Congratulations ? Orang Pendek

[Guest RayG]

And how do you define what is scientific? Anything that doesn't try to legitimize the existence of anomalous phenomena?

You spin me right round, baby.

I define it just like a dictionary: of, pertaining to, occupied, or concerned with science. Really deep-rooted hopes that something is true, and wishful-thinking don't make the cut.

RayG

[Guest Yeti1974]

Good. So can you now clarify how the SSE engages in "deeply rooted hope that something is true" and "wishful thinking"?

[Guest RayG]

Good. So can you now clarify how the SSE engages in "deeply rooted hope that something is true" and "wishful thinking"?

Didja not read the first three articles from the link of the opening post?

The first is from some guy interested in psychic phenomena, who tries to convince us that dreams are actual memories and can predict future events. He makes it sound so factual, right from the beginning, by announcing that "dreams are memories." The deeply rooted hope/wishful thinking here is that dreams play out as memories, and psychic dreams predict the future.

What part of that article did you think was most scientific? Personally, I didn't see much.

The second is by a "cryptozoologist" who wants to have an unknown, undiscovered, uncatalogued creature accepted as a scientific reality by providing pretty much the same evidence that modern bigfooters have already presented for the North American version. Still no known, discovered, or cataloged creature for either version though.

The third is fascinating only if you've never seen anyone perform magic. I once did an impromptu magic trick for friends and family while home on leave many years ago, when someone handed me a deck of cards. They were amazed and called for an encore, but it was simply a trick that almost anyone can learn. That someone is easily fooled by magic tricks is quite unimpressive. Hope and wishful thinking won't make him able to materialize objects, but magic/sleight-of-hand will.

RayG

[Guest Yeti1974]

Ah, just as I suspected. You have a problem with psychic phenomena and cryptozoology being considered "scientific" at all unless it's to show how ridiculous paranormal investigators and Bigfoot researchers are to you. Am I correct? Am I talking to a "CSICOP" here?

And do you see where you might fall into the trap of circular reasoning on how to define what is science?

I don't have the same qualms about accepting as part of science "unacceptable" topics and/or "unacceptable" conclusions drawn from evidence. If the conclusions aren't drawn validly from the evidence, then yes, you can be quite right in rejecting them on scientific grounds. But to suggest that an entire body of researchers and an entire organization are simply engaging in wishful thinking because nothing they're about smells like "science" to you is, as you skeptics might say, a claim that needs to be backed up by evidence.

[gigantor]

I agree Yeti1974. Prejudging or dismissing a hypothesis simply based on the reputation or perceived competence of the organization proposing the idea is unscientific.

Edited April 23, 2011 by gigantor

[Guest LAL]

Quoted from the article:

"I once thought that if you were to strip away the mythology

surrounding the creature, what you would be left with is es-

sentially a bipedal orangutan, possibly a successful genetic mu-

tation that had survived and bred in isolation from others of its

kind. (There are no orangutans for hundreds of miles form the

area where the hair samples were found.) I have also consid-

ered the idea that the orang-pendek is a completely new species

of primate, distinct and unique."

Just a quick question to discuss: Orangutans and Orangpendek (if they exist) live on the same island. Why should some orangutans branch off and become bipedal in the same habitat? In the case of the Sasquatch it could make sense as an adaption to cold, mountainous terrain, but here...?

If the ancestor was bipedal, one branch could have evolved fist walking and the other not. Adaptations don't have to be "for" anything.

Schwartz was still arguing in 2009 that humans and orangs are more closely related than humans and chimps despite the DNA evidence.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090618084304.htm

Giganto is thought to be an orang relative and may have been bipedal (wide jaw [Krantz], less strain on the shoulders [Meldrum]). If big ones, why not small ones? A bipedal ancestor doesn't have to have been in our line. Bipedalism seems to have been quite the thing 6 mya and later.

[Guest RayG]

Ah, just as I suspected. You have a problem with psychic phenomena and cryptozoology being considered "scientific" at all unless it's to show how ridiculous paranormal investigators and Bigfoot researchers are to you. Am I correct? Am I talking to a "CSICOP" here?

Ah, no, I have a problem with things that are presented as scientific when they are not. That's been one of my beefs about bigfoot research for a very long time. Someone holds up a spoon, calls it a fork, and then gets annoyed when you point out that it's not a fork, it's a spoon. I suggest you read At the Fringes of Science, by Michael Friedlander, and Uncommon Sense: The Heretical Nature of Science, by Alan Cromer, to gain a better perspective of my view.

And do you see where you might fall into the trap of circular reasoning on how to define what is science?

No, you'll have to elaborate.

I don't have the same qualms about accepting as part of science "unacceptable" topics and/or "unacceptable" conclusions drawn from evidence. If the conclusions aren't drawn validly from the evidence, then yes, you can be quite right in rejecting them on scientific grounds. But to suggest that an entire body of researchers and an entire organization are simply engaging in wishful thinking because nothing they're about smells like "science" to you is, as you skeptics might say, a claim that needs to be backed up by evidence.

How about addressing the points I made about those first three articles? I'm betting the majority of the articles that appear in SSE are in there because they don't pass muster, so to speak. They created their own journal because they lack the evidence, protocols, and properly conducted experimental results to make it into regular scientific journals. Which of the articles do you think stand on their own scientifically?

Now I'm curious. Would you accept claims of perpetual motion, hollow Earth, phrenology, homeopathy, ESP, reflexology, ghosts, urine therapy, N-rays, reincarnation, or psychic dreams? Why or why not?

I agree Yeti1974. Prejudging or dismissing a hypothesis simply based on the reputation or perceived competence of the organization proposing the idea is unscientific.

I prejudged or dismissed nothing prematurely. I read the articles, was quite unimpressed by the lack of scientific rigor in all three of them, and said so.

RayG

[Guest BitterMonk]

It's not so much the publishing that makes them less scientific, it's being less scientific that makes them less scientific.

"House!"

[Guest RayG]

Ha! One of my favorite shows. That and Big Bang Theory.

RayG

[Guest]

Uncommon Sense: The Heretical Nature of Science, by Alan Cromer, to gain a better perspective of my view.

And this one is a Kindle Book. Thanks, Ray.

[Guest Yeti1974]

How about addressing the points I made about those first three articles? I'm betting the majority of the articles that appear in SSE are in there because they don't pass muster, so to speak. They created their own journal because they lack the evidence, protocols, and properly conducted experimental results to make it into regular scientific journals. Which of the articles do you think stand on their own scientifically?

Now I'm curious. Would you accept claims of perpetual motion, hollow Earth, phrenology, homeopathy, ESP, reflexology, ghosts, urine therapy, N-rays, reincarnation, or psychic dreams? Why or why not?

RayG

I don't reject any proposition for a phenomenon unless a rational scientific case cannot be made for it. Ghosts have been thoroughly researched over the years and indeed, I find much of the evidence compelling for the existence of "spiritual" intelligences that are distinct from the material world. Do you? Why or why not?

Alas, our job here is not to go piecemeal through every purported anomalous experience to determine whether or not there is a scientific basis for its validity. It's simply to point out that science can certainly be applied to these subjects beyond simply fulfilling the wishful thinking of the skeptic. To claim that "These subjects aren't science because they're unscientific" is to craft a broad, circular definition that gets you nowhere. If you can't see that, then unfortunately I can't help you.

If I might suggest a reading for you, check out David J. Hufford's The Terror That Comes In The Night.

[Guest RayG]

I don't reject any proposition for a phenomenon unless a rational scientific case cannot be made for it. Ghosts have been thoroughly researched over the years and indeed, I find much of the evidence compelling for the existence of "spiritual" intelligences that are distinct from the material world. Do you? Why or why not?

I find myself at the opposite end of the spectrum -- I don't accept any proposition for a phenomenon unless a rational scientific case CAN be made for it. I will look at it, but I'll not accept it unless convincing evidence can be presented.

Alas, our job here is not to go piecemeal through every purported anomalous experience to determine whether or not there is a scientific basis for its validity.

Correct, and if someone claims they have invented a new perpetual motion machine, I'm content to ignore their claim. There simply isn't enough time to continually explain why some repackaged pseudo-scientific claim is doomed to fail. If they have truly made some scientific leap forward, I'm sure I'll hear about it eventually.

To claim that "These subjects aren't science because they're unscientific" is to craft a broad, circular definition that gets you nowhere. If you can't see that, then unfortunately I can't help you.

Likewise, when one claims that something is scientific, they must show how it's scientific, not by holding up a spoon and calling it a fork, but through evidence, protocols, replication, and properly conducted experimental results. If you don't understand my point, then I can't help you.

If I might suggest a reading for you, check out David J. Hufford's The Terror That Comes In The Night.

I see that's available through Google books.

I shall give it a read, though I fear we're getting way off topic.

RayG

[Guest Yeti1974]

Not really. Hufford's book as been cited by researchers such as Jerome Clark as a scientific argument for why we shouldn't reject many types of anomalous claims outright. Bigfoot included. In fact, I highly recommend the introduction to Clark's Unexplained! as well.

About this claim of yours that evidence for things like Bigfoot is akin to "holding up a spoon and calling it a fork"--how to you account for sightings generally? I'm just curious, because skeptical explanations for the body of sightings often sound like calling a fork a spoon.

[southernyahoo]

you post the false dichotomy between a single image with no explanation, and an exhaustive exposition of human hair types of multiple colors, races, chemical treatments, growth phases and body site. The latter is obviously not appropriate in such an article.

But the former is misleading. And unfortunately that is common.

let me suggest an alternative to your dichotomy. It would be simple to make a statement regarding the pitfalls in hair analysis and refer the reader to the FBI site and other sources.

I won't argue with you on the fact that an analysis on potential "new primate" hair would include all known primates for the area and a good collection of human hair types, because it would. This was an article in a magazine, not a peer reviewed paper proposing a new species. Even in a peer reviewed paper your not going to see photos of all the other animals which were easily eliminated as possiblities. You'll see the most probable candidates based on morphology compared in the paper, and then each one of those eliminated by DNA. Similar articles were published on the X-woman find, are they misleading you?

[Guest RayG]

Not really. Hufford's book as been cited by researchers such as Jerome Clark as a scientific argument for why we shouldn't reject many types of anomalous claims outright. Bigfoot included. In fact, I highly recommend the introduction to Clark's Unexplained! as well.

Well, by off topic I meant this thread was about the Orang Pendek, not sleep paralysis.

About this claim of yours that evidence for things like Bigfoot is akin to "holding up a spoon and calling it a fork"--how to you account for sightings generally? I'm just curious, because skeptical explanations for the body of sightings often sound like calling a fork a spoon.

Not so much a claim as my observations over the past 40 years or so. There have been lots of proclamations about bigfoot, bigfoot hair, bigfoot DNA, bigfoot tracks, and bigfoot scat, but no bigfoot. Lots of excited announcements over those 40 years, and they've turned into much ado about nothing.

So you, and whoever else cares to, can jump and run at every new announcement if you wish. Not me.

RayG