Elliquian Atheists

Started by Sabby, May 12, 2012, 03:45:26 AM

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Pumpkin Seeds

#750
I would read the study as I do any other study, which includes the studies dealing with prayer.

That is the second time I've heard that phrase Oniya.

Oniya

Seeing as it is contingent on finding that direct link - no one is ever going to have to make that call.  Besides, Lorenz has already put the blame on that butterfly in Brazil.
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Sabby

So, as long as someone has a hypothesis it's worth testing, regardless of how likely the hypothesis is of bearing results? You have no method of evaluating a claim as worthy or unworthy of the time, effort and resources involved in experimentation? Because you haven't given a reason why prayer experiments are necessary aside from 'we can do it, so we should, because anything that helps is good'.

Pumpkin Seeds

Yes I have, improved patient outcomes.  That is a reason to do an experiment on an explanation for why certain patients improve and others do not.  So long as the framework of ethics is not violated and there is someone willing to do the research, there doesn't seem to be a problem.

When Florence Nightingale first did her experiments regarding hand washing and the spread of disease inside a hospital, people may have had the same thought process.  Some unseen force spreading disease to patients is ridiculous.  Yet her experiment supported her hypothesis, rejected the null and so was taken seriously.  Follow up experiments found that the results could be duplicated and so hand washing is considered the first line of defense against spreading infection.

Are you suggesting that science should not follow up on a hypothesis because some people do not believe the experiment will yield supporting evidence?

Vanity Evolved

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on March 29, 2013, 02:53:54 PM
At this point Vanity and Sabby, I really have no idea what you are talking about.  You asked for the observable event and were given that event.  From that event a hypothesis was formed and tested.  I do not know how homosexual killing hurricanes were extrapolated from that conversation.

The Templeton study dealt with known prayer.  I have a feeling that emotions such as, "leave it in God's hands" and "I'm not improving so God must hate me" had some factors toward the negative.

Because what you did was simply attribute something to a divine being with no rhyme or reason. One person has cancer and survived. He was an Atheist. One person had cancer and survived, he was a praying Christian. We know that cancer goes into remission on it's own, so why would you attribute any case of a disease going into remission as a miracle? Better yet, why would you attribute one out of a hundred people going into remission as 'proof of divine power', when ninety nine other people died without remission?

People cite that hurricanes are God's way of striking out at homosexuals, to show his anger. This is 'proof of divine phenomina', if that's what you believe. It seems odd, however, that all these 'divinely inspired catastrophes to kill homosexuals' always end up killing and harming hetrosexuals, too, and tend to happen solely in hurricane prone areas. When your God 'controls everything which happens in the world', you can slap 'God did it' on anything. I can go around saying 'A Wizard did it', and that's equal basis for the theory that all Wizards cause cancer remission, or hurricanes using that logic.

Sabby

#755
Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on March 29, 2013, 03:36:28 PM
Are you suggesting that science should not follow up on a hypothesis because some people do not believe the experiment will yield supporting evidence?

No, I am saying that offering a hypothesis is not enough. Just because you can offer up a test doesn't mean it should be pursued... you certainly can do so if you have the resources and the will, but that doesn't make it a good idea. Not all theories are equal. Are you saying that String Theory is as worthy of time, money and effort as something like the Large Hadron Collider just because someone has offered up a suggestion for how it may work?

Pumpkin Seeds

Wasn’t aware I was the lead researcher on the Templeton or Mayo Clinic study.  Also wasn’t aware that either study professed to be attributing any of this to divine power even if the experiment had succeeded.  An observable event was that a patient improved and someone decided to test one of the explanations given.  Honestly this is at the core of scientific research and so I am at a loss for my constant need to repeat myself.

As for the homosexual hating hurricanes, if human activity could be attributed to alternating weather patterns then this is worth studying as well.  In fact people have studied such things in the past.  People also studied the ability of human beings to read minds, kill with a thought and contact the dead. 

The Large Hadron Collider was built to study several different things, not simply test one hypothesis. 

Sabby

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on March 29, 2013, 03:51:07 PMAn observable event was that a patient improved and someone decided to test one of the explanations given.  Honestly this is at the core of scientific research and so I am at a loss for my constant need to repeat myself.

Please don't cheapen Science. "People test stuff" is not a valid response to "How do we evaluate a theories worth".

Pumpkin Seeds

Not sure how understanding and explaining the scientific method cheapens science, but I will take your feelings into consideration Sabby.  If a hypothesis can be formed and an experiment extrapolated from that hypothesis (which we’ve already discussed a hypothesis must be testable) then typically a researcher sets out to test the hypothesis.  Now getting into financial discussions is another matter for how people determine which studies are worth funding and which are not.  Such discussions are often not handled by scientists but investors. 

I have yet to meet a researcher that designed a hypothesis and did not want to test the hypothesis.  I have meet plenty that could not garner the funding to test their hypothesis.

Sabby

No, you cheapen Science by disregarding the value of a theory. This is usually done to sneak in 'theories' that normally wouldn't be up to scratch under peer review. The value of a theory is more then the investors. Simply saying "I have an idea!" does not a good theory make.

Pumpkin Seeds

#760
How are you defining theory Sabby? 

Theory comes after hypothesis so I am confused why a person would not test a hypothesis for..lacking a theory.  Hypothesis comes before theory typically.  Now hypothesis can be constructed to test a theory or to test another hypothesis within a theory and such.  A hypothesis though cannot be rejected due to a lack of theory. 

Once more Sabby, "I have an idea" is not what a hypothesis is and is not the only part of a hypothesis.  Grant requests for an experiment are quite extensive.

Sabby

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on March 29, 2013, 04:18:27 PM
How are you defining theory Sabby?

GOOD theory. I am asking you how you determine the quality of an idea. You keep repeating 'tests are good'. Please answer why prayer is worth testing but you don't consider the hurricanes worth testing.

Pumpkin Seeds

Sure, first tell me where I said hurricanes weren't worth testing.

Good theory is what exactly?

Sabby

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on March 29, 2013, 04:22:15 PM
Sure, first tell me where I said hurricanes weren't worth testing.

So you would test homosexual hating hurricanes the same as prayer induced healing?

Pumpkin Seeds

Yes Sabby.  If a hypothesis could be developed to show that homosexual behavior promoted hurricane creation, attraction and strengthening then I would support that experiment. 

Vanity Evolved

#765
Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on March 29, 2013, 03:51:07 PM
Wasn’t aware I was the lead researcher on the Templeton or Mayo Clinic study.  Also wasn’t aware that either study professed to be attributing any of this to divine power even if the experiment had succeeded.  An observable event was that a patient improved and someone decided to test one of the explanations given.  Honestly this is at the core of scientific research and so I am at a loss for my constant need to repeat myself.

As for the homosexual hating hurricanes, if human activity could be attributed to alternating weather patterns then this is worth studying as well.  In fact people have studied such things in the past.  People also studied the ability of human beings to read minds, kill with a thought and contact the dead. 

The Large Hadron Collider was built to study several different things, not simply test one hypothesis.

I... never said human activity caused hurricanes. I compared what you said to hurricanes. "Someone prayed, and got better. That's enough evidence to base a hypothesis that there's an all knowing Creator out there who cures people who pray" is the same as saying "Well, God hates homosexuals, and some of the people killed by that hurricane was homosexual. Obviously, this is proof that God uses natural forces to punish homosexuals. We should investigate this!"

People have studied reading minds and such. Look what happened; completely proven wrong. Heck, the only reason psychic potential was tested was a huge push during... WW2, was it? When Allied forces were trying to get the upper hand in any way possible, including exploring the supernatural.

Edit: Except what we have here is that people who pray randomly get cured, as do people who -don't- pray. Why would this lead you to the idea that prayer cures sickness? The same that hurricanes happen in hurricane prone areas doesn't imply that God is trying to punish people for their sins, no matter how many people claim 'this is worthy of exploration. It's totally rational that Thor could be behind this'.

Pumpkin Seeds

Vanity I didn’t say you did.   I said that the ability of human behavior to affect weather patterns is worth studying.  Currently there is a great deal of research going into human behavior affecting weather patterns as attributed to global warming.  I do support the study of global warming and the effects. 

Vanity Evolved

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on March 29, 2013, 04:29:54 PM
Vanity I didn’t say you did.   I said that the ability of human behavior to affect weather patterns is worth studying.  Currently there is a great deal of research going into human behavior affecting weather patterns as attributed to global warming.  I do support the study of global warming and the effects.

This is completely different from what I said, however; attributing something a divinity does not make it something we can, or should test. When 'God does everything' is the basis for your faith, that means you can test -anything- for God. Here's the big difference; there's reason to believe greenhouse gases cause global warming. There is not, however, reason to believe that hurricanes are caused by big, bearded old men in the sky. Once you say 'Until you can prove it wasn't God, it's worth testing', where does it end? Do we have to test every single natural phneomina to every single divine being in history to test whether they existed or not?

Sabby

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on March 29, 2013, 04:25:30 PM
Yes Sabby. If a hypothesis could be developed to show that homosexual behavior promoted hurricane creation, attraction and strengthening then I would support that experiment.

And this is what I'm asking you. How do you go from 'someone suggested something that may be right' to 'someone actually showed correlation that warrants real investigation of causation'.

Pumpkin Seeds

At this point I am failing to see any reason to continue this train of thought with either of you.  So if anyone else has something to contribute then please do so.  As of this post I will no longer address the concerns or responses of Vanity or Sabby on this subject as I am doing little more than repeating myself and being misread.  I suggest the pair of you please review Vekseid's thread on the definitions of science and wish you both luck in expanding your knowledge base of science and the scientific method.

Saria

Has anyone else here heard about the thing with the US Postal Service?

http://www.atheistberlin.com/study
Saria is no longer on Elliquiy, and no longer available for games

Silk

The idea of prayer healing is in the same vein as ice cream sales having a correlation with shark attacks. Just because hot weather means they go to the beach more, which is the variable which affects two outcomes (ice cream sales and shark attacks) doesn't directly link Ice cream sales and shark attacks to eachother.

TaintedAndDelish

A study performed by a reputable organization proved that prayer doesn't do anything more than a placebo therefore God does not exist. I didn't feel like paying for the report, so no linky for you. Just thought I would use the name of a reputable organization to bolster my opinion.

Bandita

#773
What Tainted is probably referring to was a study done by multiple heart centers performing the same surgery on the same type of patient.  They did the study on 1800 patients, so that the sample size was large enough to be indicative of real results.

What they found, in short, was that the patients actually did worse when they knew that they were being prayed for.  The patients who thought they were being prayed for basically felt that the surgery was more dangerous if it warranted prayer, and their recoveries were worse.

If you want to read the abstract, here:

http://www.ahjonline.com/article/PIIS0002870305006496/abstract

So if you want real hard evidence of the effect of prayer, it makes people worry more and they end up with more complications as a result.  Not my opinion, it's right there in the conclusion.

Edit: sorry if this is a repeat link.  I love this study, it's one of the most interesting things I've read in years, so yeah...

Saria

That's the Templeton study!

Note that the study was not organized by scientists hostile to religion. It was commissioned by the Templeton Foundation - headed by an evangelical Christian - and headed by a guy who's published books like Christian Mind Body Healing Strategies.

All that happened was: it was conducted rigorously - which is why it was published in a proper, peer-reviewed journal. So the results are unsurprising, even if they weren't what the people running were hoping for.
Saria is no longer on Elliquiy, and no longer available for games