why science is wrong… about almost everything — review by Society for Psychical Research

thx for the defense :)

However, I have to agree with Tom that Alex is indeed a bit too harsh to atheists in general. Beyond Dawkins and Dennet, atheist ranks include people like Raymond Tallis and Thomas Nagel, who do not think that people are biological robots, or that our life is meaningless, or that human values are illusory. Such atheists are actually closer to spiritual people than to the hardcore New Anti-Theist crowd.
IDK... sure, there is a lot of diversity among Atheists, but they all the ones I've encountered seem blindly married to mind=brain.

But what really gets me is that they don't seem to even understand how/why this kind of metaphysics matters.
 
however, I think once you take the "consciousness is fundamental" leap you're way down the slippery science-is-wrong hillside.

Yesterday I used Second Life as a tangible example of why the common anti-creationist arguments are empty. I'll use it here to illustrate why I see the "slippery slope" as being a misunderstanding. A VR world operates in a certain way, has certain things that apply there. That there is a more fundamental reality doesn't change that.

In a similar way physical frameworks are realities that have their own distinct parameters. That they are being generated from a more fundamental reality doesn't make those parameters any less real. And discovering those parameters is valid . . . and fun.

There is though one thing - the parameters are not immutable. A few of my favorite science greats have known that with my oft-used Planck quote summing it up fairly well in its second half - "We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up to now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future." As I perceive, most will continue in a similar way but it's not a must.
 
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thx for the defense :)


IDK... sure, there is a lot of diversity among Atheists, but they all the ones I've encountered seem blindly married to mind=brain.

But what really gets me is that they don't seem to even understand how/why this kind of metaphysics matters.

I think I'll make a second attempt to invite Ray Tallis in the next few days. After all, his silence might mean that he simply hadn't received my e-mail in the first place. After all, "the second call" tactic did worked with Carlos Alvarado and Nancy Zingrone: during the second - and successful - attempt to contact them I learned that they never received my first message (probably because of some technical problem).

Alex, I definitely want you to be able to participate in a dialogue with the atheist who is neither reductionist nor determinist.
 
I think I'll make a second attempt to invite Ray Tallis in the next few days. After all, his silence might mean that he simply hadn't received my e-mail in the first place. After all, "the second call" tactic did worked with Carlos Alvarado and Nancy Zingrone: during the second - and successful - attempt to contact them I learned that they never received my first message (probably because of some technical problem).

Alex, I definitely want you to be able to participate in a dialogue with the atheist who is neither reductionist nor determinist.
great.
 
Disappointing to see this kind of review sponsored by the SPR. I guess it's just not the same organization it once was.

~Bertha
 
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Apparently both the book and it's title ruffled someone's feathers. :D Anyone who thinks that status-quo science isn't the religion du jour need only read that "review."
Sure . Science has become a kind of secular materialist dogmatic religion deep down , since the second half of the 19th century at least and counting , but Mr.Alex went too far in his above mentioned book on the subject , i guess . That "almost" in the title of the book leaves no room for much , since science is right about many things though . Looking forward to read the book anyway .
 
science is right about many things though .
How do you know that? I'll as I often do use that Planck quote: "We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up to now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future."

Some opine that the beauty of status-quo science is that is self-correcting. While that may be so, it also means that at any point, anything within the sciences may well be incorrect. Or for that matter correct at one point but incorrect at another.
 
How do you know that? I'll as I often do use that Planck quote: "We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up to now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future."

Some opine that the beauty of status-quo science is that is self-correcting. While that may be so, it also means that at any point, anything within the sciences may well be incorrect. Or for that matter correct at one point but incorrect at another.

Planck sounds like David Hume here above . I do agree with the essence of your post , in the Popperian sense (Karl Popper ) that is : all scientific knowledge remains hypothetical indeed ,but we can't say that science is wrong about almost everything though,although i think that all what materialist science has been telling us about the universe and ourselves must be radically questioned and reexamined indeed .
 
but we can't say that science is wrong about almost everything though,
We can say whatever we like. ;)

Snark aside, it depends how you look at things. I happen to be someone who thinks that, within its appropriate sandbox, status-quo science is worthwhile and probably often accurate.
 
Sure . Science has become a kind of secular materialist dogmatic religion deep down , since the second half of the 19th century at least and counting , but Mr.Alex went too far in his above mentioned book on the subject , i guess . That "almost" in the title of the book leaves no room for much , since science is right about many things though . Looking forward to read the book anyway .

thx for this... and I appreciate where you're coming from (especially since I keep hearing it), but I don't get how you harmonize the first part with the second.
 
thx for this... and I appreciate where you're coming from (especially since I keep hearing it), but I don't get how you harmonize the first part with the second.

Well, sir .First of all ,you're welcome. it's an honor to "talk " to you this way .Thanks for taking the time to reply to my post , appreciate indeed . I really admire your work and site .I am looking forward to reading your book in question too ,since i have been involved, my own way , ( Through many scientific and other forums , for example , and mainly through the naked scientist site of Cambridge university ,as well as elsewhere ), in trying to make people realize the fact that science must reject the false outdated and superseded materialist ideology, 19th century philosophy , world view or conception of nature that was built upon the approximately correct and fundamentally false classical deterministic mechanical Newtonian world view .

I have been also reading and following the works of many non-materialist scientists and philosophers on the subject as well .

That said : regarding the above , the following :

Despite the fact that materialism has been equated with science , ironically and paradoxically enough , for relatively so long now and counting , and despite the fact that the materialist mainstream "scientific world view " is false , despite all that and more , science's wonderful achievements were/are and will be the results of applying the unique and unparalleled scientific method only, by materialist and non-materialist scientists alike .Materialism has been having absolutely nothing thus to do with all that relatively enormous success of science at the level of matter at least .

In other words : despite so falsely assuming that all is matter ,simply put, thanks to materialism thus , materialist science has been right about many things at the material physical or biological levels at least , relatively speaking , but even at those levels , materialist science cannot but "break its materialist neck " by encountering a dead -end street , so to speak , since matter and mind are inseparable and since the latter is irreducible to the former or as Pauli used to say : our "reality " is psycho-physical .

To assert thus that science is wrong about almost everything is thus not an accurate assertion.

We should say instead that materialist science is wrong about almost everything ,not science , since there is now also what can be called the non-materialist or post-materialistic science (I am referring here to the recent manifesto for a post-materialistic science ) :

http://www.opensciences.org/about/manifesto-for-a-post-materialist-science

When you say, sir , that science is wrong about almost everything , you do equate science with materialism without realizing that , i guess .I don't know . There is thus nothing wrong with science ,but almost everything is wrong with materialist science .The latter that should in fact neither be materialist nor otherwise : science should be metaphysically neutral thus ,but that remains just a naive idealistic utopia so far at least , since science is just a human social activity ,and to some extent just a cultural one also ( See how the cultural Eurocentric and exclusive materialist ideology has been taken for granted as science or as the "scientific world view " ,since the second half of the 19th century and counting , without question, by the majority of scientists and other people .) .

Not to mention the fact also that QM that can never be understood without reference to the mind has been proving the fact that there is no such thing in fact as the so-called independent observed objective reality or independent observer : there is no separation between the observer and the observed , no separation thus between the subjective and the objective ,as the work of Princeton Engineering Anomalies research or PEAR has been proving,and hence science must extend its naturalist methodology and epistemology as to include the subjective element in its rational analytical empiricism ,and must also modify its vocabulary as well , since science has to be communicated through human language :

http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/

Bell's theorem and its related experiments , for example, have also been challenging classical realism , classical determinism as well as classical locality .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem

There is still a lot more to say about the above , but i will leave it at then, for the time being at least .

Thanks, sir . Cheers.
 
We can say whatever we like. ;)

Snark aside, it depends how you look at things. I happen to be someone who thinks that, within its appropriate sandbox, status-quo science is worthwhile and probably often accurate.

Well, As Thomas Nagel said in his " Why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false? " book , or in similar words to the same effect at least , (Atheist Nagel should have titled that book of his " Why the materialist ....is CERTAINLY false ? " in fact , not just almost certainly false thus ) , he said something like the following at the end of that book of his in question :

Any alternative to materialism in science might turn out to be false in its turn , who knows ?

And then he added " The human will to believe is inexhaustible " .

In other words : even if science would reject materialism , the latter would be replaced by yet another world view or meta-paradigm of the moment ,or as Karl Popper used to say : no single scientific theory , knowledge , model ...can ever be proved to be "true ", ever ....
 
In other words : even if science would reject materialism , the latter would be replaced by yet another world view or meta-paradigm of the moment ,or as Karl Popper used to say : no single scientific theory , knowledge , model ...can ever be proved to be "true ", ever ....
Not at all. The main issue with materialism is that it seeks to assert that there is nothing other than the physical. If it focused only on "this is how things currently work in the physical" there'd be no issue. It is more than possible to have a worldview and not see it as the only valid or correct worldview.

As for the "Popperisms" I don't put much stock in them. However if you are applying that one to mean "encompassing of all existence" then I'd say yeah I'd say that I'd ten to mostly agree with that.. Of course, not being able to prove something is true doesn't mean that it isn't.
 
="Saiko, post: 53011, member: 89"]Not at all. The main issue with materialism is that it seeks to assert that there is nothing other than the physical. If it focused only on "this is how things currently work in the physical" there'd be no issue. It is more than possible to have a worldview and not see it as the only valid or correct worldview.

Well, the so-called physical world is inseparable from the mental ,or as Pauli used to say : "reality " is psycho-physical .

So, even if materialism would confine itself to "this is how things currently work in the physical " , it would still be false anyway ,since mind and "matter " are inseparable .

On the other hand , science has to be based on the 'scientific world view " of the moment or meta-paradigm , and
hence science has to conflict with or exclude the other competitive theories of the nature of reality or world views .

As for the "Popperisms" I don't put much stock in them. However if you are applying that one to mean "encompassing of all existence" then I'd say yeah I'd say that I'd ten to mostly agree with that..

That's what i meant indeed .

The standard model of quantum field theory , for example , says that no significant or relevant forces , fields , laws remain to be discovered , and hence it rules out any role of consciousness in the physical world , including the extra-sensory forms of perception like telepathy , remote viewing and other psi-phenomena ...

So, QFT pretends to be about the nature of reality lol

Reminds me of a British physicist in the 19th century , ironically enough , who claimed that there remained no laws of physics to be discovered , just better and better measurements lol


Of course, not being able to prove something is true doesn't mean that it isn't.

Science is not about the truth , it is a pragmatic endeavor or process ,and hence induction is a logical fallacy as Hume proved : what makes you think that the sun will be rising tomorrow ? lol .
Even Betrand Russell could not resolve Hume's dilemma in question : if there is no induction , nothing that can allow us to assert with certainty that all swans are white , no matter how many amounts of observations of white swans there might be , now or in the future , because it would have to take the observation of only 1 single black swan to refute the "truth" of all our previous observations of white swans .

This great book on the subject is very enlightening indeed :

http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness/dp/081297381X

Russell struggled with the fact that science has to be inductive ,and if induction does not exist as Hume proved , how can one differentiate science from pseudo-science ? Russell could not solve that dilemma , only Popper could by demonstrating that humans through science or otherwise do not behave in the inductive way , but through trial and error , and then he came up with his criterion for distinguishing between science and pseudo-science through the concept of falsification , in the sense that any theories , models , knowledge ...that pretend to be scientific have to be falsifiable , otherwise they can't be raised to the scientific status , and no scientific knowledge , theories , models ...can ever be proved to be "true ", ever , no matter how successful , corroborated , verifiable, testable ...or unsuccessfully falsified they might ever be , simply because it would have to take 1 single successful falsification to refute them fundamentally and irreversibly .

Even the most successful scientific theory of them all so far : QM is not immune to the above and hence might turn out to be fundamentally false in its turn some day too .[/QUOTE]
 
Well, the so-called physical world is inseparable from the mental ,or as Pauli used to say : "reality " is psycho-physical .

So, even if materialism would confine itself to "this is how things currently work in the physical " , it would still be false anyway ,since mind and "matter " are inseparable .
.
No. That's not how it works. the physical is a particular state and one can accurate observations as its own sandboc. And BTW the mental is part of the physical. Do not confuse it with primary consciousness.

On the other hand , science has to be based on the 'scientific world view " of the moment or meta-paradigm , and
hence science has to conflict with or exclude the other competitive theories of the nature of reality or world views .
.
Science doesn't have to be anything. It is an approach that is whatever people define it to be,


The standard model of quantum field theory , for example , says that no significant or relevant forces , fields , laws remain to be discovered , and hence it rules out any role of consciousness in the physical world , including the extra-sensory forms of perception like telepathy , remote viewing and other psi-phenomena ...

.
That is completely incorrect. There are probably physicists who hold that view but it is not part of the standard - or any other - model itself.



Science is not about the truth , it is a pragmatic endeavor or process ,and hence induction is a logical fallacy as Hume proved : what makes you think that the sun will be rising tomorrow ? lol . .
??? You used the term "true" I responded based on that and your response is "Science is not about the truth." If you hold that then it is nonsensical to post a quote about not being able to prove something "true."

Induction is not a logical fallacy, science is not always pragmatic and Hume didn't prove anything.

BTW I notice that so far y all your responses revolve aroiund quoting someone or the other. What's up with that?
 
="Saiko, post: 53032, member: 89"]No. That's not how it works. the physical is a particular state and one can accurate observations as its own sandboc. And BTW the mental is part of the physical. Do not confuse it with primary consciousness.


Science doesn't have to be anything. It is an approach that is whatever people define it to be,

Science has to be based on certain (meta) paradigms of the moment .For your info : materialist science is based on the materialist meta-paradigm or world view = all is matter , simply put,so all can be explained by just material or physical processes , causes .... .



That is completely incorrect. There are probably physicists who hold that view but it is not part of the standard - or any other - model itself.

Really ? :





??? You used the term "true" I responded based on that and your response is "Science is not about the truth." If you hold that then it is nonsensical to post a quote about not being able to prove something "true."

Nothing can ever be proved to be "true " , let alone scientifically ,since the "truth " is an ever evolving changing dynamic process .

I am not talking here about logics or mathematics though .

Induction is not a logical fallacy, science is not always pragmatic and Hume didn't prove anything.

So, you're not aware of Hume's logical dilemma or paradox regarding induction ? : Induction is even a myth :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

This is how Popper solved that :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction#Karl_Popper

See also what Karl Popper says about the nature of science :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper

BTW I notice that so far y all your responses revolve aroiund quoting someone or the other. What's up with that?

I have been quoting you too lol , so . Kidding .Well, that's a matter of time .Cheers.
 
Yes really. Look, no offense but your replies seem to consist almost entirely of "see - this person said this" That and invalidating your own arguments

- Nothing can be proved to "true"​
then
- Hume proved​
then
I am not talking here about logics or mathematics though
All that said, the comments about induction that you refer are well-known. And I will say again - Hume didn't prove that induction is a logical fallacy. No one has or can. Anymore than anyone could prove that it is a logical truth. It is neither. (A OR B) cannot be said to be logically true or false when both A and B are indeterminate. And again, I'm familiar with Popperisms.
 
Tom Ruffles from the Society for Psychical Research has published a review of Why Science is Wrong… About Almost everything. First off, glad Tom reviewed it… look forward to the dialog it might generate. One point from the review I wanted to respond to has to do with the book’s title. There was no comment section after the review so I have done it here.

http://whyscienceiswrong.com/review-by-society-for-psychical-research/


The author claims scientists do not understand consciousness, and that means they must be basically wrong.
What he says is true,... about science people failing to understand what consciousness actually is, but he is wrong that scientists fail therefore to explain Reality by elucidating the Truth from observed Facts.

Scientists merely need to realize that consciousness is merely a State-of-Fear which man has made a permanent condition to be in all the time.

Man has every reason to be in a constant State-of-Fear, but he has long forgotten that he is paused in that State-of-Mind.
Man started collecting Facts so he could prepare to react intelligently about the real world, where he long realized he was dangerous unprepared initially to cope with.
The State-of-Fear is just a mental pause.
It is a moment when we realize we must make what has become known as "our free will choice" to either Fight or Flee.
During that pause, we call upon our mental resources to determine what the cause is that has made up Fear, and we decide from using the Facts we have gathered whether to Flee or Fight.

We have been wise to Fear at all times, and to gather more and more information about Reality,... and to learn more about the possibilities which may be coming down the pike, so to speak.
We would have been a sorry lot of humans now had not people been doing this for a long time.
Reality is our best friend, and is very useful to us in learning how to better live within it.
But to go against Reality is crazy, and will end with big problems for those who do.

This opinion offered here rests upon the logic and reason I make for such an argument, but it also seems approved by the ancient bible writers, who apparently agree with me:

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction." Pro 1:7
 
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