"Now Mr Randi spends a huge amount of time in his presentation stating that fact and claiming that, because there are no molecules, the whole stuff is crap!"
If that were the sum total of his objection, then of course that would not be a conclusive refutation of the claims.
"The problem, they say, is that current science is unable to measure that stuff."
The biggest problem is that science is also unable to measure any discernible effect that may be caused by homoeopathic solutions.
You are putting up a straw man. The argument against homoeopathy is basically that there is no mechanism known to science by which this might work, and no effect is detected when testing it. So the entire thing amounts to nothing. Which is how Randi, and any other reasonable skeptic draws the conclusion that it is bunk. But you seem to be focusing entirely on Randi's perfectly valid assertions that there is no mechanism by which this could work that fits in with 100s of years of scientific facts that have been verified millions of times, whilst ignoring the rest of the picture that also contributes to his conclusion, in that homoeopathy has been subjected to several studies, and has been shown over and over again to do nothing but cause a placebo effect.
The biggest point you fail to mention is that the youtube video in question is just Randi addressing an audience on stage for the purposes of entertaining them. He isn't trying to present a rigourous refutation of homoeopathy, he's just highlighting the ridiculous claims so that people are entertained.
Could you point out some of the other several flaws you spotted.
all the ones i saw were at retail price, so i suppose that means they arent scalpers. I know what you mean, i wouldn't pay more than the retail price for a brand new item on ebay.
I agree that blind faith in skepticism is an oxymoron, so i can't picture a way that it could be accomplished.
Blind faith in someone who claims to be a skeptic, is of course hypocritical and any claims made by Randi or anyone else should ultimately be personally verified.
However, the OP was painting Randi out to be biased to a "pathetic" degree, so I was curious to see what problems there were with the homoeopathy video. The links you provided were interesting and do indeed serve as a reminder not trust everything someone says. On the other hand they don't really reinforce the picture of Randi that the OP was making. The first link just shows that Randi is human and can occasionally get carried away and overstate his position. He freely owned up to the mistakes. The second link is not as clear cut - it seems like Rupert Sheldrake has no real evidence that Randi said anything false, and as the rebuttals go on, his criticism of Randi just dwindles off into passive concession along the lines of "these experiments weren't important anyway, and who's to say if Uri Geller doesn't have sporadic Psychic abilities..."
So while yes, it is always worth fact checking to make sure people aren't exaggerating (wilfully or not) and examining apparent anomalies in people arguments and not letting things slide just because you trust them, I still haven't seen any evidence that Randi is biased and poorly reasoned.
That isn't his job. His job is to question unsubstantiated claims that appear to contradict science, in order to determine which ones are demonstrable crap. The rest of the scientific community are busy questioning science so that it evolves.
Randi's only bias, as with the rest of the scientific community, is towards verifiable evidence. That's all he asks. If you dont have the evidence, then yes, he will be forced to conclude that you are mistaken, or full of crap.
"His debunking of Homeopathy (also on youtube) has so many reasoning flaws (even on scientific methodology) that is sometimes pitiful."
that's because there arent americans that hate america. there are americans that hate the bush administration, which is conflated with the country itself by the right wing portion of the media, in order to shout down criticism of a corrupt and illegal regime.
so when people start crowing about americans who hate america, what they are really doing is demonising people who are far more patriotic than themselves.
well you arent paying for *information* on a month by month basis, you're paying for support. the information is still free. if you dont want the service, just take the free information and do what you please with it. or perhaps the service isn't up to snuff or is too expensive. well with free software you have other options for support than just the company that makes the software.
and charging for proprietary software isnt "immoral". it just isnt a good as deal as free software.
Cost "the country" hundreds of billions. hmm. dont you mean the entertainment industry? way to conflate you interests with the public good. and way to vastly exagerate your own interests too.
is it just me or were none of those adverts actually funny? i dont understand why the computerworld editors were laughing out loud all day. they really arent that hilarious.
they also dont get much germs on them in the first place - urine is sterile and ass-cheeks dont tend to come into contact with anything other than your underwear so unless you're crapping all over your toilet the seat is probably an order of magnitude cleaner than anything you touch with your hands.
i think its a problem over definition of terms - in the context of evolution denial people generally use the term creationists to denote people that ignore or rationalise away the scientific evidence for evolution in order to accomodate their belief in the book of genesis.
obviously you dont fit that criteria, so the term is a bit overloaded. i prefer evolution denier. it fits better with the other types like holocaust denier, HIV denier, and what it looks like is becoming the case of global warming deniers. People who just cherry pick and rationalise evidence to fit their own preconceived notions, and generally employ some kind of conspiracy theory to explain why the majority opinion is against them.
perhaps you should look at the website of the new creation museum from answers in genesis. apparently there was a "floating forest".
i kid you not. and when the flood was over, as the waters subsided, they broke up the floating forest and redistributed the trees on land.
Where did they get the idea for the floating forest from? I beleive it was Ken Ham's ass.
only in the sense that christians have redefine the meanings of perfectly straightforward words in order to rationalise away the ludicrous crap spouted in the bible.
I see. Please explain why I feel consciousness. Please explain what happens to that consciousness when I die.
Science has barely attempted to answer those questions, even though the existence of "free will", "soul", "spirit", "consciousness" or whatever your philosophy calls it, lies at the heart of most theology. So, one million rational scientific arguments on external observable phenomena do not lend more or less credence to science's progress at understanding this experience of every man.
so what? that doesnt mean god did it. it just means we dont understand it yet, as illustrated by the GP when he talked about lightning being a mystery thousands of year ago.
also, why is your explanation at all credible? it's just made up. what is the evidence to back up your position that god created the universe? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHATSOEVER. science has the humility and integrity to freely admit when something is unknown. religion arrogantly assumes an absolute answer on no evidence whatsoever, and has very little capacity to correct its position in the face of real evidence.
We can go through time right back to the Big Bang, saying "ok, and what caused the big bang... ok and what caused that...? and where did the laws governing this process come from?" until eventually we must come up with one of the non-scientific arguments "nothing did it" or "God did it".
How about, "we dont know?" if it turns out to be impossible for us to probe beyond the big bang, than we will never know. that is absolutley no reason to assume a god did it. we will just have to accept that we will never know what caused the big bang. or perhaps we are able to see beyond the big bang, and it turns out the thing that outside the universe is simply eternal (but not a god).
you suffer from typical myopic "god of the gaps" mentality, in that anything that isnt explained or explainable must be the work of god. that is UTTER logical fallacy.
i remember there being a passage in the bible where god himself states quite clearly that he is a jealous god. then he gives us a commandment not to covet. do as i say, not as i do.
Slashdot Mirror
If you RTA you'll see that the scientist in charge says they can't clone it because freezing bursts the cells, and you need intact cells to clone.
If that were the sum total of his objection, then of course that would not be a conclusive refutation of the claims.
"The problem, they say, is that current science is unable to measure that stuff."
The biggest problem is that science is also unable to measure any discernible effect that may be caused by homoeopathic solutions.
You are putting up a straw man. The argument against homoeopathy is basically that there is no mechanism known to science by which this might work, and no effect is detected when testing it. So the entire thing amounts to nothing. Which is how Randi, and any other reasonable skeptic draws the conclusion that it is bunk. But you seem to be focusing entirely on Randi's perfectly valid assertions that there is no mechanism by which this could work that fits in with 100s of years of scientific facts that have been verified millions of times, whilst ignoring the rest of the picture that also contributes to his conclusion, in that homoeopathy has been subjected to several studies, and has been shown over and over again to do nothing but cause a placebo effect.
The biggest point you fail to mention is that the youtube video in question is just Randi addressing an audience on stage for the purposes of entertaining them. He isn't trying to present a rigourous refutation of homoeopathy, he's just highlighting the ridiculous claims so that people are entertained.
Could you point out some of the other several flaws you spotted.
all the ones i saw were at retail price, so i suppose that means they arent scalpers. I know what you mean, i wouldn't pay more than the retail price for a brand new item on ebay.
In what way is his mind closed? To what is biased?
Blind faith in someone who claims to be a skeptic, is of course hypocritical and any claims made by Randi or anyone else should ultimately be personally verified.
However, the OP was painting Randi out to be biased to a "pathetic" degree, so I was curious to see what problems there were with the homoeopathy video. The links you provided were interesting and do indeed serve as a reminder not trust everything someone says. On the other hand they don't really reinforce the picture of Randi that the OP was making. The first link just shows that Randi is human and can occasionally get carried away and overstate his position. He freely owned up to the mistakes. The second link is not as clear cut - it seems like Rupert Sheldrake has no real evidence that Randi said anything false, and as the rebuttals go on, his criticism of Randi just dwindles off into passive concession along the lines of "these experiments weren't important anyway, and who's to say if Uri Geller doesn't have sporadic Psychic abilities..."
So while yes, it is always worth fact checking to make sure people aren't exaggerating (wilfully or not) and examining apparent anomalies in people arguments and not letting things slide just because you trust them, I still haven't seen any evidence that Randi is biased and poorly reasoned.
That isn't his job. His job is to question unsubstantiated claims that appear to contradict science, in order to determine which ones are demonstrable crap. The rest of the scientific community are busy questioning science so that it evolves.
Randi's only bias, as with the rest of the scientific community, is towards verifiable evidence. That's all he asks. If you dont have the evidence, then yes, he will be forced to conclude that you are mistaken, or full of crap.
"His debunking of Homeopathy (also on youtube) has so many reasoning flaws (even on scientific methodology) that is sometimes pitiful."
Could you point out some specific flaws?
it just gets better and better...
you're my hero. =)
i didn't know this shortcut....all those years of start->run->taskmgr
there's loads of them on ebay all the time
that's because there arent americans that hate america. there are americans that hate the bush administration, which is conflated with the country itself by the right wing portion of the media, in order to shout down criticism of a corrupt and illegal regime.
so when people start crowing about americans who hate america, what they are really doing is demonising people who are far more patriotic than themselves.
well you arent paying for *information* on a month by month basis, you're paying for support. the information is still free. if you dont want the service, just take the free information and do what you please with it. or perhaps the service isn't up to snuff or is too expensive. well with free software you have other options for support than just the company that makes the software.
and charging for proprietary software isnt "immoral". it just isnt a good as deal as free software.
if you assume that.
Cost "the country" hundreds of billions. hmm. dont you mean the entertainment industry? way to conflate you interests with the public good. and way to vastly exagerate your own interests too.
is it just me or were none of those adverts actually funny? i dont understand why the computerworld editors were laughing out loud all day. they really arent that hilarious.
The Atlantis crew better watch out for runaway equipment while they are replacing the AE-35 unit.
they also dont get much germs on them in the first place - urine is sterile and ass-cheeks dont tend to come into contact with anything other than your underwear so unless you're crapping all over your toilet the seat is probably an order of magnitude cleaner than anything you touch with your hands.
i think its a problem over definition of terms - in the context of evolution denial people generally use the term creationists to denote people that ignore or rationalise away the scientific evidence for evolution in order to accomodate their belief in the book of genesis. obviously you dont fit that criteria, so the term is a bit overloaded. i prefer evolution denier. it fits better with the other types like holocaust denier, HIV denier, and what it looks like is becoming the case of global warming deniers. People who just cherry pick and rationalise evidence to fit their own preconceived notions, and generally employ some kind of conspiracy theory to explain why the majority opinion is against them.
Where did they get the idea for the floating forest from? I beleive it was Ken Ham's ass.
fair enough, i misunderstood your position
only in the sense that christians have redefine the meanings of perfectly straightforward words in order to rationalise away the ludicrous crap spouted in the bible.
its a lot more ruinous to lose your life. i'd rather be alive and poor than killed in a car accident.
so what? that doesnt mean god did it. it just means we dont understand it yet, as illustrated by the GP when he talked about lightning being a mystery thousands of year ago.
also, why is your explanation at all credible? it's just made up. what is the evidence to back up your position that god created the universe? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHATSOEVER. science has the humility and integrity to freely admit when something is unknown. religion arrogantly assumes an absolute answer on no evidence whatsoever, and has very little capacity to correct its position in the face of real evidence.
We can go through time right back to the Big Bang, saying "ok, and what caused the big bang... ok and what caused that...? and where did the laws governing this process come from?" until eventually we must come up with one of the non-scientific arguments "nothing did it" or "God did it".
How about, "we dont know?" if it turns out to be impossible for us to probe beyond the big bang, than we will never know. that is absolutley no reason to assume a god did it. we will just have to accept that we will never know what caused the big bang. or perhaps we are able to see beyond the big bang, and it turns out the thing that outside the universe is simply eternal (but not a god).
you suffer from typical myopic "god of the gaps" mentality, in that anything that isnt explained or explainable must be the work of god. that is UTTER logical fallacy.
i remember there being a passage in the bible where god himself states quite clearly that he is a jealous god. then he gives us a commandment not to covet. do as i say, not as i do.
there is absolutely no logically consistent way to disagree with that statement.
no they wouldn't. that is a total non sequitur.