In case you haven’t heard yet, a recent study came out claiming to offer evidence of life after death because of near-death experiences. Unfortunately, their evidence is, shall we say, less than spectacular.
Oh, and Zebra, I’m still waiting for your explanation as to what you were trying to say about James Randi. I find it odd that you haven’t answered that simple question yet.
Okay… but I guess what I was saying is that when we have two theories: (1) This dog can talk or (2) There is someone pretending that this dog can talk. The first theory is quite extraordinary - therefore requires extraordinary evidence to support it. If the only evidence I offer for that theory is my word…well, nobody should accept it. Especially when there is evidence supporting the alternative thoery.
Yes, I am familiar with the literature on intuition. I accept the existence of intuition as, essentially, a shortcut to utilizing cumulative experience. But I am not sure what the relevance is. The firefighter mentioned in your example above is tapping into a database of experiences regarding effective solutions to firefight problems. Although the logic is paralle, I am not sure that I accept the parallel as evidence of the efficacy of tarot readings. Because, the firefighter has had the experience that proves that his actions (the database of experience) are the ‘right’ answer to the problem at hand. The nurses have evidence that their diagnosis of sepsis is appropriate to the symptoms they see. What is the evidence that a tarot card interpretation is the ‘right’ one? Just picking a nit, I know.
I don’t know of many scientists who search for TRUTH. Most of them are willing to leave that up to the philosophy departments. (Ref Indiana Jones.)
Me too. It’ll be a while yet before we get there, though.
This doesn’t directly deal with talking to the dead, and it comes from a source that would normally be flamed around here: Marilyn vos Savant. But she gave a good answer.
Her column last weekend began with a question from a guy whose wife disdains TV psychics, but believes in palm reading. Marilyn said, in part:
“Your wife is a good example (or maybe I should say a bad example) of what can happen when people are too open-minded: It can lead them into being unable to discriminate between sense and nonsense. There’s absolutely nothing scientific about the practice of palmistry. It’s harmful (not harmless) entertainment, because followers may subconsciously cause negative predictions to come true.”
That’s an interesting thought. I have obviously dealt with this effect before (see my Staff Report on the “nocebo effect”: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mnocebo.html ), but hadn’t thought of it in dealing with these sorts of things.
What does?