What is this - crystal power?

[Grover_Cephas]

I would call it ignorance, not arrogance. And the scientific community suffers from this as well. They are humans and suffer from the same weaknesses as any other person, regardless of their intellect.

How 'bout "arrogantly insisting on ignorance"

And what sets the scientific method apart from faith-based problem solving isn't the "intellect" of its practitioners. It's a full understanding of the human capacity for self-delusion and its commitment to compensating for it. Non-scientific organizations generally revel in their own biases. They decide that they _know_ something, and that any contrary evidence must be flawed. The scientific community, while hardly perfect, dedicates enormous resources to double-blinding tests and peer-reviewing findings. This is not to say that scientists don't have human weaknesses. But it does mean that the current mainstream account of the probable formation of the universe is inherently more reliable that the creation myth preached by the neo-pagans down the street.

Most of the people who are into crystals are trying to find something to help them in their daily lives, they aren't trying to become doctors or scientists. So, why should I or anyone else tell them they are wrong for believing something, even if there is no evidence to support what they belief. In some cases where what they are doing is harmful to them or someone else, I could see that. However, doing this to someone who isn't causing harm serves no purpose.

1-These people vote. Should the nation's doctors and scientists face regulations that were backed by scientific illiterates? Should their funding be determined in part by people who think that Madame Moonbeam's tarot reading is more significant that the Hubble observations?

2-Hawkers of this silliness generally don't refuse real medical care. But they _do_ generally despise the scientific and medical communities. They just do it selectively. Need to get on the Internet? Science is great. Wanna defend crystal mythology? Scientists are all stuffy snobs who dismiss non-traditional thought out-of-hand. Need a double bypass? Let's get straight to the hospital. Wanna believe in acupuncture? Well, "real" doctors are all just butchers, anyway. They take advantage of science when they need it, but otherwise denigrate it. See point #1

3-In the modern world, ignorance (especially religious ignorance) can be deadly. Psychos murder family-planning doctors in God's name. Psychos crash planes into skyscrapers to try to prevent change to their their hard-line religious way of life. Some Americans disenfranchise other Americans over a sentence in Leviticus. The Arabs and Israelis blame their bloody vendettas in large part on religious differences.

Ignorance is destructive.

I have no right to go into a "paranormal" community and demand that everybody agree with me. But neither does anyone else have the right to tell me that I can't debunk to a patently false claim. If somebody said "hey, if you drop those two rocks, the heavy one'll fall faster", would you tell me I shouldn't point out that he's wrong? Why should it be different just because somebody's made the mistake of getting emotionally invested in a false idea?

 

[Dirk]

There are plenty of psychos out there that don't use religion as the reason for their actions. Many of the psychos that do claim a religious right of some type to justify their mental illness are many times ONLY looking for justification. They don't really believe.

The scientific method is, without a doubt, the best way to prove or dis-prove something. No doubt, no arguement. However, the same danger exists, in that, the scientific method has become a religion for many. It can and has been abused by scientist to show proof for something that they believe in. However, they don't have the hard facts to back it up. Look at all of the various positions for the beginning of man, the age of the pyramids, the construction of the pyramids, the age of the universe, evolution etc. Many people will fight just as hard for their belief in what they think is correct, even though someone may offer evidence that contradicts them. Is it to the extent of some religions, no. However, it exists.

As to the voting issue. Well, since the vast majority of people in the world have a belief in some form of religion that can't be proven through the scientific method, I guess we are all in deep doodoo.

To support your arguement of the openmindedness of the scientific community, mainstream medicine is studying and finding many non traditional cures to actually have some validity. Accupuncture is becoming an accepted form of pain control. Prayer, has been shown in studies to have a positive impact on a patient, even when they don't know someone is praying for them.

 

[Quiet Storm]

Although I usually tend to ridicule people who believe in magic crystals and stuff, the following statement made me re-think the issue a little:

A nicely mounted crystal is a lot more attractive than many other amulets people often wear -- crucifixes, chais, blue beads -- and the others don't have any more inherent power than the crystals. But people don't think they have to die for their crystals.

Definitely bears repeating.

 

[gajinoz]

How 'bout "arrogantly insisting on ignorance"

And what sets the scientific method apart from faith-based problem solving isn't the "intellect" of its practitioners. It's a full understanding of the human capacity for self-delusion and its commitment to compensating for it. Non-scientific organizations generally revel in their own biases. They decide that they _know_ something, and that any contrary evidence must be flawed. The scientific community, while hardly perfect, dedicates enormous resources to double-blinding tests and peer-reviewing findings. This is not to say that scientists don't have human weaknesses. But it does mean that the current mainstream account of the probable formation of the universe is inherently more reliable that the creation myth preached by the neo-pagans down the street.

.......

Excellent post.

 

[Grover_Cephas]

Excellent post.

Shucks...

Ya gone and made me all blushy. Ah, in a stoic, manly kinda way, that is.

 

[Grover_Cephas]

As to the voting issue. Well, since the vast majority of people in the world have a belief in some form of religion that can't be proven through the scientific method, I guess we are all in deep doodoo.

Just a quick note on this point. I don't think religious people are inherently irrational. I mean, I don't believe that there really is a God looking down at me at this very moment, but I really appreciate the complexity and beauty of Judaism and Christianity (they're the ones I'm most familiar with; I don't mean to say other religions are less valid), and I value that feeling of connection with the divine that I get from religious study and practice. And from a really good sunset. And from a good, layman's-terms description of dark energy. And from the William Tell overture.

As an example, the college professor who taught my three Bible courses was an orthodox Jew (a Kohain, actually), who taught New Testament theology with a passion much deeper and.. holier than I've ever seen from a Christian preacher. I've never in my life seen anybody with such a complex, reverent love of the scriptures. And I'll be damned if I wouldn't have described him as an atheist sometimes.

It's not, to me, a matter of whether you value your religion. It's a matter of whether you take your religion as more than a source of value to yourself, and try to use it to drive public policy, or to decide your medical options, or to restrict what can be taught in public schools.

Feel God's presence, sure. Revel in the beauty of Jesus' life in the synoptic Gospels (never much liked John, I admit ). But don't insist that the Earth was created out of nothing in 4004 BC. It just ain't so.

Similarly, believe in the Green Man. Take value from your spiritual connections with nature and the pantheons from every time and place. But don't try to tell me that they had crystal-powered airplanes in Atlantis. It just ain't so.

 

[Gollnick]

The scientific method has become a religion for many.

Exactly.



Oh, and where did the scientific method come from? Well, it actually has its basis in the Christian faith. Yes, it does. The idea that the world is not random but that an intelligent God created a clockwork universe in which there are absolute laws of nature and that it is not only possible but that it is God's will that man discover and exploit those laws.

This has interesting implications for those who would seek to use the scientific method to deny God. It sort of reminds one of a man hanging from a rope over a deep pit and who dares to cut away at the rope.

 

[Merek]

Due to past difficulties and dissappointing results I have had trying to educate the world about everything I consider crap, I have fallen into a state of Supreme Curmudgeony from which I simply hand down opinions.
Crystal power? That dog don't hunt. :yawn:

 

[FoxholeAtheist]

I completely disagree that the scientific method has become a "religion" to many. The scientific method is just that... a method. It's a way of looking at the world that is designed to determine how things in the world work. It has no sacred observances, no worship, no dogma. If you want to define "religion" broad enough to include the scientific method, then you would probably also include watching Monday Night Football as a religion.


While the natural philosophers of the scientific revolution did indeed base the idea of scientific laws on the concept of a clockwork universe, the discovery of those laws doesn't validate the existence of god as a creator. For that matter, I've not seen many try to use the scientific method to disprove that there's god, though it's a commonly held belief among creationists and ardent christians that that's the case.