“DCP” wrote:I return briefly to Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer’s posthumously-published 2008 book Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind, which I recently re-read while flying over the Pacific.
Skipping over a bunch of copy pasted text, of which DCP makes money reposting, he continues in the comments:
“DCP” wrote:This is how science has always progressed. The fact that there is a luminiferous ether, the fact that our flat earth is the center of the universe, the fact that weights of different magnitude fall at different speeds, the fact that ulcers are caused by stress and that mice spontaneously generate, the fact that atoms are indivisible . . . all of these and many other obvious truths have stood the test of time.
I think Daniel could have a promising career as a perpetual motion machine inventor. A cure-all purveyor even. Perhaps an anti-gravity entrepreneur or dare we say even a time traveler.
After all, science has been wrong sometimes. So anything (and Daniel really means anything) is possible. The only limitation is your own credulity.
The funny thing is, of all the time science has been wrong, it's been wrong by the discovery of scientists. Likewise, when religion has been wrong, it's scientists who have done the correcting.
Scientists correct science, and scientists correct religions. Religion corrects nobody.
The funny thing is, of all the time science has been wrong, it's been wrong by the discovery of scientists. Likewise, when religion has been wrong, it's scientists who have done the correcting.
Scientists correct science, and scientists correct religions. Religion corrects nobody.
Mormonism has taught science a thing or two. Thanks to Mormonism, we now know that our sun gets its light from Kolob, that there was a literal global flood, that there was a literal Tower of Babel, that Quaker like people inhabited the moon, that there were ancient Jewish civilizations in Mesoamerica that called themselves Nephites, Lamanites and Jaredites, that tobacco is to only be used a poultice for livestock, that there was a literal Garden of Eden located in Jackson County, that Blacks were less valiant than Whites in the pre-existence, horses and elephants and steel, etc.
"I'm on paid sabbatical from BYU in exchange for my promise to use this time to finish two books."
I remember using this tactic as an apologist. If science didn't answer everything, then Mormonism was true after all. Weird thinking, but on the inside it makes perfect sense. And if science is incomplete, then religion is fine being incomplete also. But when science is wrong, it is religion that gets the free pass, because if science can't refute a religious point, then religion is true, by default. That is apologist logic, and I used the same silly stuff when I was in that camp, just like Peterson obliviously continues to do so.
Scientific knowledge has expanded exponentially through constant and ongoing evaluation of objective evidence. As new knowledge is gained past theories are expanded upon and corrected.
Religious knowledge is an oxymoron. Because religions cannot “know” anything. It’s all about belief and faith (which is hope and wishful thinking within a chosen vacuum of objective evidence). Any religious belief of the past that’s been able to be tested using objective evidentiary data (for example faith healing), has been shown to be quackery.
Religious belief is not without merit. That people find hope and comfort in believing things outside of an earthly realm, and in a life after death, in and of itself is not bad. But the nonsense - like teaching black people were cursed, etc. is just harmful claptrap that gives religions in general a really bad name.
Scientific knowledge has expanded exponentially through constant and ongoing evaluation of objective evidence. As new knowledge is gained past theories are expanded upon and corrected.
Religious knowledge is an oxymoron. Because religions cannot “know” anything. It’s all about belief and faith (which is hope and wishful thinking within a chosen vacuum of objective evidence). Any religious belief of the past that’s been able to be tested using objective evidentiary data (for example faith healing), has been shown to be quackery.
Religious belief is not without merit. That people find hope and comfort in believing things outside of an earthly realm, and in a life after death, in and of itself is not bad. But the nonsense - like teaching black people were cursed, etc. is just harmful claptrap that gives religions in general a really bad name.
My dorm mate and I were house sitting a colonel's house in Pearl City while he was on leave to the mainland. Family Affair came on the TV at 11:00pm just after the nightly news which in Hawaii comes on at 10:30pm. It was 11:11pm and I knew that because there was a clock on top of the TV. Sebastian Cabot came on the screen and I told my dorm mate that, "that man is dead". My dorm mate argued that he was not dead. After a few minutes I just said to him, "look I do not know how I know but I know that that man is dead, let's just let it at that". The next morning we heard on the radio that Sebastian Cabot died in a California hospital at 1:11am. There is a two hour difference between Hawaii and California. My dorm mate got very angry at me and said, "don't you ever say anything like that about me". The next day he showed up with a deck of cards to test me. His idea, not mine. He shuffled the deck and held up a card. I got it wrong. He wrote down the result. I got none of the cards correct. When he was holding up the 26th card he said, "wait a minute, you weren't guessing the card that I was holding up. you were guessing the card that I had just laid face down on the table". Then he turned up the cards and checked them with his list. I had guessed 25 cards in a row correctly.
There’s one of many little stories Michael posted about, he goes on to relate how he has limited the use of his abilities because he once made a mistake, in relation to Sandy Hook. About two years ago someone asked that he fill Lake Mead, so he relented. He also predicted a couple earthquakes and told how several earthquakes form a pattern that began with the SLC Earthquake that landed Moroni’s Instrument. The timing pattern of that first earthquake spelled CRIST and its derivation is shown at March8Miracle.org.
It's easy to guess the cards that were just laid face down, if you happen to catch a glimpse of them—perhaps in a reflection—before they are put down, or as they are being put down. This makes a pattern of guessing 25 previous cards in a row extremely suspicious. If somebody had genuine miraculous powers, or whatever, it would be bizarre and arbitrary to guess the cards shifted by one like that, deliberately inviting strong suspicion of fraud for no reason when it ought to have been just as easy, for real miraculous powers, to guess the cards as they came up. If instead someone were a fraud, however, then noticing that the cards are briefly visible as they are being put down, and exploiting that to produce a fake miracle, is exactly the kind of thing to expect. So this story of the cards really makes this Sherwin guy look like a scammer, and the people that believe in him look gullible.
Alas, it's quite common for people who do fall for simple tricks to be reluctant to believe that they might have been duped, to the point where they will swear that there was definitely no possibility at all for the guesser to have seen the cards, even briefly, before they were placed face-down unseen. They may well swear that with more certainty than anyone would normally have about a card trick, even if in fact they were quite careless with their cards at the time, since each time when they put a card down, it had been a wrong guess, and therefore seemingly unimportant. The fact that the cheat is embarrassingly obvious in hindsight only makes it harder to admit that one could have fallen for something so simple.
I believe I read Penn Jillette somewhere explaining that the real reason magicians never reveal how their tricks work is that most magic tricks are infuriatingly trivial once you know how they work. Very few are clever illusions that still seem cool once you know. Almost all just make you feel horribly stupid for not seeing the way the trick worked immediately. So it's not that revealing how the thing worked would remove a childlike sense of wonder, or anything like that. It's that it would make people angry. People don't mind being mystified by a brilliant illusion but nobody likes being played for a fool.
Magicians keeping secrets aren't sustaining a naïve belief in real magic as opposed to clever illusion. They're sustaining a naïve belief in clever illusion as opposed to trivial tricks.
“DCP” wrote:Competent critics, if not always immediately welcome, are useful. They help to guard one against error and they also help to sharpen arguments and better define positions. But incompetent critics and disingenuous critics are without value. They’re merely noise and distraction.
Daniel ignores any “competent criticism” posted on his blog. He didn’t engage with a CIA review of the ESP evidence from the 90s which was thoughtfully brought up to him. He doesn’t engage with the evidence that the ESP researchers have been roundly criticized by their peers.
Any clear minded reader of his blog sees this, and all we are doing is simply pointing it out. There are maybe a dozen of us who care enough about his little blog to enjoy doing this.
Dan could be finishing his books and get out of this tiny space he supposedly doesn’t want to be in. But I think Dan would rather be distracted than get any real work done.
some things haven’t changed:
I’m still behind on my writing goals.
There are still folks out there — the very same ones that there were twelve years ago — whose lives appear to revolve around lamenting my wickedness and stupidity.
I don’t think lamenting is the right word here. I find it a trivial little pastime, like occasionally delighting in watching toddlers struggle to walk.
