Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
No like this.
There is no bias when the evidence clearly demonstrates this fact.
So you find it logical to demonize ALL attorneys due to your brother issues?
Oh for pete's sake, Matadora, own your own words
".......Religion creates nothing but limited minded bigots."
and stop pretending your bias is somehow different from others.
That you somehow think that changes anything is revealing. Try this:
Atheism tends to create folks who are anti-Religion bigots.
True...but not ALL atheists are anti-religious bigots. In fact most are not. Compare this to the religious folks.
Take a good look around the planet..what do you see? Throughout the recorded history of humans you will consistently find biases that come in every form...that perpetuates dividedness, a lot of this behavior stemmed from religious madness seen all throughout history.
I can't imagine what it must have been like to be a brilliant scientist back in the days when the "church" ruled over everyone's life. Such horror in burning these truth seekers and teachers of the Universe.
This post further illustrates bias on the part of a skeptic.
No. It does not. They are all genuine concerns that you merely dismiss by screaming "bias" at them and not dealing with them substantively in any way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
Use of emotionally charged words
And once again, as with so many threads before this, you have simply stopped discussing WHAT I am saying and moved on to discussing HOW I say it. This is a slide into irrelevancy that you employ in just about every conversation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
The description you provide of the person working in the field exposed to malaria appears to be (your words) a "happy slappy anecdote" itself.
Quite the opposite. The distinction, which you ignore, is the WORLD of difference of someone investing emotionally in one form of alternative medicine for purely selfish and personal reasons..... compared to someone who puts their own life and well being on the line to actively FIND OUT if a treatment or medicine actually does show any efficacy, and whether we can in good conscience offer it to a greater public with all the risks, expense, and patient trust dependence that it would cost us to do so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
You repeatedly express the view that alternative medicine does not actually do anything.
My ACTUAL view, compared to the narrative you seem intent on erecting on my behalf, is that ALL treatments should be subject to the tried and tested methodologies of epidemiology to establish if their efficacy proves to be any higher than that of mere placebo. If it shows that it is, then it ceases to be "alternative medicine" and gets accepted into the realms of "medicine".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
In what ways are you going over it with a fine tooth comb and carefully examining its effectiveness?
If you read and replied to ALL of my posts, rather than select bits you pull out while dodging the rest, you will notice I already answered that. I talked about how exactly we go into the world and even into areas torn by things like malaria, and we do the tests and experiments to check what treatments work, and at what cost to the patient (financial AND side effects and so on).
If you want to know how we go over any proposed medicine to check for it's efficacy then what you are asking me to do is teach about about the ENTIRE FIELD of epidemiology. Which I would be happy to do if you had shown any willingness to actually read my posts in the past. But there are many starting points for the lay person I could happily recommend including, for example, Ben Goldacres book "Bad Science" which details VERY well to a lay public how we do this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
Here is another example of bias. On the one hand it appears you know very little about alternative medicine (chi for instance, and calling vital energy a fantasy new invention).
Except the reality is I know a HELL OF A LOT about it. But one thing to know is that vague terms like "chi" are actually words that describe a whole HOST of claims, practices and traditions. So until you get specific about one particular practice or claim, I am unable to answer anything but the most general of questions for you. It would be like me asking you "Do you believe in biology" or "Do you believe in chemistry". Both words are placeholders for a MASSIVE number of claims, ideas, theories and facts. And until you are specific about WHICH claims and facts you are asking me about, rather than just vague terms that mean much, then you will be asking me questions I can not give specific answers to in order to pretend I know nothing, when I know VERY much.
So the bias here is, as usual, all yours and being projected on to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
Yes i am happy to ask specific questions. What is your knowledge of and experience with acupuncture?
AGAIN acupuncture is a term which holds a lot behind it. There are many practices and claims behind it. Some complementary and some contradictory. So you would need to be more specific again before I could answer specific questions.
But since you will probably use that to pretend I am dodging the question, I will give some GENERAL answers of my knowledge of acupuncture which is that some of the studies I have seen on it have been quite bad.
You see one of the huge problems with "testing" claims like acupuncture claims and other alternative medicines, is that a lot of the beneficial effects have been shown VERY WELL in the past not to come from the medicine but from the level of attention and interaction the patient gets with the practitioner of that medicine.
So in, for example, homeopathy the purveyor of homeopathic cures sits down AT LENGTH with the patient, discusses their back history and how they are feeling and really builds up a repoire with the patient. While a GP of "real" medicine tends to be getting patients in, and back out, the door as fast as possible.
ANOTHER factor is the level of confidence of the practitioner. This increases the placebo effect. We have seen that also VERY WELL in past studies. You get someone who knows it is a placebo to treat patients, and you get someone who thinks the plecebo is real and powerful medicine to treat the patients............ and the placebo is more effective from the latter!!!!!
So acupuncture tests MUST..... not should, or it would be nice but MUST...... account for that. Controls have to be built in to deal with that. And the fact is the majority of acupuncture studies I have read do NOT do so. AT ALL. And this is a problem. A huge, huge, problem. And contrary to your pretense I know "very little" about this subject, I have read MANY such studies indeed. As with every time you move to make a personal comment about me, you are simply wrong every time.
Now I have heard it claimed that it is not possible to account for these things in studies. But that is simply false. There are many ways to do so. The person claiming there is not just tends to lack any real imagination on the subject.
For example how can you apply placebo acupuncture? You could ask a practitioner of acupuncture to do fake accupuncture of course. But then since he would KNOW it was not real, that could be communicated to the patient (as I said above, the confidence the "doctor" has in their procedure affects the results) so it is not possible to fairly apply a placebo control in the case of acupuncture right?
Wrong. It is actually quite simple. All you have to do is get a group of patients all seeking treatment for the same condition and then send two teams of practitioners in. The first team would know the condition they are treating for, so they will confidently apply their treatment for it. The OTHER team will be told a false condition. So THEY will confidently go in and apply their treatment...... but for the wrong thing. So, if acupuncture ACTUALLY DOES WORK...... then the group being treated correctly should show better results than the group being treated for a condition they do not actually have.
Has such a study been done with such controls in place? I have not seen one. And that is only ONE EXAMPLE of a good study methodology one could employ. I could recommend many..... many..... more because, again unlike your pretense I do not know what I am talking about........... when you talk the talk of epidemiology you are standing right in the middle of one of my fields, and questions whether I know it has grass in it or not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
What exactly do you consider "quack alternative medicine?" Does acupuncture for instance fall in this category?
Any medicine or practice that has NOT been adequately subject to the processes of epidemiology, or HAS been subjected to it and has shown no effects above that of mere placebo.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
Again the purpose of this post is to agree with the point gaylen made that skeptics can and do demonstrate bias.
I am sure SOME do. But you would need to take it up with THEM. If you want to show (which you have not done) any bias on MY part however.... then you can take that up with me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
No one is asking him to conduct his own research tests. But he appears to (a) know next to nothing about alternative medicine
And as I said the EXACT opposite is true. But "Alternative medicine" is a HUGE area, and I do not claim to know all of everything in it. That is why I demand specifics from you all the time, rather than general questions on general terms. Finding SOME things I do not know does not extrapolate into me knowing NOTHING about it. You would be hard pushed indeed to find more than 3 or 4 people who know MORE in that area that I do.......... yet you pretend I know essentially nothing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
Perhaps he will tell us why he has such an aversion to alternative medicine, what his revulsion stems from. I am wondering how he would complete this sentence, "I have absolutely no use for alternative medicine because ______________ " This would give us a better understanding.
As I said, my issue is with any medicinal practice or product that has not passed the rigors of epidemiology. And if you want a REASON for that....... it is because many such medicines can be measured in both corpses AND money exploited from the vulnerable, in terms of their effects on society as a whole. Many such medicines and practices exploit the desperate in many cases, and in the worst cases actually lead to otherwise avoidable deaths.
So I have no time, respect, or patience for anyone who presumes to offer cures that have not passed the rigors of testing or, as is sadly often the case, they have REFUSED to even allow to be tested. Such people have guilt and even blood on their hands.
Last edited by Nozzferrahhtoo; 03-24-2017 at 02:55 AM..
This one you probably don't need to spend much time on because, as the authors point out, the sample size is too small to draw any firm conclusions.
As a joke, just for fun, I thought I would not wait until your next reply to hit you with another reply from me Since I was ribbing you gently about bombarding me with posts before I had had time to respond to the last one Take my bombardment however in the good spirit jest in which it is intended.
However I was re-reading a few other papers similar to the 2 you offered...... papers basically getting two subjects and stimulating one while trying to measure correlative brain activity in another. Not one but THREE massive issues hit me in general....... rather than specific to any one paper. Just something that seems to be issues across all the studies as a whole.
ISSUE 1 - Assumption of connection.
One great "fail" in a lot of these papers is the unspoken assumption on behalf of the testers that the brains being tested will happily act in accordance with the narrative of the experiment. That is to say they are putting two subjects in isolation....... stimulating one....... measuring the brain of the other.......... and simply assuming the brains will know this.
What I mean by this is that they are assuming the two brains will be in contact with EACH OTHER. But............ there are all kinds of other brains around too. The experimenters. The CEO upstairs in his office. The Cleaner downstairs in the basement. The secretary on the front desk. The Building is FULL Of brains.
But for whatever reason the researchers assume that Subject Brain A will reach out and broadcast to subject Brain B. Why would it? Of all the brains in the building why are we assuming that Brain A will follow the narrative of the experiment and communicate with the brain THEY want it to? And in reverse........... why are they assuming any activity measured in Brain B is coming from Brain A? Does Brain B somehow know, for the purposes of conforming to the narrative of the experiment, it should be filtering out all activity from all sources other than the ones the researchers WANT it to be receiving????
This assumption set is MASSIVE and seems consistent across many such papers. This is not specific to paranomal research though. I quite often see papers where the researchers have merely assumed that the thing being tested somehow knows, and conforms to, the narrative of the experiement.
ISSUE 2 - Issue of Boredom
Quite often in these papers a subject A is being entertained by flashing images, interesting guess work, challenges and the like. While Subject B is sitting doing nothing, having their brain scanned, and waiting to see if his brain lights up in some way correlating to the Subject A.
However what we have learned in recent years is that the brain of a bored person LIGHTS UP like a Christmas tree. Sometimes even areas of the brain related to imagination and even PAIN light up. In fact boredom is almost a form of torture. And people who are bored in a room with nothing BUT a button that will somehow torture them........ often press the button......... sometimes repeatedly......... because actual physical torture is at least entertainment and is preferable to boredom.
So a lot of these studies do not account for the fact, and indeed it would be very hard to account for the fact, that the brain of Subject B is AWASH with activity and is not a safe baseline for comparison.
ISSUE 3 - Issue of Neurological Representation of Imagination
If you look at the face of your mother, or at an image of a chess board, or anything else really........ many area of your brain will light up.
If however you merely IMAGINE looking at the face of your mother, or at an image of a chess board etc etc many, much, even most of the same areas of your brain light up.
Or if you imagine me looking at the face of your mother, or you chess board, the same thing happens.
Similarly if you stab your own hand with a knife many areas of your brain light up. If you WATCH ME stab my hand with a knife many of the same areas, including the areas for ACTUALLY EXPERIENCING that pain light up. The only reason you do NOT feel the same pain as me (and in fact some people with VERY rare conditions would actually feel my pain literally) is that other areas of the brain suppress it because they know it is not actually happening to you.
The point?
Well.......... if you have Subject A and Subject B, and they both know Subject A will be shown at random intervals an image, or no image at all, then Subject B will likely be sitting there thinking "Well Subject A might be looking at an image now, a chess board pattern or something wasn't it......?" and will be imagining looking at images, and specific images, and even imagining what that image looks like.
And so for THAT Reason, not for reasons of any psychic connection, there will be correlative brain activity between the two because for THAT reason already, the same areas of the brain for viewing, or imagining viewing, the objects on a screen will be lighting up at the same time.
Take a good look around the planet..what do you see? Throughout the recorded history of humans you will consistently find biases that come in every form...that perpetuates dividedness, a lot of this behavior stemmed from religious madness seen all throughout history.
sick people using religion as a weapon is quite a different notion than talking, honestly and openly, about what observations fit some religions people's notions and what notations do not fit religious people's notions.
deciding observations that match some claims are "not fit for public consumption" because they match some religious people claims ... is what exactly?
I can imagine how it feels back then offering a valid claim that doesn't match a person's religion, here atheism, and being dismissed as a sortagod for no other reason then it does support a personal belief statement. Or being told "Don't talk about that because it gives the theist something to grab onto and makes our job harder." whats that about?
Lucky for me I am in a country where they don't kill people for nothing more than describing how the universe works that doesn't fit some people's atheism agenda, and, that happens to look similar to some other person's religion.
Describing how the universe works doesn't depend on what people believe about religion. Religion is dangerous, like a gun, fire, and cars. But we wouldn't change how the universe works because we are against things like; the public having guns. or suggesting we put fire detectors in every house.
..... you have simply stopped discussing WHAT I am saying and moved on to discussing HOW I say it. This is a slide into irrelevancy....
It is very relevant. How a person addresses others reflects their credibility, their reliability, and their bias. Name calling, sarcasm, and derisive emotional language all demonstrate bias. Do you ever see them in science journals, for instance? Why would a science journal not use them?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo
.....until you get specific about one particular practice or claim....until you are specific about WHICH claims and facts ...rather than just vague terms that mean much
This is good advice. I agree. Could you follow it yourself then instead of using vague phrases like quack alternative medicine, woo, invented fantasy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo
...any bias on MY part ...
Your posts and language demonstrate that superbly
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo
.... But "Alternative medicine" is a HUGE area, .....That is why I demand specifics from you all the time, rather than general questions on general terms.
You demand specifics. But you condemn in generalities. "quack alternative medicine, treatments that actually do something, liars, charlatans, woo, invented fantasy" what you ask of others you do not apply to yourself. That is a double standard. That demonstrates bias. And erodes credibility.
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 03-24-2017 at 07:58 AM..
It is very relevant. How a person addresses others reflects their credibility, their reliability, and their bias. Name calling, sarcasm, and derisive emotional language all demonstrate bias. Do you ever see them in science journals, for instance? Why would a science journal not use them?
Nope, not that relevant at all. You just use it to deflect when conversations do not go your way, and I have listed and linked MANY times where your approach to conversation is worse at times than anything you decry in others. Happy to do so again if you push this. But you are the last person to be admonishing others on their conduct in discourse, seriously.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
This is good advice. I agree. Could you follow it yourself then instead of using vague phrases like quack alternative medicine, woo, invented fantasy.
I am in fact quite careful about how I use those terms, which you would notice if you could stop yourself being triggered by those terms. There IS a world of quackery alternative medicines out there and it very much deserves that name. And I have explained AT LENGTH now what I mean by that term and when I think it applies. But you have not responded to ANY of that part of my post(s), choosing instead to cling to your own emotive response to the terms.
AGAIN Quack Medicine refers SPECIFICALLY to "medicines" or "medical" practices that have either been kept from, or failed the application of, evidence based methodologies of epidemiology and yet continue to be pedaled by charlatans as if they display efficacy or utility beyond that of mere placebo.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
Your posts and language demonstrate that nicely
Nope, but your responses to it sure do yours.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
You demand specifics. But you condemn in generalities.
Nope, I really don't, see above.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
"quack alternative medicine, treatments that actually do something, liars, charlatans, woo, invented fantasy" what you ask of others you do not apply to yourself. That is a double standard. That demonstrates bias.
Yes, I am biased TOWARDS medicines and practices that have actually been shown to work. I am biased AGAINST claims that medicines and practices that have failed to show any efficacy actually are effective. I have not pretended otherwise.
We all have biases. I just do not have the ones YOU pretend I have. I am well aware of the ones I DO have, as well as WHY I have them. And I am more than happy, as you have seen (again, see above) to explain their basis.
But I do not "condemn in generalities", I respond to EXACTLY what was put before me. You PRESENTED me with generalities and vagueness, so I am only able to respond in kind. So you are willfully stacking the deck there. You are discussing general things with me and then acting like I have a problem when I respond in kind. That is AT BEST unfair from you, and at worst a willful canard of distortion.
For example you ask me VERY vaguely about my position on "chi based martial arts". So I responded in very vague general terms too. Which is all I CAN do given what you asked me.
Now if you asked me a SPECIFIC thing about a SPECIFIC claim within the realm of chi based martial arts I could respond specifically too.
In other words whether I condemn specifics or generalities, ENTIRELY depends on whether YOU choose to present me with specifics or generalities. So if you present one, do not hold it against me if I respond to it in kind.
".......Religion creates nothing but limited minded bigots."
and stop pretending your bias is somehow different from others.
But it is Our Bias is towards getting at the truth whether we like it or not. The Theist Bias is towards getting at what they like, whether it is the truth or not.
I'd wonder why you don't see that, but theist -think has many layers: it makes words stand on their heads.
It claims Logic and science support while also dismissing them as human guesswork and ignorance. It claims faith as far more reliable (indeed, as you revealed in the Revelation thread, it regards personal opinions as God -inspired Fact). while at the same time tries to discredit atheism by also claiming it is also relying on Faith. as though it was mere unsupported guersswork - which of course (as they know, deep down inside) it is.
The name of the game is Projection.What a Theist accuses you of, generally applies better to themselves.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 03-24-2017 at 08:33 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Since I was ribbing you gently about bombarding me with posts before I had had time to respond to the last one 
Our Bias is towards getting at the truth whether we like it or not. The Theist Bias is towards getting at what they like, whether it is the truth or not.