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What is Pseudoscience?

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geo

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Re: What is Pseudoscience?

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Mr Erickson65 wrote:I've begun discussing your assertion that evolution is un-falsifiable.

Its Walter Elsasser a nuclear physicist who pointed out it could not be falsified for the reasons given I just happen to agree.
I also know that the proponents of the theory have moved the goal post so many times having been caught faking the evidence java man and so on.
This book is a must read:

http://www.evolutionisstupid.com/
I've noticed that many of our visiting creationists often rely on an appeal to authority. Albert Einstein quotes are popping up all over the place. Walter Elsasser is a nuclear physicist. He must know all.
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Interbane

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Re: What is Pseudoscience?

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Thanks, this sentence stood out, although I read it all. "Every image that we see in our consciousness we project outside ourselves and pretend that we're seeing that image outside."

Cause and effect is backwards here. The outside world projects images inward, via the processes mentioned in the article. When we see a tree, all we have is the experiential interpretation from limited sense datum. The experience is distanced from objective reality, at the same time that it follows directly from it. When we look at a tree, the molecules don't teleport into our skulls. But that doesn't mean the molecules don't exist. It is what's called an abstraction, an informationally compressed version of the real thing.

The only way to make your point is to think up some test that could show your version of cause and effect to be true, and the "culturally conditioned" version to be untrue. What sort of test would that be? If we are able to control objective reality with nothing but thoughts, pick a test that can't be reproduced through natural means. Let's all believe collectively that the Earth is flat. We've done that in the past. Why does the Earth not follow through with that projection? It has ignored our understanding of it.

Or would you claim that the Earth was actually flat at that point in history when most men thought it was flat?
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Robert Tulip

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Re: What is Pseudoscience?

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Mr Erickson65 wrote:In the meantime you appeal to the authority of people like Darwin and Dawkins who both have none. Darwinism is no longer tenable according to Dawkins and Dawkins is a coward. Double standards much or what geo/dexter/any other proponent of evolutionary bullshit.

Bring it on!
Apparently you can have hours of fun with a rolling pin and a spoon.
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Interbane

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Re: What is Pseudoscience?

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I remember that book. It's a load of non-sequitur Mr. Erickson, from the critique of how the brain fills in blind spots to conclusions drawn from amodal perceptions. Have Alva come here in person for a debate. If that's not possible, defend one of the many points from within the book. I'll show you directly how it fails to support your conclusion. Are you up for the challenge?

I'm interested in transcripts of your discussions with various scientists. Do you have them available?
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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johnson1010
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Re: What is Pseudoscience?

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Mr. Erickson,

You've posted nothing but nonsense since you got here. Interbane's track record on this site is excellent.

He has demonstrated a far greater facility in logic even in his few short interaction with you, not to mention an extensive history which can be found in the old discussions logged here.

You have refused to engage in discussion, trumpted your single sentence non-sequiters as victory, spammed our boards with links to sillyness, quote mined, misrepresented the positions of great minds, and steadfastly refused rational dialogue.

You have a very poor track record here in just the few days you've been with us. I doubt very much anybody is taking your side over interbane at this point, and it is pointless for you to declare that you think Interbane is a nobody, or that Robert Tulip is a troll.

You have demonstrated yourself to be these things and worse in so short a time that it really does amaze me. it is evident you have really no idea what you are talking about in just about every sentence you type.

if you would like to discuss one of these topics, then discuss them. It does you no favor to declare victory over any discussion before it even begins. If you want your opinion to count for anything here, you should show that you can be engaged in rational discussion at the least.

I have invited you to discuss your misconceptions about evolution here:

http://www.booktalk.org/yes-evolution-t8939-345.html

and you refused it out of hand, yet continue to parody evolution having not investigated the answers.

I welcome you to post your misunderstandings there, where i will be pleased to answer them at length. I hold little hope that you might lower your hysterical shield of denial long enough to consider what i post in response, however others of a more reasonable disposition may stumble upon your screed and it's easy disposal and learn more about the world.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Re: What is Pseudoscience?

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I also would be very interested in these transcripts with scientists.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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johnson1010
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Re: What is Pseudoscience?

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That isn't a different site, it's a link to another thread on this same site where i have a long-running thread on evolution.

i have offered to discuss your misconceptions there where they will be with similar discussions of the same topic.

Your assertions of projection are unfounded, and ill-defined.

I am not upset in the least. I am interested only in hearing what problems you have, specifically, with evolution theory, and discussing those points. I have already responded to one of your assertions, but it is apparent you are not interested in hearing the opposition to your positions, but instead spamming the board with "evolution is dog poo". There is no content in those posts.
Evolutionism is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless.”
Louis Bounoure.
The quote in it's proper context is below.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/3/part12.html
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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johnson1010
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Re: What is Pseudoscience?

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"Evolutionism is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless."

- Prof. Louis Bounoure (Former President of the Biological Society of Strasbourg and Director of the Strasbourg Zoological Museum, later Director of Research at the French National Centre of Scientific Research), as quoted in The Advocate, Thursday 8 March 1984, p. 17. (p. 5 of The Revised Quote Book)

Since the Revised Quote Book stated that "Prof. Bounoure" had served as the "Director of Research" at the "French National Centre of Scientific Research" I wrote the Center [The Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique = The National Center for Scientific Research]. I asked them about the exact origin of the quotation and received the following reply, dated March 3, 1995 (translated by professional French translator, Jacques Benbassat, with some minor editing and paragraphs re-arranged in an easier to follow order):


Dear Mr. Babinski,
The new director general of the CNRS [i.e., the National Center for Scientific Research in France], Mr. Guy Aubert, has given me your letter of December 6, 1994, in which you requested several points of information concerning the quotations by French scientists, concerning the theory of evolution.

Here is the information I was able to gather:

The beginning of the quotation, "Evolution is a fairy tale for adults" is not from Bounoure but from Jean Rostand, a much more famous French biologist (he was a member of the Academy of Sciences of the French Academy). The precise quotation is as follows: "Transformism is a fairy tale for adults." (Age Nouveau, [a French periodical] February 1959, p. 12). But Rostand has also written that "Transformism may be considered as accepted, and no scientist, no philosopher, no longer discusses [questions - ED.] the fact of evolution." (L'Evolution des Especes [i.e., The Evolution of the Species], Hachette, p. 190). Jean Rostand was ... an atheist.

The [end] of the quotation of Professor Bounoure to which you allude is taken from his book, Determinism and Finality, edited by Flammarion, 1957, p. 79. The precise quotation is the following: "That, by this, evolutionism would appear as a theory without value, is confirmed also pragmatically. A theory must not be required to be true, said Mr. H. Poincare, more or less, it must be required to be useable. Indeed, none of the progress made in biology depends even slightly on a theory, the principles of which [i.e., of how evolution occurs -- ED.] are nevertheless filling every year volumes of books, periodicals, and congresses with their discussions and their disagreements."

[Obviously, Bounoure was expressing his distaste at those in his day who argued over the "principles" of evolution, "how" it took place, whether via Lamarckian or Darwinian "evolutionism." Bounoure probably thought that such "principles" were not worth all the "discussions and disagreements" since they were not well understood, were yet to be discovered, and perhaps might not be discovered, i.e., if supernatural intervention into the evolutionary process was accepted. Bounoure was a theist. He also probably thought that more practical scientific investigations needed to be pursued and less "discussions and disagreements." - ED.]
It seems relevant that so far any quote, or link, of yours which has been checked into has not supported your case, or been intended in the way you use them.

He didn't say that evolution is a fairy tale for grown ups. That was someone else talking about "transformism".

The rest of the quote is a lament that so much effort is put into his contemporaries philosophical arguments between lamarkism and darwinism.

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

Lamarkism was a different idea of how new traits were passed to the next generation. As in, a giraffe, by stretching it's neck to reach edibles on a tree would pass on that will for a longer neck to it's offspring.

Your confusion on this subject seems indicative, based on your posts, of a larger misunderstanding of the subjects at large.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Dexter

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Re: What is Pseudoscience?

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I think that's a very good description. It is of course completely consistent with mainstream science -- where do you think those facts come from? Yet you seem hostile to science and gullible to crackpots, and are completely ignorant of what scientists have to say about evolution.

If you didn't act like a jerk, people would be willing to have a real discussion with you.
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Interbane

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Re: What is Pseudoscience?

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LOL do me a favour its composed of many essays written by scientists and philosophers and the notes are extensive. Everything is cross referenced you can find all the experiments done and yet, you a nobody is claiming its all illogical. The only thing lacking in logic is you. And you probably had never read or even heard of this book I take your diatribe against it with the proverbial ship load of salt. Hilarious
It was the essay I read. Where am I lacking in logic? Please show me. :)
In other words: expectations shape our reality.
Not true. Expectations shape our perception of reality, not reality itself. That is the appropriate conclusion to draw from the paragraph. Having a degree in philosophy, you should be able to see these subtle distinctions. You should also be able to see the expectation of projection within yourself, and how it taints your perception.

Interbane is illogical. Erm, no, it's your projection at work to cover up your own failure to adhere to logic. :lol:
Another ad hominem which proves you can't discuss the polemic with any degree of rectitude. I am doing research in consciousness studies what are you doing when your not being a jerk Dexter?
Mr. Erickson, you're spitting out gibberish on these forums at a record pace. Your posts are offensive, but I expect that's by design. You're intentionally insulting others. If you want to discuss these things, then DISCUSS them. You haven't posted a single piece of reasoning that is your own. You've copy/pasted from other sources and generalized. The Ad Hominem was a justified Ad Hominem, because you're truly acting like a jerk.

There hasn't actually been any true discussion.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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