Re: Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

Posted by Ron Newman on Apr 04, 2013; 5:14pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Fwd-New-post-The-Loud-and-Clear-Message-that-the-TED-Controversy-is-Sending-tp7582434p7582476.html

I agree with Feynman.  Sort of, with a caveat to follow after a short digression.

What about the placebo effect, a standard reference for FDA approval of  medications?  There's no money in it (actually, there's a lot of money in it) but the effects - 30% efficacy I heard once - are impressive, without side effects.

A P Dijsterkuis is doing the Feynman thing with methods of decision-making and how the conscious - and unconscious - mind works.

The obstacle as I see it is cultural - a sense of glee and "see, we told you so" on the part of the woo faction which is singularly unattractive; and on the other hand a "harrumph...highly irregular" (spoken with an English accent) on the part of the materialists, which also smells of crusty religion.

To go beyond either, now that's a stretch.

Back to Feynman, I agree with him, and also see that he's following his own bent, a love for analysis, that not everyone will share.  Plus when you factor in Heisenberg and the observer's effect on the experiment, etc., at some point we just have to throw up our hands and shake our heads at our own humanity.

Ron

On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 9:29 PM, Bruce Sherwood <[hidden email]> wrote:

Feynman had a nice comment on this, Nick. He suggests that faith healers don't take their faith seriously.

Retrieved from http://faculty.randolphcollege.edu/tmichalik/feynman.htm

"There is an infinite amount of crazy stuff, which, put another way, is that the environment is actively, intensely unscientific. There is talk of telepathy still, although it's dying out. There is faith-healing galore, all over. There is a whole religion of faith-healing. There's a miracle at Lourdes where healing goes on. Now, it might be true that astrology is right. It might be true that if you go to the dentist on the day that Mars is at right angles to Venus, that it is better than if you go on a different day. It might be true that you can be cured by the miracle of Lourdes. But if it is true, it ought to be investigated. Why? To improve it. If it is true, then maybe we can find out if the stars do influence life; that we could make the system more powerful by investigating statistically, scientifically judging the evidence objectively, more carefully. If the healing process works at Lourdes, the question is how far from the site of the miracle can the person, who is ill, stand? Have they in fact made a mistake and the back row is really not working? Or is it working so well that there is plenty of room for more people to be arranged near the place of the miracle? Or is it possible, as it is with the saints which have recently been created in the United States - there is a saint who cured leukemia apparently indirectly - that ribbons that are touched to the sheet of the sick person (the ribbon having previously touched some relic of the saint) increase the cure of leukemia - the question is, is it gradually being diluted? You may laugh, but if you believe in the truth of the healing, then you are responsible to investigate it, to improve its efficiency and to make it satisfactory instead of cheating. For example, it may turn out that after a hundred touches it doesn't work anymore. Now it's also possible that the results of this investigation have other consequences, namely, that nothing is there."

FROM: "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out", by Richard P. Feynman, Helix Books, 1999, pgs. 106-107.

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