Comment by ceckGrad | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ceckGrad | Hacker News Reader

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I don't know whether IONS is mainstream; it is not a university. It is at:

https://noetic.org/about/origins/

Rupert Sheldrake is certainly not mainstream, but he has earned quite a few academic qualifications:

https://www.sheldrake.org/about-rupert-sheldrake/biography

However, any organization that dares to mention parapsychology as worthy of study puts a target on its back. The people who imitate Randi will automatically label it as too far outside the mainstream to be taken seriously.

Parapsychology is not my field of academic credentials, so I will not be taking up the cudgels to defend it -- or Mitch Horowitz-- here. However, skepticism and logic are supposed to be within my bailiwick, so I ought to take up the cudgels against those who present illogic as logic and those who decry logic as illogic. Mitch Horowitz is not exactly a legendary logician, but Randi was a positively harmful influence on logic, so I feel justified in pointing out that Randi was a force for irrationality.

> ... Randi was a positively harmful influence on logic, so I feel justified in pointing out that Randi was a force for irrationality.

You mean, by posting a one million dollar paranormal challenge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_...) that offered a million dollars to anyone who demonstrated a paranomal effect in scientifically valid laboratory conditions? And who opened the contest to over a thousand candidates, all of whom failed?

Sorry -- that's not how a scientist defines irrationality. In essence, Randi's challenge was, "Put up or shut up." A thousand put up, none succeeded, and since then they won't shut up -- which, in fairness, is their right. Meanwhile, no rational person misses the irony that the complainers produce everything but evidence.

In discussions about, for example, dark matter, personalities don't matter, because we have evidence. By contrast, in debates about the paranormal, personalities are everything, because of a perfect evidence vacuum.

Remember, when you bring up Randi, you're acknowledging a spectacular evidence vacuum. The greatest amount of scientific eminence is trumped by the smallest amount of scientific evidence.

>that's not how a scientist defines irrationality. ... >In discussions about, for example, dark matter,

I am delighted to hear that you are such an expert in how scientists define things. Can I safely assume your expertise in the history, philosophy, and practice of science is the result of graduating from one or more specialized programs? You don't have to share your own publication list -- I'm sure you have too many publications to mention here -- just tell me the basis of your academic authority and we can sort out the argument from there.

> Can I safely assume your expertise in the history, philosophy, and practice of science is the result of graduating from one or more specialized programs?

I can't believe what I'm reading. Science rejects authority. If you were properly educated, you would know this. As Richard Feynman said, "Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion".

This is not a new view of science. The British Royal Academy, founded in 1660, has as its motto "Nullius in Verba," or "Take no one's word for it." Their explanation: "It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment."

This is a classic discussion of parapsychology and other pseudosciences. One person says, "There are no theories or evidence." A true believer's reply is usually some variation on "Are you an expert? If not, then you have no right to an opinion."

The obvious reply is to ask, "Expert in what? There's no established field, no theories, no legitimate studies, in which to be an expert."

When Einstein published his revolutionary papers in 1905, he was a Swiss patent clerk without an advanced degree. Did the science journal reject his papers because he had no authority? No, not really. Know why? They were scientists.

> ... just tell me the basis of your academic authority

Learn something about science. Science is not a religion. The greatest amount of scientific eminence is trumped by the smallest amount of scientific evidence (and I already said this, to no effect).

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