richard dawkins - beyond reason channel 4

[Sheherazadethegoat]

i am loving it - i hate those parasitic mediums.

How do you prove that emotions like love, envy, hate exist if your premise is that reason has to be founded on emperically proven evidence? This is basically what Dawkins is saying.

If you dismiss spirtuality as mumbo jumbo then imo, you have to dismiss emotions too because they, like spirituality cannot be proven using the laws of science.

Agree with whoever described tarot, etc as a basic form of counselling. The same could be said for a lot of 'alternative' rememdies: what makes the patient feel a bit better is having someone pay attention to them for an hour or so, perhaps give them a massage (which makes most people apart from me who loathes massage deeply, feel better) and some general advice about taking care of one's diet, getting enough rest, fresh air etc. Mainly harmless stuff. Quite useful for the sort of whiny-bastard ailments that will generally get better on their own anyway.

WHere I have a problem with supersitious remedies is when practitioners who are either con artists or psychotic bucketheads give people really bad, dangerous advice (such as: stop your chemotherapy! Treat your child's appendicitis with the power of prayer). I'd like to see those people put smartly out of business and even prosecuted for criminal negligence if need be.

Speedy, I don't think he does dismiss anything that can't be explained by the laws of science.
I think he dismisses things that cannot be proved by science to actually happen.

As I understand it (pitifully badly, sorry) we don't yet understand everything that our experiments show us to be going on within the atom. RD and other sceptics aren't saying 'all that stuff you're doing at CERN is a load of rubbish', though, are they?

This is different from dismissing dowsing, because he's not saying 'dowsing doesn't make sense therefore it can't be happening', he's saying 'No-one has yet shown me convincingly that dowsing is actually happening.' But he gives them a chance, in the double blind trial.

I think your question about how he knows he loves his wife would be fascinating, though - perhaps he'd answer in a behaviourist psychological way - 'my heart rate increases when I see her?' I am guessing he would regard the fact that he loves her as provable experimentally.... I wonder

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My heart rate increases when I see one of my DTS run across the road but that is down to fear and anxiety.

ah but you love them.

Pruners, if you believe something is going to happen if you mix A with B, then you have an hypothesis. To prove an hypothesis, you carry out experiments and if the results meet the requirements of your hypothesis, then you can convert your hypothesis into a law.

Edward Jenner observed that his patients who worked with cattle and had come in contact with the mild disease called cowpox never came down with smallpox which killed. So to prove his theory, he injected a boy with cowpox and later with smallpx. The boy did not catch smallpox so his experiment had worked. Hence vaccination was born.

Nice one Kathy!.

Trouble is, people undergoing road rage have elevated heart rates and I doubt they love the other driver. Fascinating stuff anyway!

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And as you know, there are many exceptions to laws/hypothesis/principles etc.

That's why, scientists should have an open mind.

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Yes indeed Speedy - heart rate would not be enough by itself, I am sure.

My heartbeat increases when I see Lalla as well!

Yes, although I've not seen the programme yet, I know from his writings that he wants to give everything the same chance to prove itself in a "clinical trial" situation.

So if someone says that they can heal a particular illness by rubbing a crystal on it, then it seems reasonable to say, "I don't disbelieve you, yet. Please show me."

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sobernow - just after dd was born, during a daytime telly bingi used to watch these medium shows with a mixture of fascination horror and anger (hormone enhanced)

it was so leading, so many wrongs fishing for a right and preying on personal grief

There's a sleb past life regression show on these days which is equally ridiculous. Best thing is though, they have a historian who checks out some of the claims and says things like 'she could not possibly have lived in the house she claims to because it was not built until 72 years after she died'.
That's just self-indulgent, though - the medium things are far worse from the exploitation point of view.

it was great when the parapsychologist or whatever he is exposed Derek Acorah as a complete fraud - big shock that one.

The question is do these people really believe they have a gift or insight (which isnt always reliable, what in life is though?) in which case, they're not purposefully misleading people or they just putting the whole lot on..
ie total fraud.

Derek Acorah a fraud!!... For his next series, the Prof visits the Vatican. "I've secured a personal audience with Pope Benedict, in an attempt to ascertain once and for all that he is, in fact, Catholic."

I'm in most ways a sceptic, but Dawkins does get on my nerves. What particularly irritates me about him is that he rather naively seems to think that if we got rid of all religions etc, there would be no more wars and persecutions. Even if everyone on the planet agreed that religions and beliefs in spiritual phenomena were illogical,no great age of reason and harmony would descend. Human nature being what it is, we'd soon find other reasons for wars and persecution.

In all honesty, don't most people know that these people on TV are just there to entertain those you are into that kind of thing? I've never watched any of the shows because it does not interest me.

Fluffyanimal, you're absolutely right. People use religion as the excuse for all wars/troubles/division etc but when you look beneath the surface, the real reasons are nothing to do with religion but more often to do with power.

I don't think Richard Dawkins says anywhere that getting rid of religion would end war or persecution.
One of the points in his book which I liked is where he says that there will always be bad people who do bad things but religion is very good at making good people do bad things.

(Though where I disagree with him is that I don't think he places enough emphasis on the degree to which religion makes people do good things.)

religion is conduit for power though is it not?

It's the cover that's supposed to make meglomania seems rightful and acceptable

I think speedymama makes interesting points about provability of emotions, love etc. but I have always thought that emotion and imagination was what marked human beings as a unique species. Love, fear and a desire to live as a community allow us to survive, ensure that we look after our vulnerable young with such care for so long and make us ambitious to impress potential mates etc etc.

I would question the wisdom of making emotional claims on intangible beings as opposed to other humans iyswim. The only benefit I can see is for a ruling elite to oppress others by promising rewards in heaven to distract them from a shitty existence on earth. A horrible oversimplification but thats what you get in tinternet fora!