[Madness]

As I have said before, there is a limited pot of money for research, and there is much Science, often backed by sound and reproducible evidence, that will never get funding.  To spend a portion of that money on paranormal programmes that are by and large preposterous,. have been repeatedly shell-holed, and are prone to exploitation by frauds and charlatans, does not make a lot of sense.  And should, say Sheldrake or Schwarz, reach a dead-end and no substance is found in their claims, in 5 to 10 years another paranormal researcher will come along and the cycle will begin anew. 

Which Schwarz?

Of course, those who insist that telepathy is preposterous might be mistaken.  The idea is not inherently absurd.  However, in the attempt to demonstrate it, I would protest at the expenditure of any public money.  It is simply not worth it and not cost effective.   

+1 the bold. But then I might also follow with something like Wilshire contended with above.

.................................
Is that a fair comparison though? If you spend 90% of your time,money and resources on one area,and 10% on another,which of those will prosper? the answer is pretty obvious.I am not at all saying we should cut in areas that are of huge importance to human well being,but certainly not all branches of scientific research work toward this goal.

..............................

I think it's a completely fair comparison.  Paranormal research could develop its own priorities and applications, and attract considerable funding; well, at least it could if it convincingly demonstrated paranormal effects. 

And again, if you attribute to me the priority that only utilitarian research should be funded, you are mistaken.

I think you've hit mutual exclusives, anor. Paranormal research can do little beyond theoretically advance their research without ethics approval, which results in the institutional bottleneck. It's very likely that to demonstrate paranormal phenomenon, researchers would need to do more than write a tailored proposal.

Right, unless it didn't show the results you wanted.

Actually, it's fairly standard to have to provide 'power' stats for research (at least, so my disciplines go). It's a tricksty equation for calculating how likely you are to show 'significant' (5% for Psych) results with your research. No power, no funding.

I'd guess that a field that had less money and was looked down on would under preform. But thats just me.
Maybe we should be looking at research money and not something silly like time?

Funding and availability of, no doubt. Though I think we're definitely at a disadvantage in this discussion because we can't account for military and corporate R&D, which has a fair bit of declassified paranormal results, which are interesting, to say the least. They have probably thrown the most time and money at these conceived hypotheses.

Also, unrelated but in the same vein, has anyone heard about schools selling corporations first rights to research results, in which some cases, corporations simply bury the knowledge.

It gets complicated real quick when simply shucking for smucks...

[anor277]

Hundreds of years of psychic research:  Shit all result; procession of charlatans and impostures; no application; no advancement of human knowledge; not even conclusive evidence of paranormal phenomena.  200-300 years of scientific research:  Modern industrial society; life-spans beyond 30; an advanced understanding of how the universe works.  And I would never prejudge a research programme simply because it was only aimed at abstract knowledge.

Remember what I said earlier about just throwing numbers at stuff to make a point?

In point of fact I don't remember.  And I do not need your permission to make an argument

Hundreds of years?

Prophets, soothsayers, spiritualists, diviners, and mystics have been common throughout human history.  They were no more successful then than they are now.

I could argue that medicine has been researched for nearly 3000 years and it took a whole 2900 of those years for "modern medicine" to actually have exceptional results.

How much does modern medicine, as it is actually practised, owe to Hippocrates, or Galen, or even to Paracelsus?  There is a Hippocratic oath, but this is an ethical consideration.

Oh or astronomy, since you specifically mentioned "how the universe works", has been around since before that even.
Sounds to me more like 1000's of years...

And when did Copernicus work?  The 16th century?  You're not going to understand much of astronomy with a geocentric universe.

Therefore, by your own standard, we should at least allow for three millennium of research into each and every field before we can access whether or not it is useful or not. To me, that seems like a bit extreme, but maybe I'm just not as generous as you.

By your standards actually.  I made no such specification.

And I would never prejudge a research programme simply because it was only aimed at abstract knowledge.

Right, unless it didn't show the results you wanted.

Again, you are being gratuitous.  I made no such specification.  I do insist that if a claim is advanced, then evidence must be proferred in its support.  I am perfectly justified to dismiss a claim without evidence.

Is that a fair comparison though? If you spend 90% of your time,money and resources on one area,and 10% on another,which of those will prosper?

The programme that prospers will be the one that consistently shows convincing evidence, and reliably answers questions.  This programme will eventually attract the most funding.

I'd guess that a field that had less money and was looked down on would under preform. But thats just me.
Maybe we should be looking at research money and not something silly like time?

Again, a field that has no theoretical basis, no practical demonstration, negligible evidence will also under perform.  But that's just me.

[Wilshire]

Your "nope I disagree" argument merits not even this response 

[anor277]

Your "nope I disagree" argument merits not even this response 

If you attribute to me positions which I don't hold, do you expect me to adopt me them?  Please feel free to withdraw.

[Wilshire]

Same goes for you. It appears our little discussion is at an end, since neither party feels the other is making coherent or relevant statements.

[Royce]

It appears our little discussion is at an end, since neither party feels the other is making coherent or relevant statements.

Yeah,it seems like both parties feel they are banging their heads against a wall,and it is most likely painful for both.

[sciborg2]

Is the argument against Psi research that it is - according to the current paradigm - unlikely to bear fruit or is it that there is better stuff to research?

Because if it's the former - there seem to be lots of potential dead ends in research.

If it's the latter - then we shouldn't waste money on a space program.

In fact, personally I'd say there is better stuff than both Psi and Space to worry about and neither really deserves public funding at this time.

[Wilshire]

But I love space  , and I've read/heard way to much Neil Degrasse Tyson to support that opinion lol. That man is quite the inspirational speaker.

But yeah, if it where my dollar, I wouldn't put it in psi research, because I personally don't think there is anything that we can find at this point in time. Maybe in the future, but probably not now.

As for what the argument was actually about, I don't really have a clue. Mostly about semantics as far as I could tell.

[Royce]

But I love space

You love the lifeless,black void?

I agree with both of you,there are of course many areas that deserve funding.I don`t think that was the issue though,more if psi has anything to offer according to what results certain people claim to have(Sheldrake).
If we are going to rate every area in science,and decide which deserve funding or not,this will most likely be the longest discussion ever

[sciborg2]

If we are going to rate every area in science,and decide which deserve funding or not,this will most likely be the longest discussion ever

Just dump the space program, linguistics research save for that covered by military funding, and any other research that is driven more by curiosity than direct applicability.

So rank the research projects in terms of lowest immediate utility and line the worst the most "useless" at the chopping block.

[Wilshire]

No! Space must live! Watch this inspirational (if not somewhat biased) video about how awesome space is.
Actually, don't bother lol it won't change your mind, they just make me happy.

In all seriousness though, I think it raises some interesting points and some interesting facts that I didn't know before I watched it. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts about the clips.

2 short parts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFO2usVjfQc

[Royce]

Funding and availability of, no doubt. Though I think we're definitely at a disadvantage in this discussion because we can't account for military and corporate R&D, which has a fair bit of declassified paranormal results, which are interesting, to say the least. They have probably thrown the most time and money at these conceived hypotheses.

Interesting point.Are you referring to the use of remote viewing and such in military tactics? Haven`t read much about that,feel free to elaborate if you can

[Madness]

Is the argument against Psi research that it is - according to the current paradigm - unlikely to bear fruit or is it that there is better stuff to research?

I made the initial contention that if there are so many people believing this "obviously" false belief, then that 'Science' should take some time and provide negative evidence. But I think anor and Wilshire went a-tangenting...

But yeah, if it where my dollar, I wouldn't put it in psi research, because I personally don't think there is anything that we can find at this point in time. Maybe in the future, but probably not now.

As for what the argument was actually about, I don't really have a clue. Mostly about semantics as far as I could tell.

To step in with raise finger and just demand correction: this conversation will always remain important to me and so I must go on.

We have... almost 7 billion brains. A much smaller number of graduating academics, interested in research (though this contention is too rife with complex antecedents at this time).

Combined with this we have "human problems," which include for my argument (feel free to list others) lack of nutrition then lack of a quality education (I would also love to have a discussion with this board as to what constitutes that in the first place).

Realistically, there are a variety of cruxes, which impede the manifestation of knowledge - for all we know, we're missing out on mind/brains that might have superseded the greats, which is likely because the random manifestation of genius seems mostly due to socioeconomic factors.

And in this context, we have our super-competitive academic institutions, where the actual manifestation of new human knowledge is constrained...

To bullet-point some food for thought:

Ethical constraint - Not supporting Neil and Mengele but the people who make up institutional ethics board can be assembled from pretty much anywhere, with equal qualifications, rather than using specifically academics employed in positions where they benefit from the presence of non-academic corporate leadership on an ethics board.

Corporate constraint - There are documented instances whereby corporations legally or monetarily veto publishable research from partnerships with educational institutions. Follow the rabbit-hole of privatization and the emergence of corporate states.

Military constraint - There seems a clear division between military and institutional research, in that, any research can 'become' military research and thus, we can never be sure what the military is researching, only that that research is likely absent from institutional research.

If we are going to rate every area in science,and decide which deserve funding or not,this will most likely be the longest discussion ever

Well, I'm here till I die - not that I can devote all my time to this discussion in particular but I would participate so long as it or I went on .

So rank the research projects in terms of lowest immediate utility and line the worst the most "useless" at the chopping block.

I think there are justifications for utility that run counter-intuitive to your assertion here. Wanna back that up with some criteria? I certainly wouldn't be so quick to dump linguistics, for instance.

Funding and availability of, no doubt. Though I think we're definitely at a disadvantage in this discussion because we can't account for military and corporate R&D, which has a fair bit of declassified paranormal results, which are interesting, to say the least. They have probably thrown the most time and money at these conceived hypotheses.

Interesting point.Are you referring to the use of remote viewing and such in military tactics? Haven`t read much about that,feel free to elaborate if you can

Well, freedom of information dictates a certain number of years until declassification so much of public record is as old as those making decisions thirty, fifty, seventy-five years ago could assure.

But a couple years ago when a group of roommates and I tried our hands at symposium to essay, where we'd have discussions and then write up an essay around the common ground (two of which I think are in the Writing Subforum), we decided that there is probably a 20/80 split. What with conspiracy theories and degrees of separation, the military research that we contemporarily know about, is probably about 20% of the military research being conducted.

This doesn't include, corporate subsidiaries of the military, which probably don't ever have to reveal anything.

But when I have another day and more time, I will definitely regale you with some more concrete examples. I just don't feel like digging through the library right now. Busy day and such.

[Kellais]

Hmm...after reading this thread, i wonder about two things:

1) how many of you know how to work scientifically (is that a word?) aka how many of you are academics/working in scientific fields and not just readers of some academic work (or even pseudo-academic work)?

2) how many of you are just playing advocatus diaboli in here?

For my money, the most stringent and well-flowing arguments were made by anor (which is not to say that i agree with all his statments). Disclaimer: Not counting Madness here...he obviously works as an academic (i hope? at least you know how to build an argument and you have good structure in your posts). But he didn't contribute as much (post count wise) as others.

I'm not trying to be a troll here...this is truly what i was thinking about when reading this thread.

[sciborg2]

2) how many of you are just playing advocatus diaboli in here?

*raises hand*

Though I think it's not very helpful to critique an ongoing thread without offering some issues that you had with people's posts. It's too easy to simply dismiss you by saying you're biased against Psi...and possibly Sci.