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Post by merkavah12 on Feb 9, 2013 6:06:24 GMT
We've reached a new low folks: people who haven't even READ the book they despise, write reviews condemning the book and it's ideas.....and admit these two facts proudly. Case in point an Amazon user had this review for "The Genesis of Science": "Haven't read the book (but will, at which point I will be back). ... but I am familiar with the arguments as set out in the descriptions of the book and in the published reviews of same: the RCC was PRO-science. . . . Golly! Can't wait to read all about how Galileo wasn't "really" prosecuted. I was brainwashed in my years of formal Catholic education to propagate this view; later upon reading actual "books" (not religious tracts pretending to be such), I concluded that the Church was wrong: facts are not the strong points of any religious work (obviously), whether the work is explicitly religious or masquerades as something else (while pushing a specific religious agenda). *Amendment to my "pre-review" of earlier today: ... When we were being brainwashed, we were told to utilize (though not under this familiar name) a variation of the True Scotsman Argument. That is, whenever someone would bring up something negative that the Church or someone acting at its behest had done, we were told to dismiss it as "not truly Catholic/Christian"; that way we could control the discussion by creating an ever-shrinking circle of conduct so that in the end what we were defending was an idealized (faked-up) version of Catholic/Christian history ... which was good and virtuous. We thought ourselves pretty clever, as did our teachers. And they told us to claim that Galileo was prosecuted not for his scientific work -- which, of course, the Church ALWAYS favored LOL -- but because of an overzealous, politically-bent prosecutor. No kidding...that's what they told us to say. (We were also told that what passed for "science" in the M.A. was "pretty good for the time". Example: a rock falls to earth because the rock "wants to rejoin the earth whence it came". Odd, huh ?) We shall see what this book holds. I hope that it contains arguments more sophisticated than variations on the True Scotsman Argument, that it doesn't cherry-pick history, and that it gives a balanced and accurate view of what the RCC really held and did. " www.amazon.com/review/R3CG7TIKUTOSD5/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1596981555&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=#wasThisHelpful
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Post by ignorantianescia on Feb 9, 2013 7:21:39 GMT
I thought reviewing books while not having read is some-thing of a long-standing tradition on the internet? Though he/she/it does apparently plan to read the book, so maybe there is still some hope.
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Post by merkavah12 on Feb 9, 2013 12:17:43 GMT
I thought reviewing books while not having read is some-thing of a long-standing tradition on the internet? Though he/she/it does apparently plan to read the book, so maybe there is still some hope. Yes, but I didn't expect to see someone BOAST that they didn't read it.
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Post by wraggy on Feb 10, 2013 1:55:15 GMT
I thought reviewing books while not having read is some-thing of a long-standing tradition on the internet? Mate it's the internet. For a number of people there are no rules/traditions.
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Post by sandwiches on Feb 10, 2013 18:11:50 GMT
www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/9823893/The-Heretics-by-Will-Storr-review.htmlThe Heretics by Will Storr, reviewUnconscious bias lurks in us all, Michael Deacon learns from The Heretics by Will Storr, a funny, personal and richly vivid book. Even if they aren’t, he’s interested to see if there are ways in which rationalists are wrong. He attends a conference of self-proclaimed “Sceptics” and is irked by their complacency. Many attendees tell him there’s “no evidence for homoeopathy”. He asks them what studies of homoeopathy they’ve read. The answer, time and again, is none.
This isn’t necessarily to say there is evidence for homoeopathy; merely that some people who call themselves rationalists aren’t as rational as they think. They, like UFO spotters and the rest, can be susceptible to the easy answer that confirms or seems to confirm their own biases. Biases they don’t even realise they have.
Unconscious bias lurks in us all. Storr notes studies that show overweight job applicants are often assumed to be less intelligent than thinner ones. (“One sad experiment demonstrated that interviewers can unconsciously attach negative qualities to an applicant after they have seen them sitting next to an overweight person in the waiting room.”)
Fundamentally this is a book about how the mind works, and how it doesn’t. How we see what we want to see and ignore what we don’t. How we edit our memories to our advantage. How, rather than base our opinions on evidence, we form our opinions first, then seek evidence that supports them. How those opinions are often reinforced not by fresh evidence but by our anger when someone dares to challenge us. (Anyone who’s had an argument with a stranger on Twitter will recognise the truth of that.)
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Post by sankari on Feb 10, 2013 22:00:17 GMT
He attends a conference of self-proclaimed “Sceptics” and is irked by their complacency. Many attendees tell him there’s “no evidence for homoeopathy”. He asks them what studies of homoeopathy they’ve read. The answer, time and again, is none. LOL! That goes straight into the 'So what?' basket. You don't need to read a study of homoeopathy to know that tap water isn't medicine. Good grief.
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Post by sandwiches on Feb 12, 2013 20:57:03 GMT
LOL! That goes straight into the 'So what?' basket. You don't need to read a study of homoeopathy to know that tap water isn't medicine.
Kind of proves his point?
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Post by ignorantianescia on Feb 12, 2013 21:56:26 GMT
LOL! That goes straight into the 'So what?' basket. You don't need to read a study of homoeopathy to know that tap water isn't medicine.Kind of proves his point? Definitely not. Though the concentration varies per homoeopathic medicine, the compounds are generally so diluted that concentrations are in the range of nano- or picomolarity - in other words minuscule. If someone would be convicted for poisoning with a poison which minimum effective dose has been diluted by homoeopathic factors, wouldn't that be considered an atrocious human rights violation? Scepticism seems well-justified as the default position here. Another analogy, is it unreasonable to reject Mythicism without having studied the subject in detail? A consensus of experts must count for something. People don't have to read peer-reviewed articles or books about every fringe subject before discarding it.
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Post by sankari on Feb 13, 2013 1:15:32 GMT
LOL! That goes straight into the 'So what?' basket. You don't need to read a study of homoeopathy to know that tap water isn't medicine.Kind of proves his point? No. His point is that people should investigate homeopathy before dismissing it. He's arguing against skepticism and criticising skeptics for simply dismissing homeopathy without investigating it. But this is a flawed argument. You don't need to investigate homeopathy to know it's nonsense, because as soon as you understand the premise you realise it cannot possibly work. No need to consult 'studies in homeopathy' for that.
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Post by unkleE on Feb 13, 2013 2:25:24 GMT
You don't need to investigate homeopathy to know it's nonsense, because as soon as you understand the premise you realise it cannot possibly work. No need to consult 'studies in homeopathy' for that. I don't know anything about homeopathy, but I'd probably agree with you if I read up on it. But it is a dangerous principle. It is quite obvious to me that quantum entanglement and 'action at a distance' are impossible, and yet they have been shown to occur. It used to be quite obvious to me that something as complex as the human eye couldn't just evolve via random variation and natural selection, and yet biologists assure us it can and indeed did happen. It is quite obvious to many people that dead people don't come back to life, and yet 2 bn people, including me, believe Jesus did. It is quite obviously silly that there could be 10 500 different universes or domains, and yet the multiverse is seriously considered likely by such respected cosmologists as Martin Rees, Paul Davies, Leonard Susskind, etc. I know we can't check up on every crackpot idea, but when I haven't bothered to check, I'd rather remain a little more cautious about my conclusion.
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Post by fortigurn on Feb 13, 2013 3:43:11 GMT
I don't know anything about homeopathy, but I'd probably agree with you if I read up on it. But it is a dangerous principle. It is quite obvious to me that quantum entanglement and 'action at a distance' are impossible, and yet they have been shown to occur. It used to be quite obvious to me that something as complex as the human eye couldn't just evolve via random variation and natural selection, and yet biologists assure us it can and indeed did happen. It is quite obvious to many people that dead people don't come back to life, and yet 2 bn people, including me, believe Jesus did. It is quite obviously silly that there could be 10 500 different universes or domains, and yet the multiverse is seriously considered likely by such respected cosmologists as Martin Rees, Paul Davies, Leonard Susskind, etc. I know we can't check up on every crackpot idea, but when I haven't bothered to check, I'd rather remain a little more cautious about my conclusion. You missed the key point he made; he said 'as soon as you understand the premise', not 'without even bothering to check'. You don't need to do any personal investigation of homeopathy to understand that the premise has a non-factual basis. This is not a matter of saying 'Well that sounds silly so it isn't true', or 'I find that unbelievable, so it's obviously false'. It's a matter of the premise of homeopathy being based on claims which are non-factual, as a consequence of being the product of mystical speculation instead of any scientific data whatsoever. Not only is there no evidence that the premise of homeopathy is factual, there is an overwhelming body of evidence that the premise is non-factual. The premise of homeopathy is equivalent to claiming that objects fall to the earth because angels pull them down, rather than attributing the action to gravity.
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Post by sankari on Feb 13, 2013 4:39:16 GMT
I know we can't check up on every crackpot idea, but when I haven't bothered to check, I'd rather remain a little more cautious about my conclusion. Understanding the premise is checking. Once you know and understand the premise of homeopathy, you know why it's false. Job done.
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Post by unkleE on Feb 13, 2013 11:45:07 GMT
I know we can't check up on every crackpot idea, but when I haven't bothered to check, I'd rather remain a little more cautious about my conclusion. Understanding the premise is checking. Once you know and understand the premise of homeopathy, you know why it's false. Job done. Well, like I said before, you're probably right both of you, but you haven't said anything that convinces me yet. Perhaps you could tell me what this infamous premise is please. (I could look it up, but I'm interested in what you say it is.)
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Post by jamierobertson on Feb 13, 2013 12:56:09 GMT
To add another example to UnkleE's list - beta blockers (drugs which slow the heart down and limit its ability to contract effectively) are the last thing that you would want to give to a patient with chronic heart failure - the premise (ie. understanding physiology) indicates that they would only make the problem worse. In reality, beta-blockers actually prolong the life of stable CCF patients, and are widely recommended and prescribed. Course, no-one would have known that unless somebody went beyond the premise and actually looked at experimental trial data.
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Post by fortigurn on Feb 13, 2013 13:35:34 GMT
Well, like I said before, you're probably right both of you, but you haven't said anything that convinces me yet. Perhaps you could tell me what this infamous premise is please. (I could look it up, but I'm interested in what you say it is.) I think you are channeling Neil Godfrey. jamierobertson, your example misses the point for the same reasons as unkleE's.
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