It is good to see that you are giving the topic some serious attention.

My main objections to your thinking are that you

1. Fail to acknowledge the huge leap in the understanding of “consciousness” that has happened since the 1980s,

and

2. Dismiss and reject scientific explanations, methodology and statistical analyses that you do not like, without any valid arguments for doing so.

I am going to leave expanding the first assertion here, as you can explore this on your own, provided that you can follow the neuro-biology, mathematics and sophisticated philosophy.

I will restrict myself to discussing my second assertion.

For example, you discuss the Mythbusters examination of “plant consciousness”. You dismiss the scientific approach because it does not give you the answer you want to believe. You question the type of tests use and claim that the Mythbusters staff just did the “wrong” ones.

You complained: “But there are millions of other ways to perform the test.” Such as? Are such tests valid, objective, repeatable and unambiguous? If not, then you are using inferior methodology just because it gives you an answer that you prefer, not because it is more accurate. To be blunt: This is bad logic, poor critical thinking and rotten scientific method. To be positive: You seem to have a good brain. With a little more knowledge you could use it a lot better. Somehow, I think you might.

You state: “And if they ARE going after consciousness, then there are a million other factors involved (as with precognition exercises): what kind of mood is the subject in? How about the scientists? Is the environment neutral? Supportive? Agressive? What’s the weather like? What things have happened recently to the testers/subjects? Do the testers believe in the subject’s powers or not?”

The reason that these factors are not tested and controlled for is that there is no known valid reason why they would or should have any effect on the outcome or, even worse, that the effect that they could have on the experiment introduces human biases and cognitive distortions – exactly what the scientific method is aimed at excluding.

There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that the human brain is an imperfect instrument that is easily fooled. Mentalists and magicians use this to their advantage. Some scientists study the nature of these mental processing failures and others seek to cancel out their effects when investigating anything that could be distorted or impaired by them.

Watch some of the entertaining videos of Derren Brown. (Google will find YouTube examples for you.) Time and time again he shows how people can be manipulated beneath their level of consciousness to do and say all kinds of things that they then rationalize away. This includes things like insisting that their car, which is actually white, is red.

Mood, emotions and prior mindset have devastating effects on evidence. Unaided, the human mind sees what is comfortable and familiar and screens out what is uncomfortable and unfamiliar. This leads to such logical fallacies as Confirmation Bias – only looking for, or registering, material that supports an emotionally held belief.

Psychologists and other scientists have known for a long time that the investigator’s belief in the truth or falsity of what is being tested can hugely influence the outcome. This is why methodologically sound studies use double blind paradigms (where neither the subject nor the experimenter are aware of the dependent variable).

In just about any study of matter, but particularly in studies of biological systems, there is an element of random chance. Appropriately chosen and applied statistical analyses can provide the odds of something happening purely by chance, including the certainty level and the range of error of the calculation. When the range of error is narrow and the confidence level is high that a phenomena occurs simply by chance then the phenomena is considered to be unsupported (that is BUSTED, to use a Mythbuster’s term).

The phenomena that you mention have been solidly debunked, time and time again. The unbiased observer would consider that reasonably definitive evidence that the phenomena are due to illusions, defects of perception and cognitive bias. End of story.

Those who have an emotionally vested interest in a positive outcome come up with a range of “explanations”, like the ones you mention, to explain to themselves (self-delusion) why the scientific method failed to confirm their beliefs. It is ironic (at least to a scientist) that the factors that they mention are exactly the things that a good researcher aims to exclude from the experiment BECAUSE THEY ARE KNOWN CONTAMINANTS THAT LEAD TO INACCURATE CONCLUSIONS (mood and prior beliefs and prejudices of the subjects or the experimenter) or THEORETICALLY BASELESS OR IRRELEVANT (weather, things that have happened to the subject or examiner). Anyone who includes these factors in their experiment is not doing good science; they are conducting a biased experiment with an outcome agenda.

Biased experiments may help The Faithful to rationalize the legitimacy of their beliefs, but they will not convince those who are not committed to one outcome or another. Any belief system that needs to use invalid methods and analysis to “prove” the accuracy of their claims is very suspect. This is the opposite of open minded exploration of ideas: this is dogmatism. Are you really this desperate? What are you afraid will happen if you can no longer believe in the existence of so-called para-normal phenomena?

Thanks for the input. I’m not familiar with the principle of identity. The Wikipedia entry is a little sparse.

I think we’re mostly in agreement. I studied religion extensively in college (BA in Religious Studies, which is sociological not theological) so my experience of religious types is pretty wide. Personally, I think the middle path might be the best way – science discovers facts, and religion describes how to respond to them. A more detailed explanation would probably take a blog or three itself, so I’ll skip that here.

Because I don’t have the geek-fu to quote simply like you did:

You wrote:
I disagree. I have seen very few, if any, atheists act this way. Could you could cite some specific examples?
I say:
I wish I could, but I don’t remember everywhere I’ve seen these sorts of behaviors. The Amazing Randy stands out as someone who misses the point of being a skeptic (skeptical does not mean you categorically deny anything, but rather that you doubt – the difference between atheism and agnosticism). I’ve seen a number of blogs on this topic where they miss the point too, IMHO. In almost all of them, they deny the existence of a number of phenomenon that do have precedent, even if we don’t understand how it works – primarily, these are in various “psychic” areas.

You said:
I also have to call you on the claim that “science could, at some point, discover something countering the current state of knowledge.” Science is a process of successive approximations. The closer we get to figuring something out, the less likely that the bulk of what we know on that topic will be completely thrown away. Some scientific knowledge is very solid.

I say:
I agree. However, less likely doesn’t mean impossible. There definitely are some things that are pretty dang solid – but new discoveries can change the meaning of those solid facts considerably. Remember when black holes were still ïmpossible and theoretical”? Or the implications of quarks, or relativity, or… all of those drastically (though sometimes very subtly) changed the way we understood our solid facts. Still – that’s kind of a different logical level from what you’re discussing, and while relevant to my points, I think they’re mostly irrelevant to yours.

You said:
I don’t know if this is the sort of claim that upsets you. I don’t know if that makes you think I’m a fundie atheist. If so, you have seriously misunderstood science and fundamentalism.

I say:
No, that doesn’t upset me. As you pointed out, some things are solid facts. Willful ignorance of all science on the part of Radical Creationists (there are plenty of Creationists who feel that God did it via evolution, you know – 1 day of God’s is a billion years for us…) doesn’t mean they’re right. The reverse side – denial of any phenomenon that doesn’t fit a purely scientific mechanistic world view doesn’t make it right either. I’m not saying you act like this, but I have seen many things that are written in absolute denial when science doesn’t have answers yet.

In other words, I have no issues with scientists and atheists giggling at the people who are sure about anti-gravity or perpetual motion machines. I do have issues when they start giggling about less quantifiable processes like precognition…

You said:
You can’t categorically deny the supernatural that stays within the supernatural realm and never enters our universe. I don’t know of any atheists who do that, but that’s not something I’ve been on the lookout for. Maybe a lot do that, and I merely haven’t noticed.

I say:
I used quotes because I wasn’t sure how else to get across the idea of the “supernatural”. By definition, of course, supernatural would be outside of nature. I was referring more to things like remote viewing, out of body experiences, etc. – phenomenon that appear to violate rules about how the universe works, when they’re actually on a different logical level that physical laws, or seem to be, at any rate. I’m skeptical – there’s something going on there, though science hasn’t been able to explain what just yet.

You said:
Here’s what you can categorically deny: Any interaction of a supernatural entity with our natural world. There is scant credible evidence that any such thing has ever occurred. Any such interaction is measurable. Non-existence is the default position. The person making the claim that something exists has the burden of proof. Until such time as that burden is met, we can assume, for all practical purposes, that no supernatural intervention or interaction occurs.

I say:
This is where we disagree. I understand that the approach you describe is standard science. I’m not convinced that it is an accurate and useful way to do things in all matters. At some point, science will need to account for the experiences, anecdotal or not, that do suggest supernatural entities, if nothing else to explain why experiences of the Divine (to be utterly generic about it) have the commonalities they do. I’m not arguing that there is a Divine – I’m arguing that science will, some day, be able to explain what that is, one way or another, be it actual entity or simply a consequence of how hypothalamuses (is that the right plural? ) are wired. At the moment, it’s ignored and declared a non-issue – clearly, given the nature of the debate, it is NOT a non-issue; it’s quite a big issue, actually, though who knows when Science actually be able to address it.

You said:
Proving why it can’t exist is irrelevant. The burden of proof is on the claimant.

I say:
This is our (specifically, Science vs. anything Woowoo) quandary. If science doesn’t have the technology now to thoroughly plumb the depths of the mind (or even to define what consciousness is), how can anyone, Scientist or not, currently prove the existence of mental powers? My argument is that the Fundamentalist Atheists have decided that these sorts of things can’t exist at all, when the _plain fact_ is that we don’t know. We don’t even have good methods for testing these things now (Zener cards and most paranormal investigation tools are very poorly thought out). Better to say “Evidence so far says unlikely, but who knows”.

My issue, and how I define Fundamentalist Atheists, is entirely based on that standard of scientific method, and on recognizing the shortcoming of current knowledge.

You said:
First of all, just because we can’t do something currently doesn’t invalidate the science. We can’t create planets, either, but that doesn’t invalidate cosmology.

I say:
I wasn’t arguing that. I’m not even touching Creationism here – I’m addressing much more complicated, currently difficult to impossible to quantify, phenomenon. When it comes to topics where the subject matter falls within that realm – science can’t say anything about it, yet, but the FA makes categorical statements about whether is does or does not exist – this is where I’m arguing from.

You said:
Second, you are fundamentally mischaracterizing science. The dream argument is an example of a common straw man put forth by creationists against “materialist science”.

I say:
Umm… no. It’s not a straw man here, since the extent of scientific knowledge is _exactly_ what I’m discussing. There’s a huge qualitative difference between “Build me a monkey! Oh, you can’t – Hah! There is a God!” and “Science can’t explain what consciousness is yet, so how can you make absolute statements about the existence of (theoretically) mental processes? You can’t – you’re an FA.” I’m not making any sort of claim that Science doesn’t know, it is true; I’m NOT saying that since Science can’t explain consciousness or dreams, then all dreams must be precognitive. I’m simply saying that since Science can’t answer that question, we _don’t and can’t currently know_, and that to say we know positively, one way (denial of existence) or another (acceptance), is a sign of fundamentalist behaviors.

You said:
Galileo wasn’t killed, but that’s beside the point. Don’t misinterpret defense of the scientific method with “demoniz[ing] anyone who disagrees”. What I see frequently online is creationists and other simpletons making unfounded, non-scientific claims. These people are frequently shredded, because their claims are wholly without merit and unable to withstand even a cursory scientific glance. I suspect that is what you are referring to. If I am mistaken, you will need to provide specific examples to clarify your point.

I say:
Oy, I always get Galileo mixed up – with pretty much everyone else in early science. Oops – sorry.

I’m not disagreeing with you about responding to the “Satan planted dinosaur bones to test us” types. I still can’t provide specific examples or links to what I mean, but maybe now it’s a bit clearer? I know that I see atheists respond equally absolutely and vociferously to some of those simpletons you mention. In heated arguments, that is understandable, but in my experience, that’s where the “fundie atheist” epithet gets applied.

Admittedly, there are very few arguments where it’s the atheist alone behaving “fundamentalistically” (it’s a word, I swear…), and once either side’s gone there, jumping in to with my point of view is a futile exercise. This is how I recognize an FA – if I want to say something to the guy arguing from science, chances are…

I think probably the best example I can think of is from Mythbusters (not always the best science, since explosions are much more fun…). Do you know the “sensitive plant” experiment? After getting a result that agreed with the original test and/or legend, they then went on to test the results in 47 (or so ) different ways, which failed. Scientifically, they presumably did well in monitoring control groups, etc.

The thing is – essentially, they’re testing the existence of consciousness in plants. That’s how it was approached, anyway. But there are millions of other ways to perform the test. And if they ARE going after consciousness, then there are a million other factors involved (as with precognition exercises): what kind of mood is the subject in? How about the scientists? Is the environment neutral? Supportive? Agressive? What’s the weather like? What things have happened recently to the testers/subjects? Do the testers believe in the subject’s powers or not? Consciousness at the moment covers a LOT of territory – how do you determine what REALLY is an important data point, and not accidentally ignore it?

That’s WAY complicated – until some things get answered by science, all we can do is say “dunno – seems unlikely”. Yet there are some out there who say exactly the opposite (“Nope, it doesn’t!”) – those are the people that can honestly be called Fundamentalist Atheists (or Scientists – sometimes there isn’t a difference, and sometimes there is).

There are some things that science can’t touch yet, and recognizing them as unknowns is the mark of an honest, and non-fundamentalist, atheist.

This is a good point. I know some people fall into this trap.

You make a few good points, but some other points are off the mark.

Fundamentalism, of whatever variety, has at its core the idea that the “Truth” is known.

I discussed this in the article under “Other Opinions”. I agree that believing that you have absolute truth definitely seems to be a characteristic of fundamentalism. I should add that to my list of five characteristics earlier in the article.

If somebody believes that science has given us the absolute Truth and the matter is closed, they have completely misunderstood science. Science is the process, not the conclusion.

I’ve seen numerous arguments by FA who ignore the very hypothetical nature of the topic, and that fact that science could, at some point, discover something countering the current state of knowledge. These are fundamentalist atheists, and they tend to be fairly common, in my experience.

I disagree. I have seen very few, if any, atheists act this way. Could you could cite some specific examples?

I also have to call you on the claim that “science could, at some point, discover something countering the current state of knowledge.” Science is a process of successive approximations. The closer we get to figuring something out, the less likely that the bulk of what we know on that topic will be completely thrown away. Some scientific knowledge is very solid.

When creationists claim that the Earth is only 6000 years old, we can categorically dismiss that claim. We know for a fact (as much as anything can truly be called a fact in science) that the Earth is much older. Sure, a hundred years ago we thought the Earth was a billion years old. Now we think it’s 4.5 billion. Maybe next year that will get refined downward to 4.2. But we know with the highest degree of certainty that it is somewhere in that ballpark. It absolutely is not 6000 years old.

I don’t know if this is the sort of claim that upsets you. I don’t know if that makes you think I’m a fundie atheist. If so, you have seriously misunderstood science and fundamentalism.

I have no problems with healthy skepticism, but to categorically deny some “supernatural” things is just as fundamentalist as denying evolution.

You can’t categorically deny the supernatural that stays within the supernatural realm and never enters our universe. I don’t know of any atheists who do that, but that’s not something I’ve been on the lookout for. Maybe a lot do that, and I merely haven’t noticed.

Here’s what you can categorically deny: Any interaction of a supernatural entity with our natural world. There is scant credible evidence that any such thing has ever occurred. Any such interaction is measurable. Non-existence is the default position. The person making the claim that something exists has the burden of proof. Until such time as that burden is met, we can assume, for all practical purposes, that no supernatural intervention or interaction occurs.

The fact is we don’t know. Evidence so far for precognitive dreams, for example, is pretty sparse except anecdotally, but we have yet to prove why it can’t exist or to prove it does.

Proving why it can’t exist is irrelevant. The burden of proof is on the claimant.

From a metaphysical point of view, some aspects of quantum physics could provide the evidence.

That gives you an avenue to pursue. Come back when you have something.

If science was currently the answer the FAs think it is, we could replicate dreams chemically, induce love or hate at the drop of a hat, clone people, etc. We can’t – there’s still more to learn.

First of all, just because we can’t do something currently doesn’t invalidate the science. We can’t create planets, either, but that doesn’t invalidate cosmology. Second, you are fundamentally mischaracterizing science. The dream argument is an example of a common straw man put forth by creationists against “materialist science”. The creationists claim that science says that everything is just a random collection of chemicals interacting; therefore, we should be able to replicate anything in nature by dumping some chemicals together and watching them interact.

I see a LOT of atheists (especially online) acting a lot like the churchmen who killed Galileo – they know what is and isn’t possible, and will demonize anyone who disagrees.

Galileo wasn’t killed, but that’s beside the point. Don’t misinterpret defense of the scientific method with “demoniz[ing] anyone who disagrees”. What I see frequently online is creationists and other simpletons making unfounded, non-scientific claims. These people are frequently shredded, because their claims are wholly without merit and unable to withstand even a cursory scientific glance. I suspect that is what you are referring to. If I am mistaken, you will need to provide specific examples to clarify your point.

There are some things that science can’t touch yet, and recognizing them as unknowns is the mark of an honest, and non-fundamentalist, atheist.

This is a good point. I know some people fall into this trap.

I’ve seen numerous arguments by FA who ignore the very hypothetical nature of the topic, and that fact that science could, at some point, discover something countering the current state of knowledge. These are fundamentalist atheists, and they tend to be fairly common, in my experience. I have no problems with healthy skepticism, but to categorically deny some “supernatural” things is just as fundamentalist as denying evolution.

The fact is we don’t know. Evidence so far for precognitive dreams, for example, is pretty sparse except anecdotally, but we have yet to prove why it can’t exist or to prove it does. From a metaphysical point of view, some aspects of quantum physics could provide the evidence. There’s a lot more that we DON’T know than we do. If science was currently the answer the FAs think it is, we could replicate dreams chemically, induce love or hate at the drop of a hat, clone people, etc. We can’t – there’s still more to learn.

The funny thing is, before Newton, that apples fell from trees was anecdotal too. I see a LOT of atheists (especially online) acting a lot like the churchmen who killed Galileo – they know what is and isn’t possible, and will demonize anyone who disagrees. Those are (very often) the fundie atheists.

There are some things that science can’t touch yet, and recognizing them as unknowns is the mark of an honest, and non-fundamentalist, atheist.

Kudos for the best dismantling of the “fundamentalist atheist” meme I’ve seen thus far.

Yet again, the thought of a promised land, a holy land, or a special ancetral land causes death and destruction. Thanks, organized religion, for your wonderful peacefulness. All talk. No action.

(Better hope Native Americans don’t start claiming more of the USA’s land!)

I don’t want to derail the thread either, but having lived and studied in Israel, I’m not citing some filtered, agenda-pushing news network. The fact is that Israel wasn’t established as a country of firm, defensible borders, but rather, a place where displaced Jews could go when there was no other place for them. The reason it was chosen as such was due to ancestral claim and because there was no firm authority NOR any solid claim to the little sliver of land that comprised it.

Whether Palestinians are screwed on a daily basis is another story that’s neither here nor there. The last sixty years of near-constant threat of war has led Israel to be (justifiably) paranoid which leads to certain interesting decisions (e.g. ethnocentrism, assumed guilt et cetera).

There is a long counterargument to that, as well, but I’d rather not get into it here. Suffice it to say, Palestinians get screwed and Israelis get killed. This leads to a rather vicious cycle. It’s not just kids with stones over there, no matter what you’ve heard.

I had an Israeli friend a few years back who was from Israel.

Yea, that sounds stupid. What I meant was she was born in Israel and lived there her whole life before going to grad school in the states, as opposed to Israelie by ancestry, but not necessarily living there much. I need to proof-read before posting.

As for thread-relevant content, I liked the comparison of fundie christian to militant atheist. I would submit that both labels are used inappropriately from time to time, but that they really do show the same level of craziness on both sides of the spectrum. I don’t think we really have any good statistics out there to compare whether each group has proportionally more crazy people or not because I don’t think there has been any study of the sort – or at least I’ve never seen one. But that would be a very, very intersting thing to read. Certainly, fundies get a lot more air time on the teevee!

The state of Israel was established in the Middle East for two reasons. First, it was the historical “birthplace” of Judaism and the Jewish people; and second, because it was isolated, unwanted desert with low population and people didn’t care about it.

“Palestinian” is a Roman pejorative for a place that doesn’t exist and was created as such to replace the real name of the territory while the Romans were in power. First, the Zoroastrians (precursors of Jews), then Hebraists (which was proto-Judaism) were in power there. Then Jesu ben Joseph came along and some people thought he was the messiah. Hence Christianity. The pagan Romans had minimalized the Jewish power in the area by this point, but the population was still predominantly Jewish.

Eight hundred years later, after Romans had left a vacuum in power and the region was controlled by a loose crux of semi-nomadic pagans, something similar to the beginnings of Christianity occurred with the belief in Mohamed as a conduit for God’s word. This was the advent of the third major power in the region. Moslems, such as they were, ruled for a few hundred years in a peaceable sort of way before they were overthrown by a loose conglomerate of racists.

Then the Persian sweep. Then overthrown again.

The intervening years hold very little in the way of ownership or claims of importance as it was a desert and remote.

This is why this is the land given to Jews. It was remote. It was a desert that no one cared about. And the Jews themselves had an ancestral claim to the land.