How are scintific theories produced?

[Duncan Butlin]

Good evening, Ms. Effie,

For God’s sake pay no attention to Rupert Sheldrake, if that’s who Arising_uk is talking about. He’s a fraud, he’s a shame, and he doesn’t believe one word of what he writes. He dabbles in the paranormal simply to make money, like so many others in that business. The sincerely deluded soul is fairly rare! I corresponded with him a few years ago (from prison!), and he quite suddenly stopped writing, right in the middle of an argument. I felt betrayed.

You are quite, quite wrong about yourself, however. You are young, and you may not yet have been tempted, but as soon as you gain power over someone, or a situation, you are liable to abuse it. Again, we wouldn’t want to get rid of this tendency, for there are many benefits, but, by its very nature, it is almost impossible for the individual to control himself. Thus external controls are of the essence -- without them he is almost bound to go wrong. Did you hear the BBC report of the excesses practised by the captains of our financial industry, right in the heart of London? Tossing the midget competitions, a bevy of prostitutes installed in the ground floor office, and many other vulgar excesses. Yet these were not intrinsically wicked people, they were the same as you and me . . . except that they had too much power, with nobody to control them.

So don’t be ashamed of needing laws to nudge you back in the right direction. You are not an angel, incapable of sin (however much you may look like one!). If I meet someone in public, and the conversation goes well, it immediately goes to my head: my stride lengthens, my head goes up, I start to swagger a bit . . . and I seriously risk being far too full of myself, with the next person that I meet!

You are not the only one to feel tired: I have today caught another cold, and am going to have to go to bed early! Perhaps you should also take more rest? Nice talking to you.

[effie]

For God’s sake pay no attention to Rupert Sheldrake, if that’s who Arising_uk is talking about. He’s a fraud, he’s a shame, and he doesn’t believe one word of what he writes. He dabbles in the paranormal simply to make money, like so many others in that business. The sincerely deluded soul is fairly rare! I corresponded with him a few years ago (from prison!), and he quite suddenly stopped writing, right in the middle of an argument. I felt betrayed.

Dear Mr Butlin,

Thank you very much for trying to protect me, but I don't think that there's anything to protect me from. I mean that I will read what Mr Sheldrake has to say and then I will decide if I believe in him or not. I cannot decide in advance if he is a fraud or the wisest man alive and surely I cannot found my opinion on what you, Arising or anyone else says. If his approach is scientifically correct and supported by evidence, I surely have much to gain by reading it. On the other hand, I will avail myself of his words even if he is wrong: I will spot his possible mistakes so that I do not commit them myself! So in any case I have nothing to lose

As for the fact that you felt betrayed, I won't let personal feelings affect my judgement. I sympathize with you, but we are talking about science and not personal interactions.

You are quite, quite wrong about yourself, however.

That's a bit of a paradox: I am wrong about myself, while you're right about me despite the fact that you don't even know me?????????

You are young, and you may not yet have been tempted, but as soon as you gain power over someone, or a situation, you are liable to abuse it.

Excuse me, but you are totally, absolutely, completely wrong. I have been tempted many times, in the sense that I have been given the opportunities to boss people around. However I have consciously chosen to serve other people and not take advantage of their weaknesses and on a daily basis I struggle to honour this commitment to myself.

I could give you several examples, but I'd rather not discuss about my personal/professonal life. I would like you to know, though, that you have jumped into conclusions about me and none of them is correct.

Please notice that you have exposed your personal issues (wiki link, etc) and not once have I expresed comments (positive or negative) about your behaviour/character. Even if I did that, I would be justified and probably right, because you have offered me plenty of facts to rely on. On the other hand I haven't provided you with any facts about my life and yet you have managed to form an opinion about me. I realise that you base your conclusions on what people usually do, but I assure you that you are 100% wrong about me.

Again, we wouldn’t want to get rid of this tendency, for there are many benefits, but, by its very nature, it is almost impossible for the individual to control himself. Thus external controls are of the essence -- without them he is almost bound to go wrong.

I never argued that ,at least currently, external discipline is absolutely essential. But I give you something to think about: If ,as you put it, "by its very nature, it is almost impossible for the individual to control himself", which are the differences between human and animals? Animals obey to their insticts and there's nothing they can do about it. Where is this renowned "reason" which distincts human from animals? Where's our self -control, self-restraint and self discipline?

We all know perfectly how to command others, but we "forget" how to command ourselves.

You are not an angel, incapable of sin (however much you may look like one!).

I know I am not an angel, Mr Butlin. As a matter of fact, I do not even want to be one. However, everyday I am striving to be human. Because those who trespass other people's rights etc are not human, they are monsters. And their human characteritics are simpy superficial.

Effie

ps I wish you a quick recovery

[Arising_uk]

...He’s a fraud, he’s a shame, and he doesn’t believe one word of what he writes. He dabbles in the paranormal simply to make money, like so many others in that business. The sincerely deluded soul is fairly rare! I corresponded with him a few years ago (from prison!), and he quite suddenly stopped writing, right in the middle of an argument. I felt betrayed.

Now I don't agree with Mr Sheldrake's explanation of the statistical anomalies he identifies but given that this is his biography,

Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than 75 scientific papers and ten books. A former Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he studied natural sciences at Cambridge University, where he was a Scholar of Clare College, took a double first class honours degree and was awarded the University Botany Prize. He then studied philosophy at Harvard University, where he was a Frank Knox Fellow, before returning to Cambridge, where he took a Ph.D. in biochemistry. He was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, where he carried out research on the development of plants and the ageing of cells. At Clare College he was also Director of Studies in biochemistry and cell biology.

I'll not be taking Mr Butlins assessment to seriously.

Mr Butlin 'felt betrayed' that Mr Sheldrake stopped corresponding with a prisoner but my thought is that he should pay more attention to what 'feeling betrayal' actually involves before calling someone else a sham and a fraud.
a_uk

[Arising_uk]

effie,

...What I have been struggling to say is that mind is not an abstract function, an abstract idea or a property of Body/brain or any other organ etc. It is not a non-natural factor which doesn't have its own physical (biological) existence. On the contrary, what I claim is that mind is a natural/physical/biological factor, in the sense that it has its own physical identity and its own physical attributes whith which it performs its faculties.

Its the 'physical identity' that I may disagree with you upon. I agree that Mind has a phenomenological 'identity' and attributes with which it performs 'its' faculties but I'm dubious about what appears to be your idea that it is an 'independent' entity from the physical factors that support it.
a_uk

[Duncan Butlin]

Good evening, Ms. Effie,

I have offended you by talking too personally, and I am really sorry. I meant what I said to apply to everybody in general, not just to you, but you have taken it personally, and I apologise. You are quite right that I know almost nothing about you, and I will try to avoid personal comments in the future.

Thank you for bringing up animals, and the question of what distinguishes us from them. I think the differences are very slight indeed. Even when it comes to morals (rules of social interaction, in my own, non-religious terms), we share a lot of common rules, and we have only got to break one of ours, and our performance falls below that of our relatives! Child upbringing comes especially to mind.

Rationality, I agree, is our preserve, and it can rescue us from our wayward instincts now and then. But I fear most of the time our rationality is wrong, and it’s our inner urges we should be listening to (Christians’ Holy Ghost, the god within). Altruism, co-operation, pro-social behaviour, sympathy, good manners -- all these are built into our genes. We have a huge lot to learn from animals (things we have mostly forgotten), and since it is easier to talk about their behaviour rather than our own, we’d better study them for all we are worth! To this end I give modest financial support towards research with bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans.

Now Ms. Effie, I have to confess that, though I have tried to do the homework you set me, I have failed. I struggled and struggled with Aristotle’s ‘Metaphysics’ for which you sent me the links . . . but found it worse than Shakespeare! All the main words he uses have a different meaning for him and me. May be it’s a translation problem? Art, science, memories, experience, wisdom . . . none of them does he use like me, and all with a rapt focus on medicine that I find most peculiar. It doesn’t sound very metaphysical. Worst of all, he seems to spurn social and moral knowledge -- to me the most important sort. I am afraid that I have decided to read no more, unless you direct me to specific passages, with guidance as to what to look for. I am sure this will disappoint you, and I am sorry about that, but the book is useless to me -- in fact it damages my brain!

I have also done some more homework: I have reviewed the whole thread, as I should have done at the beginning. I love your determination to stay grounded in reality by using down-to-earth examples -- well done! It make you easy to understand, and please simply ignore those who criticise your English. But, nevertheless, you end up following some real flights of fancy -- see below -- and for this I intend to take you to task.

I fear your main thrust is a chimera: people come up with their theories out of the blue, based on their entire life experience up to that point in time. To try to develop some sort of step-by-step process to duplicate this ‘intuitive leap’ is entirely misconceived. The only way I see to make discovery more efficient is to frighten people into being more honest (as per previous posts), so they don’t waste our time on something they themselves don’t truly believe in (e.g. Rupert Sheldrake). Of course, education does help too, so that people know what has worked in the past, and what has been rejected.

But I believe the main reason for the lack of progress in social sciences (especially your favourites: psychology and psychiatry?), is their denial of the obvious -- a Procrustian filter so strong that it filters out common sense (the most basic of your ‘basic truths’?). Sadly, this even applies to biology, though the effect is harder to detect. This, in turn, opens the floodgates to all the alternative nonsense that wastes so much of our time. I fear your idea of living cells having consciousness is one of them!

When you confuse the intellectual capacity of a cell with that of the whole organism, it beggars belief!! The idea that electromagnetic fields possess intelligence in their own right is also frankly absurd, and your claim that the noetic organ is NOT the brain is very peculiar indeed. And see what happens? As soon as you allow your imagination to take flights of fancy, everybody else wants to join in: telepathy, even with animals, human-to-human E.M. communication -- whatever next?! Fairies, Intelligent Design, and the Loch Ness Monster, no doubt. It is all pseudoscience, Ms. Effie, and for this we already have a cure. Put up, or shut up. James Randi offers $1,000,000 to anyone who can substantiate any paranormal phenomenon whatsoever. Nobody ever has. Period.

Correct me if I am wrong, but no-one seems to have mentioned the prime experts in exposing cookie scientific theories: CSICOP -- the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (now shortened to CSI: Committee for Skeptical Inquiry). I have met the Chairman, Paul Kurtz, several times in the States, and I believe they are providing a magnificent public service. They are the world experts who, for example, uncovered the errors in Dr. Jacques Beneveniste’s work on homeopathy in Paris, the myth of water divining in Italy and Australia, acupuncture in China, and the nonsense surrounding the Shroud of Turin.

Link in USA: CSI On-line: http://www.csicop.org/about/

In the UK: Centre for Inquiry London: http://cfilondon.org/

I am going to their symposium on ‘Weird Science’ in London next week. If you and your mentor are really sure that you can demonstrate a paranormal phenomenon, then please approach Mr. Randi. He is an absolutely delightful character (we met in a hotel coffee shop, in 1996), and he will not be cruel or unkind, if in the end your claims prove to be unfounded. He is very, very used to it.
==============

OK, end of comments. Now here is my two-pennies’ worth, to explain all these crazy ‘invisible force field’ theories. I believe magical energy fields are so popular, because one of them is real! Unfortunately it is the one we don’t dare talk about, so mumbo jumbo fills the vacuum it leaves behind.

I am talking about male presence, which follows a man wherever he goes. It is a threat of violence, yet at the same time a promise of peace. It attracts people to him, though he says nothing, and it suppresses bad behaviour for as far as the eye can see. His power is reflected in other people’s eyes, so it even works through people’s backs (hence Rupert Sheldrake’s work), and it spreads through crowds like wildfire. It is the most civilising influence on earth; and yet we dare not speak of it, for fear of upsetting the ladies. Psychology, psychiatry, political science, anthropology, sociology . . . not one of them dares breath a word. To be proud of the ability to be violent is deemed totally unacceptable in peacetime. To be proud of being a man, is unacceptable in peacetime.

[Arising_uk]

Good evening, Ms. Effie,

I have offended you by talking too personally, and I am really sorry. I meant what I said to apply to everybody in general, not just to you, but you have taken it personally, and I apologise. You are quite right that I know almost nothing about you, and I will try to avoid personal comments in the future.

If you are applying your concepts 'in general' then how can you not assume that others would take it 'personally'?
a_uk

[Arising_uk]

...Thank you for bringing up animals, and the question of what distinguishes us from them. I think the differences are very slight indeed. Even when it comes to morals (rules of social interaction, in my own, non-religious terms), we share a lot of common rules, and we have only got to break one of ours, and our performance falls below that of our relatives! Child upbringing comes especially to mind.

You are a 'nutcase' if you think that 'animals' have a 'position' when it comes to 'morals'. The fact that you think 'animals' have 'rules' when acting means that you have no understanding of the difference between 'animals' and 'us'.
a_uk

[Rortabend]

You are a 'nutcase' if you think that 'animals' have a 'position' when it comes to 'morals'. The fact that you think 'animals' have 'rules' when acting means that you have no understanding of the difference between 'animals' and 'us'.

Not such a nutcase. Try reading Frans de Waals' work on the evolutionary basis of morality and altruism based on his studies of chimpanzee behaviour. One can act according to a systems of rules or morals without necessarily being able to articulate them.

[Arising_uk]

...Not such a nutcase. Try reading Frans de Waals' work on the evolutionary basis of morality and altruism based on his studies of chimpanzee behaviour. One can act according to a systems of rules or morals without necessarily being able to articulate them.

Myabe, but what makes 'humans' different from the other 'primates' is the ability to 'question' ethics and morals and 'disobey' them.

[effie]

Its the 'physical identity' that I may disagree with you upon. I agree that Mind has a phenomenological 'identity' and attributes with which it performs 'its' faculties but I'm dubious about what appears to be your idea that it is an 'independent' entity from the physical factors that support it.

I don't claim that it's independent. I say that mind is "the physical factor which supports it". I just caim that this factor is not CNS. Anyway, I don't think that there is any point in continuing this discussion, because-as you have reminded me- this is a philosophy forum and I am afraid we have dived deeply into science here ))

[effie]

Dear Mr Butlin,

thank you for your kind words and your advice. I am really glad that we agree regarding Procrustean filters etc. As far as your remarks/recommendations are concerned, I will try to take them into consideration.

However, I would like to point out some things:

1. Once again, you were wrong about me. I wasn't offended. I just wanted to set some things straight, because "if you allow somebody an inch, then they will tend to take a mile" (these were your words).

2. I haven't presented a complete version of my approach and ,nonetheless, you have already decided that it is worthless. I would like to remind you that a) I haven't even presented the entire approach and the evidence that support it and b) it hasn't been tested yet, so any conclusions (favorable or unfavorable) would be "premature" and arbitrary.

3. Cells do have conscience. They perform any activity that we (humans) perform: they assume and digest their food, they dispose of toxins, they breed, they collaborate with each other forming multicellular organisms and organs (symbiosis), they communicate with each other (cell communication/dialogue), they migrate, they specialize and they assume different responsibilities/roles within the function of the organism etc. They may not have the systems that a man uses, but they still perform the same activities. E.g. they don't have legs, but they migrate.

How would they perform so complex activities without conscience?

4. I have been talking about EM fields (a factor that already has been traced, measured and used), but you call my approach "absurd" and various others "ornamental" adjectives. On the other hand, you talk about an undefined factor, the "male power", which supposedly attacts or suppresses etc. and which (at least up to now) hasn't been traced or measured yet. Forgive me, mr Butlin, but if one approach is not scientific, that isn't mine...

5. Reprehension and lectures are not the only (or even the most suitable way) to control women. A man who would gain a woman's respect would make her his slave for ever. On the contrary, evident efforts to gain sovereignty repel most women (and I am talking generally, don't take it too personally )

Effie

PS Thank you for providing me the names and links to people that might be interested in our work. Thank you very much indeed.

[effie]

Not such a nutcase. Try reading Frans de Waals' work on the evolutionary basis of morality and altruism based on his studies of chimpanzee behaviour. One can act according to a systems of rules or morals without necessarily being able to articulate them.

I totally agree, Rortabend. Many species form well structured societies with rules, hierarchy and well defined "interpersonal" realtionship.
They define what's right and what's wrong, they take care of each other and they do many other wonderful things. In fact I think that many animals (if not most ) are far more civilized than us.

[Arising_uk]

I don't claim that it's independent. I say that mind is "the physical factor which supports it". I just caim that this factor is not CNS. Anyway, I don't think that there is any point in continuing this discussion, because-as you have reminded me- this is a philosophy forum and I am afraid we have dived deeply into science here ))

Fair enough. I hope I've made myself clear that I don't think its just a CNS either.
The best you've explained to my understanding is that you think mind is some kind of 'electrical' effect? Which you measure using some kind of scanner with, probably, some kind of computer interface to represent the results of the scan? I still don't understand if you think this 'thing' can live outside a body but I suppose I'll wait for your book to make it to the 'stands'. Hope I've helped in some way.
a_uk

[Duncan Butlin]

Good evening, Ms. Effie,

Thank you for you full response last Friday, and I am so glad you were not offended. I really felt rather bad about it, and I am very relieved that you are ok. And I am also glad you feel free to discipline me! That’s the way it should be.

I haven’t decided that your thesis is completely worthless -- not at all -- I am just sufficiently suspicious of the paranormal bits that I to want to put them to the test. As you say, you haven’t actually told us an awful lot about it yet, so I am hardly in a position to judge it definitively, one way or the other.

Ms. Effie, please believe me, I have great sympathy for your general view. I truly do marvel at the complexity of cells, and I know science still has not figured out all the details of how they operate. Further, I agree they possess all those specific abilities you list for them. All we disagree about is the degree to which cells manifest these abilities, compared to the living being itself; and your most extraordinary claim that cells have EVERY ability that the living organism has. So human cells have an appreciation for Socrates? They have sympathy for those that suffer? I cannot believe that you truly believe this.

The best example of the sort of error you are making is the ‘selfish gene’, the phrase coined by Richard Dawkins. Though this analogy has been incredibly efficient in explaining evolution to millions and millions of people, it has also misled millions about the morality of science -- especially the morality of evolutionists. It has probably done more to boost support for Intelligent Design than any other scientific work! To many people it makes it appear that science encourages selfishness (despite Richard Dawkins’ intentions to the contrary), and this is, of course, anathema to all right-thinking people. I fear your insistence that cells are conscious will mislead people in exactly the same way.

I am assuming, by the way, that you do mean cells have consciousness, rather than a ‘conscience’, as you have written? It’s easy to confuse the two in English. A conscience is an even higher level of human thinking -- one that many people would insist was uniquely human. I will focus on the lower claim of ‘consciousness’, for now. Even here, to claim that cells operate at a conscious level is quite wrong. It’s ok to use the idea in an allegorical way, to show how human-like some cell behaviours are (communication, co-ordination, collaboration, division of labour, migration, etc.), but to push the allegory into complete parity is nonsense.

Your argument that cell behaviour is so complex that it must be under conscious control is also wrong. The weather results in unbelievably complex patterns -- ones that defy the mightiest of our modern computers -- and yet no-one would claim that a central nervous system is in control.

With regards to EM fields you are being devious, Ms. Effie. I did not deny their existence within cells, between cells, or within the organism itself. What I derided was the idea that the fields possess INTELLIGENCE within themselves. Of course I would be crazy to say they could not TRANSFER INFORMATION, for that is what we are doing right now! But transferring information is something entirely different from originating information -- it means the field would be acting of its own accord.

Your claim that the power of male presence is ‘un-proved’ is simply wrong. We have anti-harassment regulations in UK companies which can get a man the sack, simply on the basis of his presence (i.e. that it was so powerful that a female employee became disturbed by it, and it alone). He does not even have to look at his ‘victim’, let alone speak to her: her claim that he frightened her just by being there is sufficient to get him dismissed. First offence, no warnings, no conscious intent -- nothing. Nothing except the accusation itself. To suggest there is no evidence for such a phenomenon therefore, when people are losing their jobs over it as we speak, is quite untenable.

You are quite right that women treat a man very well, when they respect him (for which we are very grateful!), and you are also right that overt attempts to demand respect by men are at best, unproductive. I don’t think we are very far apart on this issue -- it is just that I am using very explicit words that allow men to act, whereas you are using very non-explicit words that allow women to accept men’s actions. The key element is fear. There is an essential component of fear in respect, and if men deny this, it prevents them taking action. At the very least there is the fear of losing the relationship: the greater the respect, the greater the fear. Men know very well that their actions often frighten people, and if they are persuaded that this is wrong, they won’t do it. Women, on the other hand, prefer to hide this factor from themselves. I am not quite sure why. I guess they don’t like endorsing male power, and it means that they can pretend they are always acting of their own free will -- uninfluenced by those around them (particularly the men). This is, of course, a nonsense: we are all influenced in innumerable ways by the people that surround us, but women are so enamoured of the idea of personal freedom that they prefer to ignore the fact!

Lastly Ms. Effie, I am absolutely delighted that you have such a strong respect for animal behaviour, including their ‘morals’, and I entirely agree with your final comment: us humans only have to put one foot wrong, and we become far less ‘civilised’ than the animals. For me, Frans de Waal is the world’s leading authority in this area -- and not entirely because of his insistence on the importance of male dominance hierarchies! He believes they are the framework upon which all higher levels of society are built. (“The Integration of Dominance and Social Bonding in Primates”, Animal Behaviour, 1986).

If you have made it right here to the end, congratulations, and thank you very much! I am sorry to go on for so long, but these issues we are discussing are very important to me, and I want to say my piece before I lose the chance. Thanks again so much for listening.

[bus2bondi]

'How are scientific theories produced?'

what a facinating/fabulous question.

i think they are produced through various conceptions, questions, 'theories' of the mind, then tested.

But oh! oh! what if they fail?



that is why eff & her mentors current hypothesis is so wonderful.

I can't wait till this hypothesis will scale beyond the rimrocks, into reality.

if they are close enough to completion, or even completed, perhaps its not even a hypothesis/theory at all?

something we can truly grasp with both hands and fly with