What do you believe in ?

I've always thought the best way to get rid of warts was to pee on them-any shamen in need of treatment please pm me.

 

To be honest I've forgotten the question.

_______________________________________________
Compact Oxford English Dictionary

charlatan

/shaarlt’n/

• noun a person falsely claiming to have a certain expertise.

— DERIVATIVES charlatanism noun charlatanry noun.

— ORIGIN Italian ciarlatano, from ciarlare ‘to babble’.
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As most healers are well intentioned, don't make false claims and generally don't charge more than a pittance, if that, the term doesn't apply.

 

Gran,

Can you direct this healing energy from a distance?

Joe

 

Joe, I'm directing right now. Are you receiving?

 

Steve,

I'm not getting anything. What frequency are you transmitting at?

Joe

 

Sorry, I'm still on audio frequencies. I'll retry later.

 

The world divides roughly down the middle into two camps. Rational and irrational people. I also think this pre-disposition either way is probably hard-wired.

 

And by what logic did you come to this conclusion? or is it just an irrational belief?

 

To be honest I have only ever attempted it within 0.5x10-12 parsecs.
Also only on Earth based life forms.

I would suggest your physiology may be too different, I attempted a scan by my Triquarter has malfunctioned. But hey, we could give it a go.

Please advise which quadrant of the universe you reside in. I'll tell you now,
I wont work any where those Borg have been, just can't trust them.

 

Statistics and neuroscience respectively.

 

Are you trying to say there are global statistics about the extent to which people are rational or not?

With respect this sounds like more b*ll*cks than a distance healing shaman of signals.

Your assertion cannot be scientific as it is not falsifiable. What test is there for rationality? Do people behave rationally or otherwise consistently across all aspects of life? in all situations?

 

Gran,

If something is happening in the physical world, it can be detected, measured and, most important, be subject to experimental testing.

Are the effects of your treatments different from placebos? If yes, what's happening when you direct energy? What is this energy? By what mechanism is the energy directed? By what mechanism does the energy heal? Does it work only over short distances or can you direct energy from a distance? How vast a distance? Does the energy decrease with the square of the distance? Can anyone do this or is special training required? If yes, what kind of training?

These are the sorts of things I'd want to know before trying an alternate or complimentary therapy, so if a therapist can't provide an answer I'm inclined to think that the null hypothesis is being satisfied.

Joe

 

As no therapist on Earth can provide those answers you're best sticking with conventional medicine, antibiotics, administrative cock-ups, MRSA and C Difficile.

 

No. There are statistics for irrational beliefs.

Do you believe in God / ghosts / the flying spaghetti monster? Begin here.

Probably not. I have some superstitious beliefs that are wholly irrational. My balance of thinking and behaviour is toward rationality however.

 

Steve,

The only medicine and therapy I'm interested in is evidence-based medicine and therapy. It's not a conventional vs alternative or complimentary medicine distinction.

For what it's worth, I don't put doctors on a pedestal. Antibiotics are overprescribed, as well as prescribed for infections that aren't affected by them. (Every time I had a cold as a kid, my family doctor would prescribe an antibiotic, presumably because it made my mother feel better that he was doing something, when doing nothing at all would have been the better course. I sometimes think that if doctors had some training in evolutionary biology it would have been obvious that organisms which have generation times measured in minutes would evolve resistance to antibiotics in almost no time at all, so the wise course of action would be using antibiotics judiciously and sparingly.)

I also think that the health profession as a whole puts too much emphasis on treatment and not enough on prevention. It's a huge problem because we inflict a lot of preventable disease, suffering and premature death on ourselves.

For what it's worth, I see some alternate therapies as part of a much bigger problem -- that people are far too willing to believe in things for which there's little or poor evidence and an overwillingness to reject things that are supported by mountains of evidence.

It's interesting that just about everyone has a baloney detector, some point at which a claim seems too preposterous. Mine is set to ultrasensitive, so I reject some things that may be true, but I'm also far less likely to accept things that are very likely to be false.

Is it really such a bad thing to be a rational skeptic?

Joe

 

mosfet

Suggest you read up on scientific method.
Start with Karl Popper (heard of him? if not start Googling)

 

No, of course not Joe. It sounds like you have a sensible and pragmatic approach. My problem is that I've been around the complimentary medicine and healing field for so long that I too have an effective baloney detector but less patience than I could have when it comes to persuading or discussing with those who have had less experience with wading through the baloney fields.

Apologies for the sarcastic tone of my last post.

 

kmac

That's not an argument. Suggest you stop being so lazy. Otherwise ignored.

 

Steve,

I didn't take your reply as sarcastic, so no apology is needed.

A question -- and I realize it's somewhat rhetorical -- how do you know if an alternate or complimentary therapy is anything more than a placebo?

Joe

 

I guess you've not heard of him then oh rational one!

Wasn't having an argument - just illustrating that your assertion about one half of the world being rational etc is completely irrational as it is not backed up by an iota of evidence.