Posted: May 11, 2012 6:26 am
Landrew wrote:Spearthrower wrote:Landrew wrote:tolman wrote:
I saw a 'ghost' once.
After a long drive across Europe, I stopped for the night in a rented caravan on a riverside campsite.
Had to get up in the middle of the night for a call of nature, and wandered outside without my (not very strong) glasses to find it somewhat misty. While answering the call, I looked up and saw a lovely female 'forest spirit' standing in front of me (which the next day could be seen to have materialised where there was, in reality, a gnarled tree trunk.
The weird thing was the emotional ambivalence of the experience.
On the one hand I was genuinely startled to see what I 'saw' and at the time I saw it as being completely 'real'.
On the other hand, seeing it didn't stop me carrying on answering the call of nature in 'full view' of the apparition, and going back to bed without the slightest feeling of concern and without spending a second analysing the experience.
Presumably that combination of apparent 'belief' but complete unseriousness is a result of being half-asleep, as was seeing the thing in the first place.
Whatever the eventual, correct explanation, we'll never get nearer to it by dismissing and ridiculing the evidence, only by allowing science to do its job..
What evidence would that be, Landrew?
Why is it, in every thread, you continually assert that there is evidence, claim that other people are ignoring it, claim that this spells out their deficiencies, then start whinging when people fire some salvos back?
Nearly every single post you've made on this forum is this parroted attack on these skeptics you refer to. Skeptics who ignore evidence aren't skeptics. Skeptics are people who ask for evidence. As people's requests for evidence to you are invariably met with some kind of handwave or just childish backchat, then let's just say I am skeptical about the credibility of your assertions.
Talk's cheap - cite your sources.
I suppose all of Rupert Sheldrake's published peer-reviewed research is bogus by default. I knew it.
That's your notion of a citation, is it?
To point to 'published peer-reviewed research' without actually a) pointing to it, b) establishing that it exists, c) explaining where it is published, d) verifying that it's peer-reviewed.
No, instead, we're just obliged to accept your word as fact. Again. This is beyond routine now, Landrew, it's becoming a farce.
Actually, I've read a lot of Sheldrake's work - I expect I've read more than you... in fact, I expect you've never read any of it, but you've read the wiki page on him, or seen some interviews, concluded that it fitted your pre-canned notions, and now use it to batter at your boogeymen skeptics.
Let's take one actual example of Sheldrake's 'published, peer-reviewed research': Morphic Resonance Fields. Now, there's no disputing that Sheldrake is a trained Biologist, but this is 19th century vitalism rehashed. However, as he published it in a book (I presume this is included in your sweeping statement), it's intrinsically correct, and I am close-minded for not simply rolling over and accepting it.
Incidentally, one of those scientific theories that passes your grade of acceptance - i.e. evolution - is contradicted by vitalism, and this teleological view of reality. In fact, Sheldrake's on record saying an awful lot of idiotic bollocks - yet here you are apparently supporting whatever he said. Of course, you'll back down when we actually start talking specifics, and you'll undoubtedly find a way of evading dealing with specifics by reference to some negative aspect of my character.