rooms in an experiment. All three rooms are full of plants and all plants are clones and all plants are kept under the same conditions in a carefully managed way.

Room A is told of to the general public, which is then given a data feed to the room and told to try to heal this room of plants so they grow faster.

Room B is kept secret from the public but is healed by any priests /spirit healers that want to participate in this experiment.

Room C is control and is kept in total isolation for the duration.

Total plant mass + rates of growth etc followed for all plants and test repeated enough times to get if A/B and C are different.

Simple enough? That should prove no problem to anyone, plants only receive light/love and are the most receptive at growing towards it. Theory is that either A or B should grow faster than C. A should attract a degree of "sabotage" so be slightly less than B and both should be significantly bigger/better than C.

This should work as a experiment?

[Shin'Ar]

You create/have three rooms in an experiment. All three rooms are full of plants and all plants are clones and all plants are kept under the same conditions in a carefully managed way.

Room A is told of to the general public, which is then given a data feed to the room and told to try to heal this room of plants so they grow faster.

Room B is kept secret from the public but is healed by any priests /spirit healers that want to participate in this experiment.

Room C is control and is kept in total isolation for the duration.

Total plant mass + rates of growth etc followed for all plants and test repeated enough times to get if A/B and C are different.

Simple enough? That should prove no problem to anyone, plants only receive light/love and are the most receptive at growing towards it. Theory is that either A or B should grow faster than C. A should attract a degree of "sabotage" so be slightly less than B and both should be significantly bigger/better than C.

This should work as a experiment?

Science- experimentation by testing hypothesis and theory in an attempt to prove it factual, basing the credibility of assuming fact on continuing that experiment until such a time as one test proves it nonfactual.

In fact, science is basically diplomacy. Majority rules.

If a scientists does X number of experiments and gets the same results, at some point he begins to assume the hypothesis must be factual. Exactly at what point they decide to jump to conclusion eludes me however. Is it a hundred? A thousand or ten thousand?

And yet, all it takes is for one test to fail after the conclusion has been made to completely disprove the test.

so science is basically:

1000 successes = fact
1 failure = fiction


Science is a very essential piece of learning and understanding; as long as the scientists do not allow their bias to get in the way of their search for answers. As soon as a scientist begins to declare conclusions as though the sheer number of successes must deny the other possibilities, they have become the same as the priests and fundamentalists they so often ridicule.

[Patrick]

Excellent explanation Shin'Ar !

Yes the scientific method is not properly applied and the reason is... money! It always seems to come back to money doesn't it? Sometimes I feel that I could put all of our issues on the back of money, but I think it's important that we take our share of responsibility in it.

Anyway, nowadays science is not even done most of the time. They just take the results of epidemiological studies and applies them as facts.

[Siren]

Science is (more often than not) a very polemical topic—one that, for obvious reasons, I rarely ever get involved in. I would have to say that science (generally-speaking) is more concerned with "the art of debunking" than with the sincere seeking of truth; more interested in controlling nature with technological gadgets than in understanding the cosmic oneness of all things. Perhaps I'm slightly prejudiced, but this is what I witness 95% of the time when I see/hear a heated scientific debate: one person/group trying to discredit the other with their own scientific facts/evidence (and this is especially true when you pit science against religion).

I've said this several times throughout my life: science, to me, is no different than religion; in fact, I consider it a religion in and of itself—a cold religion, if you will. The main difference between science and other religions is that science holds a substantially greater degree of authority over the people; that is, the general public seems to more readily accept (without question) anything that comes with a "scientifically-proven" tag.

(If memory serves right, this very same science claimed this planet was flat and that the universe revolved around it not very long ago. Yet people today take "scientific facts" as facts just as they did a thousand years ago, never questioning the accuracy of such "facts.")

But perhaps more importantly, something that is never taken into account is that there is a public science (for the general masses) and a private science (run by the shadow gov, secretive cabals and military-industrial complex)—and there is an immense gap between these two. The scientific community is heavily compartmentalized, yet people naively believe that the scientific breakthroughs they see on TV or read on a web-zine are the science, when in fact it's almost a joke in comparison to the actual scientific achievements of the human race. Were this not so, everyone would be riding UFOs nowadays instead of automobiles, and nobody would be paying electricity bills because everything would be powered by so-called "free energy." And yet, it's the 21st century already and people are still depending on oil. But of course, this is no accident.

And people think man went to the moon just once? (Oh, but that was debunked too, wasn't it?) I won't claim to know or believe or think anything here, I will simply say this: may I suggest certain elite pockets of 3rd-density human-beings are already well established not only on the Moon but on planet Mars as well?

Food for thought.

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The funny thing that the very definition of science is: "knowledge acquired via study;" which, by definition, would make everyone a scientist—for what is living if not gradual learning and self-development catalyzed by the continual acquisition of knowledge through experience?

[Patrick]

I have this book here.

Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery

It argues that science should adopt a methodology based on falsifiability, because no number of experiments can ever prove a theory, but a single experiment can contradict one. Popper holds that empirical theories are characterized by falsifiability...

eBook sample available here

I still have to read it though. When I can make time for this.

But from what I know of it, if we were to apply the scientific method as explained in there, our world would be completely different.

Of course, since we are here to be confused beyond measure, such a world may not be very useful for 3d.

But 4d is coming in now so...

[zenmaster]

why do you need a scientific theory to find positive test results valid?

No one said you do.

Aren't theories devised because of positive test results of effects?

No. The experimental results may suggest an underlying principle. That's what a theory attempts to address.

The most common, stereotypical telepathic experiment is "guessing" the suit of the next card flipped over. Since there are 4 suits, if there is no telepathy, people should be guessing correctly at 25% the time. The hit rate for the meta data(with trials dating back to the 1930's) on that specific type of experiment is 34%, implying some sort interesting effect going on.

That is correct. It's called "anecdotal evidence" and, on its own, does nothing to further understanding. The better the experiment (the more understanding involved), the more likely it may be reliably reproduced (i.e. you do this, you get this).

[Cyan]

I'm compelled here to take some minor role in this having some though not complete university degree education and a history of strong interest in science and the sciences. As I hope most of you are aware on many levels.

That being said.

I have no idea where most of the people here have their undestanding of the word science from.

All it means, in general is that what ever you do has to have the same results if done by anyone without understanding the concepts inhereant to within your field. That is to say, the free transmission of data between subjects on what has been discovered using available methods. The "scientific" principle. That princple is, in short, act as if you are giant antennae for a singular being, observe what goes on around you, write it down, and see if there are any repeating patterns that happen when you act, what are they, write them down, pass them on to others, work as groups to device means to test from many simulatneous vantagepoints what the observed phenomena actually is, write down a theory regarding observed phenomena, hand to other groups for verification and confirmation, once confirmation is attained, work to create larger test using both group simulataneously, repeat ad infinitum.

Whats so difficult abotu that to understand?

Scientific principle is that in short?

Observe
Correlate
Device theory on observed phenomena
Test theory
Share findings and theory with other groups
Repeate 1-4 while waiting confirmation on earlier 5ths.
Once confirmation on 5th is attained, proceed to test theory using both groups to attain a similar yet independent finding, present finding to world community (6th)

What happens when all information is thusly collected into a global database of theoretical observations, no one knows really.

The methods on how you get from stage to stage vary according to field and point of view on sciences in general and are, for the most part, irrelevant.

*ugh* I have spoken, carry on! =)

[Tenet Nosce]

That's less interesting. What's more interesting is that we are willing to fabricate or to ignore information merely to reinforce our existing prejudices.

Being a Johnny-come-lately to this thread, I'm not privy to where or when this thread was broken off. But I'm gonna throw my two pennies in the mix anyway.

zenmaster- What you say here is definitely true. However I would point out that it is just as true for many scientists, especially those of the "rational materialist skeptic" type who hide behind the aegis of "SCIENCE" when "debunking" anything that does not fit with their worldview.

Under the purview of my profession, which is natural medicine, there is certainly all manner of woo-woo, psuedoscience, and downright ridiculous claims being made by various practitioners of natural medicine.

Yet for every one of these woo-types there appears to be one of these skeptic-types who pound the drum of "show me the evidence" even when they know good darn well that there are many things for which there will never be a double-blind placebo-controlled study.

Diet is one of those things that can never be rigorously controlled in a study. Many nutritional claims being made come from observing that pathway X requires cofactor Y in order to function. Thus, it stands to reason that food or supplement Z, which contains cofactor Y, can help to support malfunctions of pathway X. Can we prove it in the most rigorous sense? No. But does that mean we should refrain from making any sort of claim, whatsoever? I don't think so.

Another area which gets a lot of heat is acupuncture. Since the whole premise of acupuncture is the existence of many interconnected points along energy meridian pathways, it is impossible to truly control an experiment comparing acupuncture points A, B and C to D, E, and F. They are all connected. Therefore even using the "wrong" acupuncture points is going to have some kind of effect.

If the definition of "pseudoscience" says that anything which "cannot be reliably tested" is pseudoscientific, then yes, acupuncture is a pseudoscience. But does that mean it is completely bereft of value as a healing modality? No, it doesn't.

And this is where I think many people get frustrated which science. There is this pervasive attitude in many scientific circles where anything "pseudoscientific" is met with derision, as if it isn't even worth our consideration, and that anybody who is interested in "pseudoscience" must therefore be an idiot, a quack, or both.

What is worse, when it comes to Western medicine, there is a large amount of Wizard of Oz "man behind the curtain" effect where things are presented to the public as "hard facts backed by SCIENCE" when they are not.

For example, in my pharmacology classes, I was surprised to learn that a solid 1/3 of pharmaceutical drugs approved for treatment of certain diseases in fact have unknown mechanisms of action. Beyond that, MDs and DOs regularly prescribe medications for purposes which they are not approved for, and which they were never proven to work.

Which would all be fine, except for the fact that there is a blatant double-standard that is adopted by Western medicine where it is projected to the public that all these medications are "backed by hard science" when they aren't. Yet simultaneously, many doctors snub their noses at alternative treatments ostensibly for their lack of scientific support.

The truth is that a very large chunk of Western medicine has no more scientific support than many of the "pseudoscientific" approaches which many doctors are so quick to attack. Western doctors are prescribing based on anecdotal evidence and unproven therapies, just like everybody else.

So I guess my point is that you are right. But let us all be clear that many scientists are just as guilty as prejudice and confirmation bias as everybody else. Only, being scientists, it is worse when they do it because they should ostensibly know better. Which means that, either something is going horribly wrong in the educational process of these scientists, or that they are being deliberately disingenuous.

[zenmaster]

That's less interesting. What's more interesting is that we are willing to fabricate or to ignore information merely to reinforce our existing prejudices.

Being a Johnny-come-lately to this thread, I'm not privy to where or when this thread was broken off. But I'm gonna throw my two pennies in the mix anyway.

zenmaster- What you say here is definitely true. However I would point out that it is just as true for many scientists, especially those of the "rational materialist skeptic" type who hide behind the aegis of "SCIENCE" when "debunking" anything that does not fit with their worldview.

Well, this is certainly true and the skeptical inside-the-box, reductionistic mentality viewpoint is frequently used by many as evidence of the lack of effectiveness of science itself (especially by those which have recently left that meme) However, the thing to understand is that the scientific method does not so constrain in the least according to worldview or rational development for that matter.

Under the purview of my profession, which is natural medicine, there is certainly all manner of woo-woo, psuedoscience, and downright ridiculous claims being made by various practitioners of natural medicine.

I am very familiar with the profession of natural medicine.

Yet for every one of these woo-types there appears to be one of these skeptic-types who pound the drum of "show me the evidence" even when they know good darn well that there are many things for which there will never be a double-blind placebo-controlled study.

Diet is one of those things that can never be rigorously controlled in a study. Many nutritional claims being made come from observing that pathway X requires cofactor Y in order to function. Thus, it stands to reason that food or supplement Z, which contains cofactor Y, can help to support malfunctions of pathway X. Can we prove it in the most rigorous sense? No. But does that mean we should refrain from making any sort of claim, whatsoever? I don't think so.

That's true, but there should be some type of accountability for the sake of the trusting patient/client. Without formal regulations, the burden is on the healthcare practitioner to provide appropriate advice and treatment, and also to dedicate themselves to continued learning about how to heal.

Another area which gets a lot of heat is acupuncture. Since the whole premise of acupuncture is the existence of many interconnected points along energy meridian pathways, it is impossible to truly control an experiment comparing acupuncture points A, B and C to D, E, and F. They are all connected. Therefore even using the "wrong" acupuncture points is going to have some kind of effect.

If the definition of "pseudoscience" means that anything which "cannot be reliably tested" is pseudoscientific, then yes, acupuncture is a pseudoscience. But does that mean it is completely bereft of value as a healing modality? No, it doesn't.

When it comes right down to it, pseudoscience is about making scientific claims without adequately describing or expressing the underlying principles. Some idea may seem to have the potential to solve some problem, but scientifically that means literally nothing without a proper treatment. While it is a difficult thing for one to write a proper science paper, it's an extremely easy thing for one to make a fantastic claim or to cry conspiracy.

And this is where I think many people get frustrated which science. There is this pervasive attitude in many scientific circles where anything "pseudoscientific" is met with derision, as if it isn't even worth our consideration, and that anybody who is interested in "pseudoscience" must therefore be an idiot, a quack, or both.

"pseudoscience" to me (and I would say most working scientists) is not about something which has not yet been addressed by science or given a scientific treatment, it's about the manner in which claims are made. In order to give their alternative ideas credibility or authority people will often hijack some established concept of science (which their intuition vaguely suggests is somehow associated with their work) and ride with it. With art you can glue pieces together like that, with science you simply can't.

What is worse, when it comes to Western medicine, there is a large amount of Wizard of Oz "man behind the curtain" effect where things are presented to the public as "hard facts backed by SCIENCE" when they are not.

For example, in my pharmacology classes, I was surprised to learn that a solid 1/3 of pharmaceutical drugs approved for treatment of certain diseases in fact have unknown mechanisms of action.

I would say that when you get down to some level, almost all have unknown mechanisms of action (protein behavior, receptor sites, etc really just know some kind of stimulus and response - we can't create these biological tissues and functions from scratch after all). Science is about creating the best models available and improving upon them, not about hiding what is unknown. If you actually bother to look at those things which seem to be "ignored" by science, it's inevitably something not amenable to research due to lack of understanding. This is regardless of what one's intuition may suggest as something which "holds great promise to all of humanity" and the number of followers of that individual.

Beyond that, MDs and DOs regularly prescribe medications for purposes which they are not approved for, and which they were never proven to work.

Which would all be fine, except for the fact that there is a blatant double-standard that is adopted by Western medicine where it is projected to the public that all these medications are "backed by hard science" when they aren't. Yet simultaneously, many doctors snub their noses at alternative treatments ostensibly for their lack of scientific support.

Many doctors are pragmatic when it comes to how to treat certain conditions and do not snub their noses at alternative treatments. There are biases in both professions, especially when one or the other course of treatment is not generally known to be effective or, the reverse, when it has been shown to be effective.

The truth is that a very large chunk of Western medicine has no more scientific support than many of the "pseudoscientific" approaches which many doctors are so quick to attack.

The body is one of those areas which has been given a lot of attention to scientific study, but being a 2D system with time/space components, is extremely difficult to model. I agree that the shortcomings of western medicine are directly related to the lack of scientific understanding of the body.

So I guess my point is that you are right. But let us all be clear that many scientists are just as guilty as prejudice and confirmation bias as everybody else. Only, being scientists, it is worse when they do it because they should ostensibly know better. Which means that, either something is going horribly wrong in the educational process of these scientists, or that they are being deliberately disingenuous.

Great thing is that, for now anyway, you can simply go to another doctor.

[Tenet Nosce]

Before I respond, there was one other point I wanted to make, but forgot in my post.

Polypharmacy is a huge area where I feel the public is highly misled. As the safety and efficacy of medications is proven using double-blind placebo-controlled studies, they of necessity only involve studying one medication at a time.

Yet in reality, one would be fairly hard-pressed to find people who are only taking a single medication. It is more common that people are on two or three medications, and in some cases upwards of ten or more. This in addition to all manner of OTC drugs that people self-prescribe.

The truth is that hardly anything is known about the safety or efficacy of various polypharmacy situations. And yet it is common practice to have a person on, say, an ACE-inhibitor, beta-blocker, thiazide diuretic and a PPI to boot.

Now as we both know, there isn't some kind of conspiracy against conducting proper research on these methods, as the methods simply don't exist given our current resources and mathematical capabilities. If they did exist, we would conduct them. Yet still, a false front is portrayed to the public with respect to polypharmacy. Your average person on the street is given the impression that these practices are backed by some kind of scientific evidence, when in fact there is little, if any at all.

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... and there are things like, for example, when so many "mainstream" health professionals spread patent falsehoods such as "the FDA does not regulate dietary supplements". When, in fact, they do. The regulations are found in CFR - Code of Federal Regulations Title 21 PART 111 CURRENT GOOD MANUFACTURING PRACTICE IN MANUFACTURING, PACKAGING, LABELING, OR HOLDING OPERATIONS FOR DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS.

[Tenet Nosce]

However, the thing to understand is that the scientific method does not so constrain in the least according to worldview or rational development for that matter.

You are right. The scientific method is neutral with respect to those, and could be successfully applied in any manner of contexts. But the knowledge obtained through the scientific method is constrained by empiricism and our instruments of measurement.

In my opinion, where the "skeptical inside-the-box, reductionistic mentality viewpoint" goes wrong is in the assumption that, if it cannot be measured or empirically tested, it does not exist. Which is also very interesting because that view presupposes a premise which, itself, cannot be measured or empirically tested. So it's another one of those little ironies of life.

There is a whole vast universe of knowledge that exists outside of what can be empirically measured. Certainly, many scientists are fully cognizant of this. But why aren't they the ones writing policy or textbooks?

I am very familiar with the profession of natural medicine.

What is the nature of your familiarity with it?

That's true, but there should be some type of accountability for the sake of the trusting patient/client. Without formal regulations, the burden is on the healthcare practitioner to provide appropriate advice and treatment, and also to dedicate themselves to continued learning about how to heal.

Well yes, there should be some accountability as a certain amount of trust and faith has been invested in the practitioner. If there is a breach of trust, or just plain malpractice, then there should be consequences. However, in many cases, where there have been moves at formal self-regulation of natural medicine, roadblocks are thrown up by the selfsame people who, at other times, in other contexts, decry the lack of regulation.

When it comes right down to it, pseudoscience is about making scientific claims without adequately describing or expressing the underlying principles.

Well yes, there is a problem when a claim is forwarded as "scientific" when it has no scientific basis. But again, there are many claims which are taken at face value in the "mainstream" scientific world which have never been proven, and yet are presented to the public as if they have.

I'm just using medicine here because it is the area which I have the most experience. But the same could be said of just about any scientific field, from physics and astronomy to geology and meteorology. The larger point is that so many scientists get frustrated with all the "woo" and pseudoscientific claims being made and yet miss the glaring hypocrisy caused by failing to take responsibility for their own misrepresentation of theories as facts.

Is this not, as with so many other things, simply projection of what is denied within one's own consciousness onto the screen of the "other"?

Amongst themselves, scientists understand what is the prevailing theory. But to the public it is not made clear that so many things are still in the realm of theory, and not proven fact. This causes many problems, especially where politics becomes involved. It is precisely because some people actually do investigate things for themselves and learn that some idea which was presented to them as a "cold, hard fact", was never a fact at all, but simply an opinion which gained consensus status. And a shitty one at that. Why should they trust anything anyone says after that happens?

Some idea may seem to have the potential to solve some problem, but scientifically that means literally nothing without a proper treatment.

Yes, that is true. But giving an idea a proper treatment takes time and money, and when certain ideas are summarily dismissed "out of hand" and never given a chance to be properly explored, there is often some funny-business going on in the background that has more to do with protecting somebody's profits, than the pursuit of truth.

At the very least, I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask what are the financial motives at play. But to this point, scientists only go so far to disclose who they are "for". They do not declare who they are "against". It many, if not most, cases: They don't even know who they are against. Has science come a long way in a short time in this regard? It could be argued yes. But it can also be argued that it is long past due for some severe overhauls in the manner with which science is conducted.

Case-in-point would be Tesla's demonstration of wireless power. Only now, 120 years later, is wireless power finally being developed. We could have had this technology over a century ago. It would have led to an entirely different course of history- one with likely much less sickness and war. And it will- 120 years after originally scheduled.

But it didn't happen back then because it would have cut to deeply into somebody's bid for financial dominion over the earth. This is not some "BS conspiracy theory". Can it be ultimately proven? Maybe not. But IMO it is a likely reality- not at all surprising. And I would suggest that if the scientific community copped to at least the possibility of these realities instead of poo-pooing and denying they are even possible, then we wouldn't have so many real "BS conspiracy theories" floating around to contend with.

While it is a difficult thing for one to write a proper science paper, it's an extremely easy thing for one to make a fantastic claim or to cry conspiracy.

Yes, it is easy to cry conspiracy. And it is even easier to act as if they simply aren't possible. Conspiracies can, and do, happen. Take the LIBOR scandal as another example. Just a few years ago, the idea that these banks were colluding to fix interest rates was widely considered nothing more than another nutjob conspiracy theory. Many even said that the structure of the financial system itself precluded this type of collusion from even being possible. And yet it was possible, and it did happen. And still all those naysayers and poo-pooers haven't grown the ballsacs to admit that they were very, very wrong.

For some, it doesn't matter how many actual conspiracies have come to light over the years, they will continue to deny that they exist in this very moment. Now that's cognitive dissonance at its finest!

"pseudoscience" to me (and I would say most working scientists) is not about something which has not yet been addressed by science or given a scientific treatment, it's about the manner in which claims are made.

Yes, there are certainly many out there who are making claims in completely inappropriate manners. I wouldn't argue that.

What I will argue is using a "strawman" technique where the worst possible examples of pseudoscience are deliberately sought out- even encouraged- and then reported back to the public as if they are somehow representative of the whole.

Thus we have a world where people are cautioned against vitamin C because of a few fringe-dwellers who were claiming they could cure cancer with it. Meanwhile, the public is still unconvinced that organic produce is a better choice for themselves, and for the planet.

Let's just say for shits and giggles that it turned out that vitamin C did cure cancer. That is to say- whenever we finally do figure it out, it will have been something that will be difficult to believe that we had missed the whole time. There's actually a great deal of uncomfortable emotion which would need to be processed in that sort of situation.

Imagine- the chagrin at having dedicated one's life to telling people that they needed to be sliced open, irradiated and poisoned in order to cure their cancer when it wasn't at all necessary. Watching it happen. Making it happen. Watching them die. Watching their families watch them die. Your community of peers watching you watching them die. Your spouse and your family watching you watching them die. All of that negative emotion which was projected onto others which now has to be reclaimed and absorbed back into the self.

That's a lot to process. So there could be more than just financial motives going on here.

In order to give their alternative ideas credibility or authority people will often hijack some established concept of science (which their intuition vaguely suggests is somehow associated with their work) and ride with it. With art you can glue pieces together like that, with science you simply can't.

Yes, that is true. For example, there are a ton of practitioners out there (including MDs and DOs) claiming they can diagnose people with "quantum machines" that can supposedly read a person's subtle field and reliably determine what is wrong with their body. IMO this is complete quackery.

I would say that when you get down to some level, almost all have unknown mechanisms of action (protein behavior, receptor sites, etc really just know some kind of stimulus and response - we can't create these biological tissues and functions from scratch after all). Science is about creating the best models available and improving upon them, not about hiding what is unknown.

Well, yes. But you are kind of sidestepping my point. Which was that many scientific theories are portrayed to the public as if they were facts. That is not hiding the unknown, but rather falsely portraying that the unknown is known. Instead of saying, X is the commonly accepted or consensus view, it is simply portrayed as fact, and competing theories Y and Z are not even mentioned.

If you actually bother to look at those things which seem to be "ignored" by science, it's inevitably something not amenable to research due to lack of understanding.

Yes, that is true. But rather than scoff at and poopoo those things, why doesn't science just state that they are not amenable to research, and leave it at that?

This is regardless of what one's intuition may suggest as something which "holds great promise to all of humanity" and the number of followers of that individual.

Well, I will make no defense of charismatic intuitives and their throngs of mindless followers. I'm just suggesting that if the scientific community conducted themselves with greater integrity with respect to admitting what we don't know, and acknowledging that sometimes conspiracies do happen, it would leave less space for these types to gain a hold in the mass consciousness.

Many doctors are pragmatic when it comes to how to treat certain conditions and do not snub their noses at alternative treatments. There are biases in both professions, especially when one or the other course of treatment is not generally known to be effective or, the reverse, when it has been shown to be effective.

Yes.

The body is one of those areas which has been given a lot of attention to scientific study, but being a 2D system with time/space components, is extremely difficult to model. I agree that the shortcomings of western medicine are directly related to the lack of scientific understanding of the body.

Yes, but also a stubborn unwillingness to admit when it was wrong. Of all the sciences, medicine seems to suffer from this the most.

Great thing is that, for now anyway, you can simply go to another doctor.

Well, that is true in theory. But for most people it is not practical or financially feasible to keep seeking until they find the right doc. Plus, with all the smoke and mirrors, from all sides, it is exceedingly difficult for the average person to see through the BS and discern who is truly trustworthy.

[zenmaster]

Your average person on the street is given the impression that these practices are backed by some kind of scientific evidence, when in fact there is little, if any at all.

I'm not sure that healthcare advice in the hands of others, when one does not appreciate one's own needs, is a significant impediment for incarnation here in the first place.

[Shin'Ar]

Your average person on the street is given the impression that these practices are backed by some kind of scientific evidence, when in fact there is little, if any at all.

I'm not sure that healthcare advice in the hands of others, when one does not appreciate one's own needs, is a significant impediment for incarnation here in the first place.

black hole = science

where the matter goes in it = pseudoscience


I just watched a news report on black holes where they discussed the science around it.

They admit that they still remain a mystery and can only theorize about them.

But even in their admission of that they still avoid asking the most obvious question.

They talk about expansion and massive implosion, density and how all nearby matter is sucked into the hole.

But what I would ask is WHERE is the stuff going after it goes in there?

Is there not a law of displacement that speaks to matter not just disappearing, but merely taking another form?

They do not ask that question because they hate to admit that there is something else out there besides that which they can see, that does not conform to their science of physics. Or that might blow all their theories to hell.

[zenmaster]

On the subject of conspiracy against alternative healthcare:

[Tenet Nosce]

On the subject of conspiracy against alternative healthcare:

Interesting trailer! Have you seen the whole documentary? And do you think it satisfactorily establishes that there is indeed a conspiracy against alternative healthcare? It looks like this documentary was made by chiropractors- and while I know they have received much undeserved assaults on their characters and modality, some of it is with good reason also. Just like any profession.