'Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: NPOV: Fetus personhood - fish for all the thanks'

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List:       wikien-l
Subject:    Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: NPOV: Fetus personhood - fish for all the thanks
From:       Ray Saintonge <saintonge () telus ! net>
Date:       2005-07-31 5:15:31
Message-ID: 42EC5E73.4080505 () telus ! net
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Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:

>>IIRC you were the one carrying on about childbirth being "punishment for
>>Eve's transgression"
>>    
>>
>I'm sorry if you misunderstood. I was quoting the Genesis, which is one of
>the books of the Bible. I am not personally of the opinion that all women
>should suffer in childbirth because of Eve's transgression.
>
Quoting the Bible in a context about science has its pitfalls. :-)

>>Achnowledging a possible state where homeopathy might not work is
>>different the inflexible POV that it has already happened.  Your, "What
>>would it take for you to be convinced that..." attitude suggests
>>inflexibility.  There can be no consensus if you prejudge the result.
>>    
>>
>I think we probably have somewhat different ways to think about things
>since I frequently fail to understand your paragraphs. You originally
>said:
>
>"Even if homeopathic medicines turn out to be inert placebos, placebos
>still have a level of effectiveness that exceeds doing nothing."
>
>And I asked you what events would bring about this "turn-out-to-be" state.
>What debunking would be sufficient? What test failure would do?
>
When you begin from the premise that something must be "debunked" you 
make an assumption that that is the inevitable goal of the discussion.  
I have never claimed to have ever used homeopathy, and I really don't 
know what I would do if the occasion ever arose.  Under those 
circumstances it doesn't matter to me whether the tests would fail.  If 
you show me conclusively that a particular homeopathic medicine is 
ineffective it's still not rational to extrapolate that result to all 
the other such medicines.  Neither am I ready to make the kind of study 
that would satisfactorily bring me to a specific stand on either the 
validity or invalidity of homeopathy.  I can imagine myself arguing in 
the same way as I am now if your views were completely the opposite to 
what they actually are.

It's not homeopathy that interests me; it's the rigorous application of 
the scientific method no matter where it leads me.  The fact that a 
"science", to use the term broadly, has not been proven does not mean 
that it has been proven false.  The burden of proof remains with the 
person who claims that it is valid.  The person who isists that 
something is false manages to shif that burden to himself when it is not 
necessary to do so.

>Conversely, I can easily outline circumstances in which I would accept
>homeopathy as valid. I consider it beyond the realm of the probable - but
>it could theoretically happen. 
>
That statement is self contradictory.  To be meaningful it would require 
invoking the concept of negative probability.  Perhaps you are not using 
the term "probability" in a mathematical sense.

>Allow me to quote from Richard Feynman, he puts it better than I ever could.
>
>- - -
>Example. I'm in Las Vegas, suppose. And I meet a mind reader, or, let's
>say, a man who claims not to be a mind reader, but more technically
>speaking to have the ability of telekinesis, which means that he can
>influece the way things behave by pure thought. This fellow comes to me,
>and he says, "I will demonstrate this to you. We will stand at the
>roulette wheel and I will tell you ahead of time whether it is going to be
>black or red on every shot."
>
>I believe, say, before I begin, it doesn't make any difference what number
>you choose for this. I happen to be prejudiced against mind readers from
>experience in nature, in physics. I don't see, if I believe that man is
>made out of atoms and if I know all of the - most of the - ways atoms
>interact with each other, any direct way in which the machinations in the
>mind can affect the ball. So from other experience and general knowledge,
>I have a strong prejudice against mind readers. Million to one.
>
>Now we begin. The mind reader says it's going to be black. It's black. The
>mind reader says it's going to be red. It's red. Do I believe in mind
>readers? No. It could happen. The mind reader says it's going to be black.
>It's black. The mind reader says it's going to be red. It's red. Sweat.
>I'm about to learn something. This continues, let us suppose, for ten
>times. Now it's possible by chance that that happened ten times, but the
>odds are a thousand to one against it. Therefore, I now have to conclude
>that the odds that a mind reader is really doing it are a thousand to one
>that he's not a mind reader still, but it was a million to one before. But
>if I get ten more, you see, he'll convince me. Not quite. One must always
>allow for alternative theories. There is another theory that I should have
>mentioned before. As we went up to the roulette table, I must have thought
>in my mind of the possibility that there is collusion between the
>so-called mind reader and the people at the table. That's possible.
>
>...
>
>Now suppose that we go to another club, and it works, and another one and
>it works. I buy dice and it works. I take him home and I build a roulette
>wheel; it works. What do I conclude? I conclude he is a mind reader.
>- - -
>
>- From "This Unscientific Age", a lecture given in 1963. Here quoted from
>"The Meaning of It All", published by Penguin Books in 1999, pp. 68-70.
>
Apart from his harmless confusion between the different psychic 
phenomena, I have no problem with this story.  He has made a 
probabilistic determination that the person is a "mind reader"; he has 
not proven it  (The actual phenomenon involved would likely be 
precognition, or less likely psychokinesis.  There is no "mind reading" 
unless the knowledge is gained from what someone else already knew 
through normal means.  This error is harmless in these circumstances.) 

>>Your link redirects me to an nih site on nucleic acids and the word
>>"placebo" does not appear there at all.
>>    
>>
>Sorry, I had two PubMed links open - that one was something
>I was using for my M.S. thesis. My bad :) A Google search will
>reveal the page I intended to send you to.
>
Thanks, I may look for it.

>>If the data on the placebo effect is of such poor quality it
>>does not strike me as scientific to novertheless use it as a reference
>>standard.
>>    
>>
>I think this article probably argues for more research
>into the placebo effect. If you search PubMed for the
>words "placebo effect" you will, however, find a
>reasonable amount of recent articles.
>
If that's their argument I support it.

>>How does the "effect in the placebo arm" differ from the "placebo effect"?
>>    
>>
>Not having actually read the article I cannot say for sure.
>My guess is that they want to distinguish the *change* that
>occurs in the placebo arm of an experiment from the *effect*
>of the placebo they are given. That is to say a part of the
>placebo group may get better without it having anything to
>do with the placebo - they might have gotten better even
>without it.
>
The do-nothing group is yet another reference group, but IIRC placebo 
groups often tend to do better if only because those receiving the 
placebo believe that they are getting real medicine.  This gets us into 
questions about the healing power of one's own mind.

Ec

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