Wednesday, January 5, 2005

   "It's been scientifically proven".
This entry is inspired by a conversation that I had with a rather unusual non-denominational neo-pagan. He used this phrase atleast 3 times when he was telling me his justifications for his religion which he has stated that is different for each person and that there is a severe lack of historical evidence of it's past.

I'm pretty sure that if you have ever seen a debate, people like to throw this phrase around a lot. Almost as if it is a give-away tag for people to put onto the beginnings and ends of their sentences to remove all sorts of debate on their statements, and protray it as fact. But does it hold ground/actually mean it? When it does, people actually ignore it, which is very annoying since that is comprobable to ignoring blaten truth.

As for the whole story, this person had previously stated that people can have omnipotent control over their own bodies to the point of eternal life. He was talking about Energy Halos, Auras, and energy communication through the body. He tagged the phrase "scientifically proven" to these, as many people do.

First thing I did was I remember a debate I had a long time ago on the otakuboards over psychic powers and paranomral occurences. A debate that wasn't of that much diffiuclty for me. I also remember that everything this particular person had mentioned had been DIS-proven a multitude of times, and also remembered the very flawed logic that many of the people who were debating against me had.

Second thing I thought of was all of the physics knoweldge that I sought out just for fun when I had to do a report on a controversal issue. And all of the physics that I have been taught, and sought out, also concluded him false.

But that finishing line of "Scientifically Proven" made everyone around me give a sheep-like response of believing it, though I could remember specific incidents and experoments that had concluded him false.

I pity thouse who live with that falsehood who just tag that line onto the end of their sentences just to remove debate. I have concluded through memory and common-sense psycology backed by incidence that when people say "scientifically proven", they mean it.

Because on this 25,000 mile circumference sphere of rock that we live on, billions of people are living, and have lived throughout documented history. And out of these billions of people (a number of a magnitude that many people cannot properly comprehend, such as the value of a "dollar"), there has to have been some person with a degree in some sort of science who did a legitament experament and got that conclusion from his data!

The fast-pacing world has caused many people to dis-credit scientific discovers more than 10 years old with the sole factor of age taken into account. True, the amount of time it takes for one scientist to prove another in history wrong as shrunk to a dramatically short amount of time, but theories such as macro-evolution which are far more than 100 years old still hold on today. I could write a whole other article on that, but I'll leave it be for now.

But it is wrong though? People seem to forget that Newtons laws of motion are centuries old, and that they are still correct today.

But if there are two very well documented experoments that contradict eachothers results, which should you go with? Most people would say the most recent one. But as we have seen, the "most recent one" isn't always correct.

That brings up the question as to what to give credit to in the art of science. Many people have their own little philosophies as what to respect. Some say don't believe it because it came from an Aethiest. Some say that the results were rigged. Some say it wasn't well-documented. I like to guage it on a few things:

Net Evidence. (A phrase I derived from net-force a few seconds ago). This is a comparison of the evidence both for and against a scientific conclusion by using experoments and articles. Many things, such as intent, location, equipment used, actual experaments, solid recorded data, and the dozen or so other specs of the experoment have to be taken into account. If 20 scientific articles use intangible metaphors based on an only partially-related experoment, and only 2 have well documented, non-bias, well set up and executed results with the best technology, accuracy, and pratical & scientific relationships between conclusions from other experoments (such as co-inciding with the laws of physics for one), then those 2 experoments mean much more than the 20 that aren't. This is very easily summed up in one word: Solid.

Explanation of Error: Whenever I give another student an answer to a question, I always make sure he knows why it was that, and why he got it wrong. If you give a result that contradicts another, you must scientifically search out why it was wrong. Even if the Circle Peg fits in the square hole, you have to demonstrate why it shouldn't go there. If you can't, it's almost like making a simple statement. If that's all you do, it's like you are holding a grudge against the conclusion. Without both, neither would work.

This is another annoying thing for me. Whenever I address someone about the severe lack of transitional species on the theory of evolution, they usuallly say "So? Doesn't mean that they aren't there", which is usually responded by "Doesn't mean they are", and usually ends in vain because the majority of the time the other person fails to realize that it more strongly and obviously implies it's non-existance.

So be careful when you say "It's been scientifically proven".
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