Yes, Surprising claims require surprising evidence doesn’t seem to work quite as well as a dismissive statement.
I don’t really like the original if it’s used purely in a dismissive sense, but that’s a problem of attitude rather than methodology.
Hmmm… scientific methodology? It has its obvious uses, but it’s not quite a flawless system yet, while it is still being interpreted by humans.
I am a skeptic. If the thrust of your point were correct I would believe nothing. Yet that isn’t the case at all.
You do realise the word “believe” is a human construct and has no objective meaning, don’t you?
Can one “realise” something that isn’t correct?
What’s your point?
Can you think of any notable examples where it’s let us down badly, and some other approach would have worked better?
All of the words in the dictionary are just made up.
‘Believe’ has a comprehensible meaning describing a mental state that has certain fairly consistent sets of attributes and outcomes. What’s the problem with that?
It has as much meaning as anything else.
I love how the accounts strain to make this sound credible by surrounding the guy with sciency-sounding stuff. Giving him CAT scans and MRIs and measuring his heart rate and so forth are completely beside the point, and only reveal that the doctors involved are either complicit or unbelievably naive.
Here is a test of reasonable skepticism. When you are told that a man has survived for years without food and water, is your first response:
a.) “That sounds crazy! I’d love to see a good test of his claim, overseen by conjurers so there’s no fraud.”
b.) “Squeeeee! I bet astronauts would benefit from that ability! Let me call NASA.”
Randi has written about this - he’d see scientists studying paranormal claims with a great amount of apparent rigor - lots of statistics and analysis, etc. But they didn’t have any knowledge of parlor tricks, and would overlook things like a girl being able to look out of a gap between her face and a pair of goggles they’d painted over “to make sure she couldn’t see.”
If he’s allowed to gargle, he has the opportunity to drink. If he’s allowed to take a bath, he can urinate without it being seen. Humans can survive without food for this period, and if you don’t eat, it’s feasible you might not have a bowel movement in that time.
No one here is saying they would never, under any circumstances believe this claim. They’re just saying it’s so far from what we know, we’d better make sure there is no fraud before jumping ahead to studying the guy’s various systems. And the experiment clearly fails to take the most simple and obvious precautions to prevent fraud. So it’s worthless.
I’ll say it, then.
Tell me that a guy can go, say, 1 month without water and 6 months without food, I’ll probably be skeptical but open to a well-conducted scientific study of this claim.
Tell me that a guy has lived for 70 years with no food or water, and yes, I would never, under any circumstances believe this claim.
hell I went 3 months without food … but i was drinking water, on an IV and managed to keep plain tea down without vomiting … and I lost weight. [thanks to being very sick] but I wasn’t very frisky:(
I don’t believe the claim, I think an alien with no knowledge of human biology and only a passing acquaintance with the laws of thermodynamics would not believe the claim, but declaring that you will never under any circumstances believe the claim is not skepticism, it’s dogmatism.
ETA: also, it’s only a statement of your intent at this moment. So what? - you might change your mind tomorrow.
There’s no reason to tack on “under any circumstances” though. Of course, in a different reality one might believe differently. Just say “I’ll never believe such a claim”, and let the circumstances be what they are.
People need food and water to live. I highly doubt that I’ll change my mind about that [del]anytime soon[/del] ever.
But if it will make you feel better: I don’t currently believe this claim, and I cannot currently imagine any set of circumstances under which I would believe this claim at any future time.
Playing Devil’s advocate. . .
This has been carried in quite a few press outlets. I seriously doubt that any serious news editor really believed this story–but it’s something fun to report, sorta like human interest stories that news programs often air at the end of a broadcast, like the farmer who can hold 40 eggs in one hand. If you have a really weird story that might make you hit an extra click then you might possibly see another screen with another ad that you might possibly click on.
Of course, people need food and water to live - I share your doubts probably quite closely.
Me too. It’s a highly extraordinary claim. I think it’s unlikely in the extreme that the highly extraordinary evidence required to support it will ever be forthcoming. I don’t think I necessarily even have a very open mind about any possibility of it being true - I just stop short of declaring that nothing will ever convince me, because that’s a declaration about me, not the claim under examination.
All I’m saying is that “Nothing could ever convince me this was true” is pretty much a faith statement, not compatible with skepticism. Do I think this is legit? Hells no. Do I think it’s possible the researchers, whatever level of rigor they used, will produce evidence sufficient to overcome the reasonable presumption of fraud? No way.
But if JREF tested the guy, and their protocols seemed good, and they said he’s legit and gave him $1M, I would have to reconsider.
If you’re going to pretend that you’re a legitimate news team and not just The Onion with better funding, you have a responsibility to not go spouting bullshit just to get attention.
Well. . . another example. . .
Several years ago, CNN had a link that said something like “Fossil Cyclops skull found in Greece.”
The article then went on to say that the skull was actually that of an elephant or some other probosidian. It then indicated that since probosidian skulls have a large central hole (between the trunk and nasal cavity) that maybe ancient Greeks thought that these skulls they were digging up belonged to some fantastic race of monocular giants.
Same thing. Completely misleading headline, but it got my curiosity, and I clicked on it, which was the intended purpose.