Self-Help Ourselves Out of Bad Science

[Maxwell Jennings]

Input about what I wrote at the following link is absolutely welcome! Help me refine this by pointing out errors or suggest anything else about the content and suggested links.

Read entire article I wrote here:

http://poweressence.com/self-help-ourse ... ad-science

"Most people take scientists at their word since that is what we normally hear, only their words or the words of the media. Scientists seem to be authorities on their subjects, so shouldn’t we rely on their theories and accept their views on reality? They are usually much more educated than us, so their words should stand for something, right? I think and many other people, including some reputable scientists think you should NOT take scientists at their word. Just because a theory is popular and the majority of scientists agree does not mean the model is an accurate description of what is actually going on. There is only one reality."

"Any time a scientist claims that a competing theory is 'ridiculous' or that there’s no proof, think dogma in science. Unless they have run experiments to refute a competing theory, then how would they know that the competition has a ridiculous theory? I seriously doubt that any qualified scientist that has ever shot down a new concept has truly used the scientific method to prove that claim."

[Maxwell Jennings]

I added the following text to my article after this first sentence:

Educate yourself in knowing the differences between beliefs, concepts, theories, and facts.

Did you know that gravity is a fact but statements of how it works are only theories? We have direct experience with gravity, yet what actually causes gravity has yet to be discovered and remains unproven and theoretical.

We have factual experience with electricity, but how it actually works is pure theory. We know enough to use it to our benefit.

In astronomy, Red (or Blue) shift is a fact, but the underlying mechanisms that cause spectral-light absorption-lines to shift is educated guessing. The currently accepted theory is at least incomplete and possibly faulty dictated by the evidence.

The Big Bang is total theory. There is no direct experience of the Big Bang to where anyone, regardless of their credentials, can accurately say that the Big Bang is a fact or that any evidence even proves it.

Evolution is a fact and proven with scientific research and experimentation, but again, what causes it and how it works is where it becomes theory.

[david barclay]

Yes, with hands clapping and feet stomping. Very true, so very very true.

[jjohnson]

Thank you, Maxwell! Keep posting, here as well as out there. Spread the word, not the dogma. We're not against gravity; we're for including other real forces in investigating how things work in astronomy, physics, cosmology. Gid onyer, mate!!

PS please avoid the words 'proven' or 'proof' under the science banner. That concept functions in the mathematical partition, not the science partition. "substantiates" might be a useful substitute. Once a mathematical proof is made successfully, it stands. Once a scientific theory is accepted, it stands only until it can be improved or replaced, as you explained clearly. By design, science is a succession of better and better ideas that represent understanding of reality, not 'proofs' of anything.

Scientists today need to be less thin-skinned about alternative interpretations and ideas, and a lot more open-minded as well as thorough in evaluating them. Naturally it takes time to evaluate, and time is money, especially in the realm of big-league grants. That's the ugly reality of science life today. It's always the tinkerers who aren't being paid the big bucks to do consensus science who come up with the paradigms that create conditions for molting the old theories and allow science to step out in a shiny new suit for a few more centuries until it's time to molt again.

[junglelord]

Public "Scientist" are funded, which is a political process, which causes Religion of Science....the free thinker is unpaid, self funded. Or he is grabbed up by the Industrial Military Complex and compartamentalized....which may be not much better then then the public scientist.

The truth is not going to be taught.
I will keep saying this, till it sinks in.
It will never be taught, for a long time to come.
It is a paradigm shift of immense implications, both financial and political...in the end the only real truth is that which you can learn from your minds eye, as all sages have done. The universe never lies.

To rise above "public education" which is to brainwash you to be a servant, is your first goal. Nothing your taught is the truth, only half truths at best. Research on the net is valid, but not accepted, which is the best identification of that which is true....its a photo negitive they sell us, its up to you to develop the picture from the negitive. The mental scape of reality is going to reveal itself if you practice whole brain, coherent, standing wave, states of consciouness. I have been doing this daily for 20 years. I do this during reading and study as well as playing drums and just meditation. I invite you to build standing waves in your consciouness. PS, headphones required.

this first one is for standing wave, alpha states.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPif7KiG ... re=related

Be sure to try Theta and Delta and Gamma states.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPif7KiG ... re=related

[thodges]

I agree with everything that was stated, up until the use of evolution as an example of a fact.

DNA might be a fact, species can adapt might be a fact, but evolution of one type to another is not a fact. Evolution could easily be argued as an example in favor of the point you are trying to make. It is treated as fact often, when it is actually nothing more than a theory.

[Maxwell Jennings]

Thanks for the input!

Does anyone else agree with thodges about evolution not being a fact but only theory?

Here are some online articles that address the difference between fact and theory about evolution:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html

http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/lenski.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIm2H0ksawg

So far, every life form tested on this planet has the same four bases -- C, T, A, and G in our DNA, which proves we are related to even the simplest bacteria found deep within the vents on the ocean floor. Evolution and not simply adaptation has been directly observed in laboratory experiments with animals such as fruit flies and others.

[RayTomes]

I am interested in such a project. However we are just going away on holiday for a few days. Will try to catch up on it after that.

[redeye]

Does anyone else agree with thodges about evolution not being a fact but only theory?

Evolution is an hypothesis not a theory.

An absurd ideology took over theories of evolution in the late nineteenth century, and missionaries for this ideology have held to it with the same devotion evident in the medieval religious view. The mantra became: natural selection (survival of the fittest), working with random mutations, will account for the origin of species.

The chain of reasoning involved has long been broken and can't be fixed. One example is quite sufficient to illustrate the point: Wings. Reptiles grew wings. Insects grew wings. (So too, the flying monkey.) Imagine the innumerable DIRECTED mutations necessary to produce this elaborate function BEFORE it had become useful. But only the usefulness of wings-in-development could account for the "directedness" of their appearance, according to the theory. Indeed under the theoretical assumption ("Natural Selection"), the species carrying such useless appendages would be the least likely to survive (the least fit). The entire concept of wings emerging through the ponderous and hopelessly erratic principle of random mutation is simply preposterous. How, then, did it happen that presumably intelligent crowds of teachers, scientists, and intellectuals became enamored with such an absurdity?

Only when one sees the joke perpetrated by the "debate" will one realize that the answer could only come from outside its contrived boundaries. No, humanity does not trace to the Garden of Eden (and the serpent in the garden is a myth). No, life could not have evolved in the absence of information, intent, intelligence, and communication well beyond the self-contained, molecular biology of organisms and species. Life is far more mysterious -- and connected -- than popular science has ever been willing to admit

From Micheal Goodspeeds Thunderblog: Pseudo-Skeptics vs. Charlatans = Smug Men vs. Straw Men

The idea that simple organisms can become more complex organisms may be a good idea but there is no explanation for how this happens. Thanks to Christian baiting idiots like Dawkins, the whole debate has become framed as a conflict between scientific reason and religous irrationality.

I saw a documentary about the hottest places on Earth and there were interviews with people from some place in the USA. All the locals had HUGE ears, made me think of Indian and African elephants and the timescales involved for evolutionary processes. These people had only been living there for a couple of hundred years.

Cheers!

[GaryN]

Hi Maxwell,

Evolution is a fact and proven with scientific research and experimentation, but again, what causes it and how it works is where it becomes theory.

Proven?

I can't believe in both a Plasma Catastrophism and Evolution, and what I think I see is lots of evidence for repeated, large scale if not complete destruction of the earths surface. All estimates of the age of fossils or the materials they are found in is now suspect, as I believe rapid alteration or transmutation can be achieved through electrical means. This view must inevitably lead to believing in some radically different version of the earths, and our history, yes, many will say Mad ideas.
But, the idea of some creatures being unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, while humans evolved in leaps and bounds, seems just as far fetched to me. If it is evolutionary pressure that causes changes, what was the pressure that resulted in humans attaining the ability to play a piano concerto, or perform amazing ballet or gymnastics, or solve quadratic equations, or paint a masterpiece? Seems to me, if you combined all the proven physical and mental abilities of humans in one person, you would end up with what I would have to view as a demi-God, at least!
Rapid adaptation as part of a well engineered machine, sure, changes through breeding, fine. I just don't see evolution.

[StevenJay]

The way the word "evolve" has evolved (de-evolved?) since Darwin got hold of it, would seem to point to the same sort of "debate framework" mentality Goodspeed was talking about. As far as I'm concerned, the words
"evolution" and "growth" are interchangeable. I can't imagine anyone proclaiming, "I don't believe in growth!"

Evolution isn't the problem, per se. It's the decades of Darwinian influence on the word/concept that is.

Another example: An unidentified flying object is called a UFO in modern lingo. As long as it remains UN-identified, it could be almost anything - including some sort of off-world intelligently-controlled craft. So, to say, "I don't believe in UFOs" makes no real sense. Of course, the intended meaning is, "I don't believe in any sort of extraterrestrial visitors."

As a race, I sometimes think we should be called "benders," not humans. Because we can distort just about anything!

[Orlando]

I would say the best way to acieve this journey is to start with the children.

There is nothing wrong with building our lives on a foundation of having the duty to ask every possible question
on the meaning and application of all forms of symbolic representation when it comes to learning.

Words represent things, I will seek clarification on the terms and their application in meaning, if one cannot clarify the 'intent of their words' and their use then how can we possibly come to an exchange of complete thoughts.

We where taught that proper grammar presented as a complete sentence constitutes a 'complete thought'.

So we should know the intent of the meaning of the words in those sentences so as to "UNIFY" the Understanding of these communications.

After all the pen is not mightier than the sword, it is how the writer uses that pen that gives it its Power.

Labels and terms must be accurate in what they are supposed to represent, but you will find that the mind is easily tricked by the usage of these words, Just ask a Lawyer, their core study is the use of words.

We must be diligent and be aware of what and how we come to commit things to our memory and Psyche.

Peace
Or