Blinkered Scientists

[jomifl]

Scientists are often described as 'blinkered' on AB by people who have theories that cannot be justified or accommodated by mainstream science. It seems ironic that the 'unblinkered' have contributed next to nothing to the fund of human knowledge yet can be so dismissive of scientists and science. Or are my blinkers wrongly fitted?

[ToraToraTora]

I thought this was a thread about charlatanery, it seems to have become a smoking debate!

[jomifl]

IggyB, perhaps I am a bit over sensitive to the accusation of being blinkered as those who make the accusation ironically seem to be unable to see the obvious themselves, or don't want to.
What I don't 'give a monkey's' about is whether those accusers have any religious leanings and if so what persuasion.
Jno, my remark re. monkey's was not at the start of the thread but I suppose you didn't notice that.(blinkers maladjusted perhaps?)

[daisya]

The reason IMHO no one has picked up on Randi's offer is that psychic abilities at this point in time aren't reproduced to order, they are (imo) random things that happen. I don't have psychic "powers" I just think being psychic is a natural thing that all animals (including the human ones) have it but some notice it more than others. I can't say whether scientists are blinkered or not, there are some people who are blinkered when they emphatically deny something exists or happens when neither seeing or experiencing it for themselves. My idea would be not to pooh-pooh things unless you no for yourself that they can happen, I have an open mind and would hope that a lot of scientists do too.

[daisya]

*know* for yourself

[FredPuli43]

Haven't noticed this phenomenon on AB. Have you any examples that come to mind?

It's annoying when ," in the interests of balance", someone with no evidence to support a theory is given equal air time with someone who has and who understands. The latter is accused of being blinkered by the former.

[jomifl]

Daisya, do you not think that many if not all psychic experiences are down to a misinterpretation of events/information. The brain is continually trying to make sense of the information(some of it not very good) that it receives, sometimes it just gets it wrong, which is why people saw the face of christ in a photo of mars or on a piece of toast. Notwithstanding the fact that nobody knows what christ looked like. People see what they want or expect to see.

[jomifl]

Fred, it has happened a bit recently, but I don't feel inclined to trawl through hundreds of posts to find examples.
I get the impression that some people think that scientist deliberaetly avoid considering that psychics exist, though scientist are almost always on the lookout for a new line of research that will attract funding. The U.S. defence agency put a lot of funding into 'paranormal' research and either found nothing or concealed the results. Perhaps that is why they thought Saddam Hussein had WMDs :-) Here is a link to some whacky stuff;
http://www.paperlessarchives.com/xfiles.html

[daisya]

To be honest jom no I don't. It's happened to me on and off since I was a child where things I've "seen" for want of a better word...or thought of for those who can't understand and they have come true. Have told people beforehand and these things have happened, that's why often I was called a Jonah because quite often they were not what you'd want to hear. That is my experience, I'm not asking anyone to accept it, just that it's what happens even now BUT I cannot predict it, I don't know if the thought is precognitive or not...until it happens. Hope that helps you to find out more.

[jim360]

This probably oughtn't turn into another discussion about psychic abilities and precognition -- there's a thread for that elsewhere.

[daisya]

Hi Jim, my answer was to jom's question to me. I did mention before that I am not sure if scientists are blinkered or not (smile)

[jim360]

I think society put it best in his reply to the other thread: we are all blinkered in some way or another. I hope -- only hope -- that I am only blinkered reasonably (if that's even possible).

[society]

Jom, the psychic question inspired this one. :) :)

[jomifl]

society, yes it did, how did you know that ? :-)

[Clanad]

A word of caution... as I've stated (monotonously) before, science, at its heart is nothing more than data gathering. Granted, gathering that data can be difficult in extremis[i but it's the interpretation of that data wherein disagreements lie, no?

Fact is, the basis of making scientific interpretations valid is the constant revision of those interpretations, rarely the data. Having said that, it's not unreasonable for the non-scientist who observes the [i]in-house] disagreements to form opinions themselves that may be contrary to one or more groups of 'scientists', no?

How often do we see supposed scientific pronouncements reversed or declared non-valid over the centuries, not to count outright hoaxes perpetrated in the name of 'science' (can any one spell Piltdown Man?).

I fully accept science's ability to produce good data, but at the same time, am often sceptical of those that have no room in their lexicon for alternative views of intrepretations of that data...

[scowie]

If someone's ideas are rejected by mainstream science then that surely means that their ideas are not allowed to spread far and have much influence so, as a result, would not be considered to be making much of a contribution to the "fund of human knowledge". So there is no irony there.

[jomifl]

Clanad, You are wrong, data gathering is only a subsidiary part of science. Science is about questioning why something is the way it is, constructing a hypothesis that might explain it then devising a test for that hypothesis. The data gathering come next to last. The last thing is to see if the data fits the hypothesis.

[FredPuli43]

Unfortunately, scowie,mainstream science has been proved wrong by other scientists, whose theories then became mainstream; the history of science is full of examples of mainstream scientists who were so blinkered in their commitment to existing theory that they were utterly incapable of seeing what was wrong with it, and persisted into dotage still proclaiming that the new was wrong.

This fact is seized upon, I don't doubt, by crackpots who have no tenable theory, though fact it is

[jomifl]

If someone has an idea they are free to submit it to the scientific method (outlined above). Why should they expect someone else to do the work for them.

[jomifl]

Fred is quite right, historically many scientists got into a position of authority and vainly defended their theories, however outdated, to the death. They were bad scientists. That doesn't mean that science doesn't work, it obviously does despite a few dodgy scientists. Until someone comes up with something better it will have to do.

[jomifl]

Clanad, those fossils do take some explaining don't they?