Of course it applies, Dr. W. Both cases involve the interpretation of evidence. And the same rigorous examination of assumptions applies to both. One can always point to immaterial distinctions in response to an analogy. That doesn’t change the fact that both cases pose the same problem: here’sa piece of information. What can I reasonably conclude from it?DrW wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 7:07 pmApologies in advance, but your science analogy in no way applies to the situation at hand. I performed no experiment. I obtained no data that are to be evaluated. Why not just start with the idea that a scientist should be a skeptic? The job here is to evaluate the assertions of others, presented without evidence, that are nonetheless intended to be taken as fact.Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 3:45 pmYou're a scientist. If you did an experiment that showed particles traveling at speeds faster than light, would you jump to the conclusion that you'd disproved the theory of Special Relativity? Or would you go back through your experiment step by step to make sure you hadn't made a mistake along the way? Why skip that step here?
Rather than attempting to "--congratulate ourselves that we proved what we knew all along -- that Nelson is lying SOB who makes Crap up--", as you put it, like Robert Ritner requested of Bill Hamblin regarding the Book of Mormon, I'm looking for one shred of corroborating evidence to back the story up.
As a former owner of two aircraft and holder of a commercial pilot's license with twin multi-engine and instrument ratings, and working on my second million miles with Delta, I have more aviation experience than most. With others, I have disassembled, repaired, painted, reassembled and test flown aircraft. Over the years I have lost four colleagues in two light aircraft accidents, one from my flying club and three from work.
I understand that an inflight engine fire on a passenger-carrying aircraft in commercial service resulting in a forced landing not at an airport is not something that happens without leaving a trace in the public record, or at least in contemporary memory of others involved. Yet when I enter the search string <Russell Nelson LDS aircraft accident > all that comes up are different versions of the same story as told by Nelson or his biographers. Others here have tried to corroborate the story and have spent a long time looking for supporting evidence. What has been found, especially SkyWest route map from the mid-1970s, casts serious doubt on the story.
As time goes different versions of the Rusty story seem to proliferate: turbulence to an engine fire, to an aircraft engulfed in flames, to landing in a field, to landing at an airport. In its retelling and embellishment, it has taken on the status of folklore.
This is a problem. Few will ever forget the first time they heard, and then saw, a rattlesnake. It is well understood that the sudden shot of adrenaline that activates the fight or flight response also helps potentiate long term memory. There is an evolutionary benefit to remembering what a rattlesnake sounds like and where they are found. It is unlikely that one would misremember the rattlesnake encountered on a mountain trail as being in their back yard, or that the rattlesnake was really a cobra.
The skeptic would ask why such life changing event - one of sufficient impact to motivate the writing of a book, was it not mentioned in public before two years after it happened. Indeed one would expect the miraculous deliverance of one of gods chosen from near certain death in a flaming airplane would have been front page news in Southern Utah, at least, especially in 1976.
A skeptic would ask why there is no contemporary record of this event to be found, even in the history of an airline that discloses operational details, down to the purchase of new aircraft, or that Robert Redford once flew with them?
A skeptic would why such a dramatic and miraculous deliverance of a Mormon leader was not be big news at the time in the land of the Mormons?
A skeptic would ask why a story that is asserted to be fact is, so far, unfalsifiable.
Your assertion that the goal here is to prove "what we knew all along -- that Nelson is lying SOB who makes Crap up--" , appears to be biased and is a bit over the top.
Until there is a shred of credible independent third party corroborating evidence, or contemporary published verification of some kind, I will remain a non-believer. And it appears than many others will as well.
I’m not suggesting that you should buy Nelson’s story. I’m arguing that your stated conclusion that he imagined the whole thing based on The investigation so far.
The role of adrenaline appears to be to make it more likely that the event will be consolidated into long-term memory and to preserve the emotional fear response. But those are different issues than the accuracy of the details of the event. I’ve seen rattlesnakes a few times. Offhand, I couldn’t tell you which came first. But I vividly remember the sensation of my testicles retracting to somewhere in the vicinity of my neck. If we’re going to play evolutionary just so stories, the real survival advantage is in the preservation of the fear that says “do not approach.”
Moreover, Nelson’s story is much more factually complex than “I saw a rattlesnake in my backyard.” Given what we know about the reliability of eyewitness memory, it would be an actual miracle if even his immediate memory was completely accurate.
I disagree strongly with what a skeptic would do. A skeptic would examine the assumptions behind each of your questions before asking them. Just for one example, if Nelson talked about the incident in public shortly after it happened, how reasonable is it to expect that we should have located evidence of it? Depends on what you mean by public. Looking at some papers, I found that he was scheduled to give a presentation in Bountiful titled “From Heart to Heart” on May 11, 1977. But the paper didn’t cover the presentation. I found an article about a General Conference Sunday School session, but it only summarized the prophet’s talk, not Nelson’s. Nelson seems to have been pretty newsworthy as a heart surgeon, but the press doesn’t seem to have been too interested in what he has to say as General Sunday School President.
Given the regular functioning of human memory, we should expect to find errors in the story. The trick is figuring what those errors are. Is the date accurate? Is the the destination accurate. Was it a scheduled commercial flight? Is the Description of fire and explosion accurate? A skeptic considers the reasonable range of possible explanations and does her best to investigate the facts to find the best fit explanation. And don’t see that happening. And without doing that, concluding that he imagined the whole incident is not reasonable.
Tom, you channel the mopologists so well. Please tell me your paper is in peer review even as we speak.