Does Science/Statistics Prove a Supernatural Intervention?

[PolyHedral]

There could be plenty of other explanations, energy imprint recurring in time, multidimensional being, etc.

No, there couldn't be. AFAIK, there is no possible structure that is capable of passing through solid objects yet is still visible to the eye. (and doesn't whiz around the place at the speed of light)

 

[brbubba]

The difference between science and pseudoscience is that science would work on a way to test these explainations... rather than just endlessly propose them.

wa:do

I'm an engineer, not a scientific researcher in the field of paranormal science. Even if I proposed an experiment of hypothesis how would I go about testing it? And even if I had the means, would I actually care enough to do it or would anyone even care about the results?

Many here have been trying to reason with you, but the above shows you are beyond reason and appear to be heavily into the belief of belief.

“You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe”.
Carl Sagan

Chances are you are just having fun with us.
I sincerely hope that is the case for your own sake.

I'm simply stating that there are questions outside the purview of current scientific understanding. Can science reproduce every ghost event out there? No, not even close. Can science make a conjecture about what the cause of these phenomenon are? Absolutely!

I'm simply into the belief for direct observation. I am a rational person who has never hallucinated, been delusional or suffered from any other mental states, yet I have been witness to something that defies explanation. You're essentially asking me to call myself delusional, which I would obviously never do. I'm simply asking you to accept that there are possibilities for which science doesn't have a current understanding.

 

[logician]

This simply isn't true. For example, many studies (e.g. in dendroclimatology or in psychology) deal with statistical significance. In other words, they attempt to determine after the fact the likelihood that what occurred happened by chance. To be more specific, take just about any drug test done. They give patients in one group the real drug, and to the other group they give the placebo. If the real drug group has a higher rate of whatever they are looking for, it could be due to chance. So they try to test for this statistically using t-tests or chi square or ANOVAs, depending on the number of groups and variables being tested/manipulated.

The point is, they determine the likelihood of the events after these events have occured. Probability (and/or statistical) theory is still important even after the event happened, not in a predictive capacity but in being able to determine the likelihood that the events happened randomly.

I am aware of this ( I majored in probability and statistics), but the thread topic is trying to push the idea that since our existence is so improbable, there must be a god. This simply isn't true. Winning the lottery for any ONE person is extremely improbable, but winning the lottery for "somebody" is very probable in one draw.
The fact is, we and all other speices are here by the processes of evolution, which has nothing to do with a god's existence.

 

[brbubba]

I am aware of this ( I majored in probability and statistics), but the thread topic is trying to push the idea that since our existence is so improbable, there must be a god. This simply isn't true. Winning the lottery for any ONE person is extremely improbable, but winning the lottery for "somebody" is very probable in one draw.
The fact is, we and all other speices are here by the processes of evolution, which has nothing to do with a god's existence.

Whoaaa there, that's quite a long ways from the truth. I simply said supernatural which does not necessarily mean God in the traditional sense.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

That's assuming a lot, like the fact that a ghost would even be a human living after death. There could be plenty of other explanations, energy imprint recurring in time, multidimensional being, etc.

Sure, there could be, but since ghosts have never been evidenced to exist in any capacity there's no real call to explain them.

So let me ask you this question, if that happened to you would you think of yourself as delusional???

No, but I could just be seeing things or hallucinating and I would assume that either of those are true before I assumed that the ghost was real in the absence of any better evidence.

Because there are thousands of people out there that are delusional.

Not thousands - millions of people are deluded in one form or another. The fact remains that not a single one of these people has ever produced any compelling evidence for the existence of ghosts.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

That's an absurd comparison. Creationists draw conclusions based around their own interpretation of the bible, they didn't directly witness an apparition.

People who see ghosts draw conclusions based on their interpretation of what they thought they saw. Therefore the comparison is valid.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I'm an engineer, not a scientific researcher in the field of paranormal science.

That's because there is no such legitimate field.

Even if I proposed an experiment of hypothesis how would I go about testing it?

That's your problem. You assert ghosts exist, then it is your job to produce the tests and repeatable experiments that demonstrate that.

And even if I had the means, would I actually care enough to do it or would anyone even care about the results?

Are you kidding? If you scientifically demonstrated the existence of ghosts it would have a profound impact on the way every human on the planet views life and death. Of course they would care - provided your results are compelling enough.

I'm simply stating that there are questions outside the purview of current scientific understanding. Can science reproduce every ghost event out there? No, not even close. Can science make a conjecture about what the cause of these phenomenon are? Absolutely!

And are you throwing out the possibility that these phenomenae are just the result of delusion, misunderstanding or dishonesty? That's the best and most viable explanation to date.

I'm simply into the belief for direct observation. I am a rational person who has never hallucinated, been delusional or suffered from any other mental states, yet I have been witness to something that defies explanation.

Or you just think you witnessed it. There is no reason to jump to any conclusions about what you saw - especially if you cannot explain it. Not being able to explain something does not make it supernatural, it just means you can't yet explain it.

You're essentially asking me to call myself delusional, which I would obviously never do. I'm simply asking you to accept that there are possibilities for which science doesn't have a current understanding.

Of course there are possibilities. The problem is that you're making a series of baseless assertions and suggesting that science should look into them. Science is no more concerned with researching ghosts than it is with researching pixies, elves or cave trolls. There is no evidence to support their existence, so there is no reason to study them.

You seem to want your notions to bypass the scientific method and be taken as valid by default. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way.

 

[logician]

Whoaaa there, that's quite a long ways from the truth. I simply said supernatural which does not necessarily mean God in the traditional sense.

Uh, "supernatural" also does not exclude god in the traditional sense.

 

[FlyingTeaPot]

I'm curious what everyone thinks of this.

If you consider the odds of your birth and they are probably pretty slim. Just for arguments sake, probably less than winning most lotteries. Now let's take that back to the odds of your parents' birth and so forth back to the beginning of the homosapien. Now we obviously know that the odds of successive events are measured through the product of the individual odds for each event. So we multiply all those odds together and we get a number, a very very small number.

Now I would argue that that number is so infinitesimally small that it would be equivalent to zero. So mathematics and statistics would effectively say that the likelihood of our individual existence is zero.

So since the odds for our individual existence are effectively zero, does that mean that other, potentially supernatural, forces were acting on our behalf???

The statistical probability of my existence is 1, given that life started at some point. You have made an error when you say that we must multiply our odds of existence with all the previous odds of existence.

 

[logician]

The statistical probability of my existence is 1, given that life started at some point. You have made an error when you say that we must multiply our odds of existence with all the previous odds of existence.

Right, the correct way of looking at it is that "Something" has occurred, not that a specific event "you" has occurred.

 

[brbubba]

People who see ghosts draw conclusions based on their interpretation of what they thought they saw. Therefore the comparison is valid.

Not even close. One is based around conclusion from something you read, the other is based upon conclusion from something directly observed.

That's your problem. You assert ghosts exist, then it is your job to produce the tests and repeatable experiments that demonstrate that.

Or you just think you witnessed it. There is no reason to jump to any conclusions about what you saw - especially if you cannot explain it. Not being able to explain something does not make it supernatural, it just means you can't yet explain it.

You seem to want your notions to bypass the scientific method and be taken as valid by default. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way.

I am asserting that the supernatural exists, not necessarily ghosts. This topic just degraded to ghosts.

I fully agree, hence the thing about the supernatural being the natural. I am simply open to the possibility that they do exist, but I'm not going to sit here and say, absolutely not! Too many people in the science community are closed minded to the infinite world of possibility.

Who said I am bypassing anything. I don't care if you believe in the supernatural. I am only asserting that I am open to the possibility as opposed to closed to it.

 

[brbubba]

Uh, "supernatural" also does not exclude god in the traditional sense.

I'm talking about the dictionary sense. If I meant God I would have said God!

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Not even close. One is based around conclusion from something you read, the other is based upon conclusion from something directly observed.

How is that "not even close"? Those people saw something that perhaps they couldn't explain and decided to interpret it as a "ghost". You keep using the phrase "directly observed" as if that makes it any more valid. Sorry, but I have no reason to conclude that what these people "observed directly" is any more accurate than what people claim to "hear directly" when they say they can talk to God.

I am asserting that the supernatural exists, not necessarily ghosts. This topic just degraded to ghosts.

My mistake. Then please demonstrate that the supernatural exists.

I fully agree, hence the thing about the supernatural being the natural. I am simply open to the possibility that they do exist, but I'm not going to sit here and say, absolutely not! Too many people in the science community are closed minded to the infinite world of possibility.

By definition, the supernatural cannot be the natural. Also, scientists are not close-minded, it's just that science is evidence based. Scientists don't choose not to research the supernatural out of close-mindedness, they don't because 1) science is the study of the natural world, therefore the supernatural cannot be studied by science and 2) there is absolutely no evidence of the existence of any supernatural being, event or phenomena. If you could demonstrate that the supernatural exists - and can be studied by some means - do you think scientists wouldn't change their minds? Of course they would. But until you can demonstrate that the supernatural exists your assertions about it are meaningless.

Who said I am bypassing anything. I don't care if you believe in the supernatural. I am only asserting that I am open to the possibility as opposed to closed to it.

You've repeatedly asserted that the supernatural exists, that you have encountered a ghost and that thousands of people have "directly observed" such occurrences.

My mind is as open as anybody else's is to the supernatural. You think I wouldn't love it if magic turned out to be real? Or if dragons existed? Or if ghosts were bumbling around inside of spooky houses? Of course I'd love that to be true. If you were to demonstrate to me that any of those were true I'd spin on a dime and skip through the streets to my nearest magic school so I could learn to tame dragons and bust ghosts.

I am not "closed" to the possibility of it, I'm just realistic. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and there is no evidence whatsoever - let alone extraordinary evidence - of the existence of any of these things, therefore I'm not going to waste my time telling people to be "open to the possibility" of them or asserting that they exist. These things should stay were they are, in the fantasy and fiction sections, until someone somewhere can clearly demonstrate that they exist. Until then, any ruminations on their existence is meaningless.

 

[Oberon]

Scientists don't choose not to research the supernatural out of close-mindedness, they don't because 1) science is the study of the natural world, therefore the supernatural cannot be studied by science

Maybe it's your phrasing, but I am not sure I agree here. It's not so much that science is the study of the natural world, and therefore excludes study of the supernatural as it is that science uses a particular methodology of controlled study/observation (i.e. the scientific method) which cannot be used to study the supernatural (supernatural phenomonon do not lend themselves to controlled stuy, possibily because the supernatural doesn't exist).

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Maybe it's your phrasing, but I am not sure I agree here. It's not so much that science is the study of the natural world, and therefore excludes study of the supernatural as it is that science uses a particular methodology of controlled study/observation (i.e. the scientific method) which cannot be used to study the supernatural (supernatural phenomonon do not lend themselves to controlled stuy, possibily because the supernatural doesn't exist).

Yes, I would say that's probably more accurate.

 

[brbubba]

My mind is as open as anybody else's is to the supernatural. You think I wouldn't love it if magic turned out to be real? Or if dragons existed? Or if ghosts were bumbling around inside of spooky houses? Of course I'd love that to be true. If you were to demonstrate to me that any of those were true I'd spin on a dime and skip through the streets to my nearest magic school so I could learn to tame dragons and bust ghosts.

Trust me, you wouldn't like that.

Maybe it's your phrasing, but I am not sure I agree here. It's not so much that science is the study of the natural world, and therefore excludes study of the supernatural as it is that science uses a particular methodology of controlled study/observation (i.e. the scientific method) which cannot be used to study the supernatural (supernatural phenomonon do not lend themselves to controlled stuy, possibily because the supernatural doesn't exist).

It fails the test of repeatability. But what if I said that I could make, over a certain time period, repeated documentation of the same phenomenon occurring? Let's just take a baseline approach here and try to prove the supernatural. Say cups flew off the shelf randomly. Now say I recorded the event on video multiple times along with an associated EM spike multiple times. Would that be accepted as proof of the supernatural? This goes back to one of my earlier ideas. Science isn't interested in proving the phenomenon, they are only interested in proving what caused the phenomenon.

 

[Oberon]

Trust me, you wouldn't like that.



It fails the test of repeatability. But what if I said that I could make, over a certain time period, repeated documentation of the same phenomenon occurring? Let's just take a baseline approach here and try to prove the supernatural. Say cups flew off the shelf randomly. Now say I recorded the event on video multiple times along with an associated EM spike multiple times. Would that be accepted as proof of the supernatural? This goes back to one of my earlier ideas. Science isn't interested in proving the phenomenon, they are only interested in proving what caused the phenomenon.

Science, for the most part, isn't interested in proof. Which is why those theories (like evolution) which are accepted by virtually all experts are still referred to as "theories," and not as facts which have been proved.

Also, it isn't just about repeatability. It is about (as you said) a theory of causation AND about proper control and documentation (and falsifiability). Certain controls in any given study must be in place to ensure that we can properly exclude other causes or variables may be responsible for observed phenomena. If you can come up with a study which controls for the above, and demonstrate repeatability, I think you will find other scientists very willing to view the results. This simply hasn't been done with supernatural phenomena.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Trust me, you wouldn't like that.

I absolutely would. I'd get a gang together and go out solving spooky mysteries.

It fails the test of repeatability. But what if I said that I could make, over a certain time period, repeated documentation of the same phenomenon occurring?

No, not sufficient. You need to clearly demonstrate that these phenomenon are the result of ghostlike agencies. Like I said before, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so you're going to need some pretty spectacular evidence to demonstrate the existence of such things as ghosts.

Let's just take a baseline approach here and try to prove the supernatural. Say cups flew off the shelf randomly. Now say I recorded the event on video multiple times along with an associated EM spike multiple times. Would that be accepted as proof of the supernatural?

No. All that is proof of is that mugs can fly off shelves randomly and EM spikes occur.

This goes back to one of my earlier ideas. Science isn't interested in proving the phenomenon, they are only interested in proving what caused the phenomenon.

Exactly.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Science, for the most part, isn't interested in proof. Which is why those theories (like evolution) which are accepted by virtually all experts are still referred to as "theories," and not as facts which have been proved.

While science doesn't deal with "proof", evolution is considered a fact. The theory of evolution is the explanation of the fact.

 

[brbubba]

No, not sufficient. You need to clearly demonstrate that these phenomenon are the result of ghostlike agencies. Like I said before, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so you're going to need some pretty spectacular evidence to demonstrate the existence of such things as ghosts.

No. All that is proof of is that mugs can fly off shelves randomly and EM spikes occur.

Exactly.

Why though? If all I am proving is the supernatural why isn't the cup flying across the room sufficient? That's what I am talking about, your burden of proof is an insurmountable obstacle!