Bias in science (split from Evolution of religiosity)

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Luc Turpin said:

I stand to be corrected and yes what one can do is resist further overlap / intrusion where its not appropriate or pertinent - well said

And yet you’ve not shown that the inclusion of any form of supernaturalism is appropriate or pertinent. 

[Luc Turpin]

7 hours ago, swansont said:

And yet you’ve not shown that the inclusion of any form of supernaturalism is appropriate or pertinent. 

Supernaturalism may or may not be required to explain mind and the living. One thing is certain though, science has not satisfactorily explained  these two things through mechanistic-materialism lenses. That mind emerges from matter is not a satisfying answer. It’s almost like saying “because I say so”.

[swansont]

41 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

Supernaturalism may or may not be required to explain mind and the living.

1. What is required?

2. You continue to indict science but only follow up with mind and living as examples. Seems like bias.

41 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

One thing is certain though, science has not satisfactorily explained  these two things through mechanistic-materialism lenses. That mind emerges from matter is not a satisfying answer. It’s almost like saying “because I say so”.

Not being satisfied with an answer is not actually a substantial criticism. It seems more like the fallacy of personal incredulity. Is there an explanation that can be empirically supported that uses some other philosophical basis?

[Luc Turpin]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

1. What is required?

2. You continue to indict science but only follow up with mind and living as examples. Seems like bias.

Not being satisfied with an answer is not actually a substantial criticism. It seems more like the fallacy of personal incredulity. Is there an explanation that can be empirically supported that uses some other philosophical basis?

1- A valid explanation of how mind works and how life comes from matter

2- I do not indict science on the objective and the measurable, I indict science for establishing a worldview without mention of the subjective.

We cannot leave mind and life without a satisfactory explanation. Dualism whereby the objective can be investigated in accordance with the scientific process and find another process for the subjective side and then establish a worldview that really fit reality. We will have to have to reconsile both at one point

[swansont]

1 minute ago, Luc Turpin said:

1- A valid explanation of how mind works and how life comes from matter

2- I do not indict science on the objective and the measurable, I indict science for establishing a worldview without mention of the subjective.

We cannot leave mind and life without a satisfactory explanation. Dualism whereby the objective can be investigated in accordance with the scientific process and find another process for the subjective side and then establish a worldview that really fit reality. We will have to have to reconsile both at one point

So what is the subjective explanation, and how do we know it’s correct?

[Luc Turpin]

11 hours ago, swansont said:

So what is the subjective explanation, and how do we know it’s correct?

We do not know, at this time, the subjective explanation. We need to find that out. When looking at all of the hard and circumstantial evidence, most of the scientific community agree that a satisfactory explanation has been found 

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Luc Turpin said:

We do not know, at this time, the subjective explanation. We need to find that out. When looking at all of the hard and circumstantial evidence, most of the scientific community agree that a satisfactory explanation has been found 

Are there any areas of science where the subjective has had success?

[Luc Turpin]

2 hours ago, swansont said:

Are there any areas of science where the subjective has had success?

Difficult, but necessary. Natural sciences are more objective than social sciences. Psychology-psychiatry, medical sciences and some aspects of neurosciences have been improving and integrating more successfully the subjective nature of their disciplines. Answers obtained are less definitive than in the natural sciences, but getting more precise. Again, difficult, but necessary.

3 hours ago, swansont said:

 

In an article titled Materialism matters: The role of philosophy in science, Kieran Schlegel-O’Brien agrees wth me that”Without materialism, physics, chemistry, and biology as we know it wouldn’t exist.”

 

 

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Luc Turpin said:

Difficult, but necessary. Natural sciences are more objective than social sciences. Psychology-psychiatry, medical sciences and some aspects of neurosciences have been improving and integrating more successfully the subjective nature of their disciplines. Answers obtained are less definitive than in the natural sciences, but getting more precise. Again, difficult, but necessary.

So, no examples?

1 hour ago, Luc Turpin said:

In an article titled Materialism matters: The role of philosophy in science, Kieran Schlegel-O’Brien agrees wth me that”Without materialism, physics, chemistry, and biology as we know it wouldn’t exist.”

Agrees with you? You keep talking about science needing alternatives to materialism. 

[Luc Turpin]

2 hours ago, swansont said:

So, no examples?

Agrees with you? You keep talking about science needing alternatives to materialism. 

 

1- science is piercing the mysteries of ndes (see below)

2- the article does not help my cause, but the author shares my opinion that it will change things in natural sciences. My contention is that it will not change the fundamental, but the the purpose behind these science disciplines

The Lancet, Dissociation in people who have near death experience: out of their bodies or out of their minds? By Bruce Greyson

• Dr Bruce Greyson, MD 

Background

Some people who come close to death report having experiences in which they transcend the boundaries of the ego and the confines of time and space. Such neardeath experiences (NDEs) share some features with the phenomenon of dissociation, in which a person's self identity becomes detached from bodily sensation. This study explored the frequency of dissociative symptoms in people who had come close to death.

Methods

96 individuals who had had self-reported NDEs, and 38 individuals who had come close to death but who had not had NDEs completed a mailed questionnaire that included a measure of “depth” of near-death experience (the NDE scale) and a measure of dissociative symptoms (the Dissociative Experiences Scale). Median scores in the two groups were compared with Mann-Whitney U tests. The association between depth of NDE and dissociative symptoms was tested by Spearman's rank-order correlation between scores on the NDE scale and the dissociative experiences scale.

Findings

People who reported NDEs also reported significantly more dissociative symptoms than did the comparison group. Among those who reported NDEs, the depth of the experience was positively correlated with dissociative symptoms, although the level of symptoms was substantially lower than that of patients with pathological dissociative disorders.

Interpretation

The pattern of dissociative symptoms reported by people who have had NDEs is consistent with a non-pathological dissociative response to stress, and not with a psychiatric disorder. A greater understanding of the mechanism of dissociation may shed further light on near-death and other mystical or transcendental experiences.

AWARE—AWAreness during REsuscitation—A prospective study☆

Author links open overlay panelSam Parnia ^a, Ken Spearpoint ^b, Gabriele de Vos ^c, Peter Fenwick ^d, Diana Goldberg ^a, Jie Yang ^a, Jiawen Zhu ^a, Katie Baker ^d, Hayley Killingback ^e, Paula McLean ^f, Melanie Wood ^f, A. Maziar Zafari ^g, Neal Dickert ^g, Roland Beisteiner ^h, Fritz Sterz ^h, Michael Berger ^h, Celia Warlow ⁱ, Siobhan Bullock ⁱ, Salli Lovett ^j, Russell Metcalfe Smith McPara ^k…Elinor R. Schoenfeld ^a

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resuscitation.2014.09.004Get rights and content

   

 

Abstract

Background

Cardiac arrest (CA) survivors experience cognitive deficitsincluding post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is unclear whether these are related to cognitive/mental experiences and awareness during CPR. Despite anecdotal reports the broad range of cognitive/mental experiences and awareness associated with CPR has not been systematically studied.

Methods

The incidence and validity of awareness together with the range, characteristics and themes relating to memories/cognitive processes during CA was investigated through a 4 year multi-center observational study using a three stage quantitative and qualitative interview system. The feasibility of objectively testing the accuracy of claims of visual and auditory awareness was examined using specific tests. The outcome measures were (1) awareness/memories during CA and (2) objective verification of claims of awareness using specific tests.

Results

Among 2060 CA events, 140 survivors completed stage 1 interviews, while 101 of 140 patients completed stage 2 interviews. 46% had memories with 7 major cognitive themes: fear; animals/plants; bright light; violence/persecution; deja-vu; family; recalling events post-CA and 9% had NDEs, while 2% described awareness with explicit recall of ‘seeing’ and ‘hearing’ actual events related to their resuscitation. One had a verifiable period of conscious awareness during which time cerebral function was not expected.

Conclusions

CA survivors commonly experience a broad range of cognitive themes, with 2% exhibiting full awareness. This supports other recent studies that have indicated consciousness may be present despite clinically undetectable consciousness. This together with fearful experiences may contribute to PTSD and other cognitive deficits post CA.

 

[Luc Turpin]

 

Fron “Science of the Subjective” by R.G. Jahn, B.J. Dunne, which captures more eloquently than I cloud, the need to amalgamate, once again, the subjective and objective parts of science.
 

Over the greater portion of its long scholarly history, the particular form of human observation, reasoning, and technical deployment we properly term “science” has relied at least as much on subjective experience and inspiration as it has on objective experiments and theories. Only over the past few centuries has subjectivity been progressively excluded from the practice of science, leaving an essentially secular analytical paradigm. Quite recently, however, a compounding constellation of newly inexplicable physical evidence, coupled with a growing scholarly interest in the nature and capability of human consciousness, are beginning to suggest that this sterilization of science may have been excessive and could ultimately limit its epistemological reach and cultural relevance. In particular, an array of demonstrable consciousness-related anomalous physical phenomena, a persistent pattern of biological and medical anomalies, systematic studies of mind/brain relationships and the mechanics of human creativity, and a burgeoning catalogue of human factors effects within contemporary information processing technologies, all display empirical correlations with subjective aspects that greatly complicate, and in many cases preclude, their comprehension on strictly objective grounds. However, any disciplined re-admission of subjective elements into rigorous scientific methodology will hinge on the precision with which they can be defined, measured, and represented, and on the resilience of established scientific techniques to their inclusion. For example, any neo-subjective science, while retaining the logical rigor, empirical/theoretical dialogue, and cultural purpose of its rigidly objective predecessor, would have the following requirements: acknowledgment of a proactive role for human consciousness; more explicit and profound use of interdisciplinary metaphors; more generous interpretations of measurability, replicability, and resonance; a reduction of ontological aspirations; and an overarching teleological causality. Most importantly, the subjective and objective aspects of this holistic science would have to stand in mutually respectful and constructive complementarity to one another if the composite discipline were to fulfill itself and its role in society.

 

 

 

 

[CharonY]

Yet the article seems to address entirely different issues that you have brought forth so far. For starters, you have argued against bias in science, yet this article suggest subjectivity, i.e. a major source of bias, needs to be included. The reasoning is that it is an integral part that allows

Quote

comprehension of the universe of aesthetic and creative experience, including that which bears on objective effects, or to broaden its purview to encompass these softer parameters in some disciplined yet productive fashion.

It is mostly a philosophical treatise and there is unfortunately not a lot on the practicalities in how it can or should be implemented.

Also, it deals with a high-level idea on information and from what I see tries to include thoughts that are closer to social science methodologies. Unfortunately, it does not seem that this approach has been demonstrated to provide good applications in natural sciences (perhaps aside from more abstract areas such as information theory?).

[swansont]

3 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

Fron “Science of the Subjective” by R.G. Jahn, B.J. Dunne, which captures more eloquently than I cloud, the need to amalgamate, once again, the subjective and objective parts of science.
 

Over the greater portion of its long scholarly history, the particular form of human observation, reasoning, and technical deployment we properly term “science” has relied at least as much on subjective experience and inspiration as it has on objective experiments and theories. Only over the past few centuries has subjectivity been progressively excluded from the practice of science, leaving an essentially secular analytical paradigm.

Interesting use of “only”

The “past few centuries” encompasses post-Newtonian physics, cosmology, a fair amount of geology, most of chemistry and all of modern biology

IOW, the bulk of science.

3 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

Quite recently, however, a compounding constellation of newly inexplicable physical evidence, coupled with a growing scholarly interest in the nature and capability of human consciousness, are beginning to suggest that this sterilization of science may have been excessive and could ultimately limit its epistemological reach and cultural relevance. In particular, an array of demonstrable consciousness-related anomalous physical phenomena, a persistent pattern of biological and medical anomalies, systematic studies of mind/brain relationships and the mechanics of human creativity, and a burgeoning catalogue of human factors effects within contemporary information processing technologies, all display empirical correlations with subjective aspects that greatly complicate, and in many cases preclude, their comprehension on strictly objective grounds. However, any disciplined re-admission of subjective elements into rigorous scientific methodology will hinge on the precision with which they can be defined, measured, and represented, and on the resilience of established scientific techniques to their inclusion. For example, any neo-subjective science, while retaining the logical rigor, empirical/theoretical dialogue, and cultural purpose of its rigidly objective predecessor, would have the following requirements: acknowledgment of a proactive role for human consciousness; more explicit and profound use of interdisciplinary metaphors; more generous interpretations of measurability, replicability, and resonance; a reduction of ontological aspirations; and an overarching teleological causality. Most importantly, the subjective and objective aspects of this holistic science would have to stand in mutually respectful and constructive complementarity to one another if the composite discipline were to fulfill itself and its role in society.

The author takes the same approach as you; “mind” as a proxy for all of science, and no concrete examples of how these alternate approaches would lead to success or how this “proactive role for human consciousness” would have any impact on any other fields of study. 
 

Since this is just a repetition, it does nothing to illuminate the issue or answer any questions.

[Luc Turpin]

11 hours ago, CharonY said:

Yet the article seems to address entirely different issues that you have brought forth so far. For starters, you have argued against bias in science, yet this article suggest subjectivity, i.e. a major source of bias, needs to be included. The reasoning is that it is an integral part that allows

It is mostly a philosophical treatise and there is unfortunately not a lot on the practicalities in how it can or should be implemented.

Also, it deals with a high-level idea on information and from what I see tries to include thoughts that are closer to social science methodologies. Unfortunately, it does not seem that this approach has been demonstrated to provide good applications in natural sciences (perhaps aside from more abstract areas such as information theory?).

1- your observation is correct. While stating that I wanted to reduce bias, especially materialist bias, I indicated that removing all forms of subjectivity was the way forward in dealing with the bias issue. This was an incorrect statement on my part. I should have said “controlling” this form of subjective thinking instead of “eliminating” all forms of subjective thinking. I also incorrectly stated that philosophy should play a limited role In science, but I am also backing away from this statement as this may very well be the discipline that helps us navigate through subjective thinking with rigour and rationality

2-agree also that it is mostly generalities, but nonetheless, it actually reflects my mindset on the subject matter.

3- If we find it important to study the subjective nature of reality, then science through philosophy will have to find a way of doing, and an improved way of doing so than the tools in use in other sciences

[dimreepr]

12 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

I should have said “controlling” this form of subjective thinking instead of “eliminating” all forms of subjective thinking.

I'm sure that's what confused Hitler, when he read Nietzche... 

17 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

2-agree also that it is mostly generalities, but nonetheless, it actually reflects my mindset on the subject matter

A biased mindset, as you've admitted.

19 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

3- If we find it important to study the subjective nature of reality, then science through philosophy will have to find a way of doing, and an improved way of doing so than the tools in use in other sciences

Science and philosophy are two sides of the same coin, philosophy identifies the bias and science drives around the chicane.

Now!!! will you please, start a new topic on firmer ground, bc this race has run its course... 

[Luc Turpin]

11 hours ago, swansont said:

Interesting use of “only”

The “past few centuries” encompasses post-Newtonian physics, cosmology, a fair amount of geology, most of chemistry and all of modern biology

IOW, the bulk of science.

The author takes the same approach as you; “mind” as a proxy for all of science, and no concrete examples of how these alternate approaches would lead to success or how this “proactive role for human consciousness” would have any impact on any other fields of study. 
 

Since this is just a repetition, it does nothing to illuminate the issue or answer any questions.

1 to 3- the author’s point is that it was a “secular” not unsuccessful 

4- he introduces mind as promoting a need to move towards subjectivity as I now do (see charonY post above); I reiterate, mind will not change the fundamental aspect of natural sciences, but the purpose of it all. Success would be in understanding mind, and possibly our role in the universe if such is the case

5- it does illuminate as it is more precise and detailed than what I had provided before; it helps’ explain my position.

[Luc Turpin]

3 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Science and philosophy are two sides of the same coin, philosophy identifies the bias and science drives around the chicane.

Now!!! will you please, start a new topic on firmer ground, bc this race has run its course... 

1- but most often, science pays little attention to philosophy

2- my foolish mindset seems to still be of interest to some

[dimreepr]

20 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

1- but most often, science pays little attention to philosophy

That depends on the argument, but if you want a more insightful explanation about the role of philosophy in science; start a topic on the subject and I'm sure you'll get a comprehensive answer, from a lot of the member's, not least of which from @Eise.

20 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

2- my foolish mindset seems to still be of interest to some

Yes, you're just the right side of simple gainsay to maintain an interest in trying to teach you a better approach.

I enjoy our exchanges, that's why I'm so keen to here a different question... 🙏

[Luc Turpin]

5 hours ago, dimreepr said:

That depends on the argument, but if you want a more insightful explanation about the role of philosophy in science; start a topic on the subject and I'm sure you'll get a comprehensive answer, from a lot of the member's, not least of which from @Eise.

Yes, you're just the right side of simple gainsay to maintain an interest in trying to teach you a better approach.

I enjoy our exchanges, that's why I'm so keen to here a different question... 🙏

1- I took note of this

2- eager to learn, but hardheaded as you might have noticed. In my field of work I am known as the guy that never let’s go of the bone

3- enjoy our exchanges also, but cannot promise you anything.😇

[dimreepr]

21 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

1- I took note of this

2- eager to learn, but hardheaded as you might have noticed. In my field of work I am known as the guy that never let’s go of the bone

3- enjoy our exchanges also, but cannot promise you anything.😇

A formal education isn't for everyone, we can't all be academics, after all someone has to dig the dirt.

You can ask a physics professor, "how does a car work?" he/she can can give you a comprehensive explanation of the physics involved, but if you asked the same professor "why did my car stop working?" he/she wouldn't have a clue, you need a mechanic for that.

So ask yourself, what is my version of a success?

The wrong type of bias is never letting go of the bone, just in case it starts the car... 😉

 

Edited June 19 by dimreepr

[Luc Turpin]

55 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

A formal education isn't for everyone, we can't all be academics, after all someone has to dig the dirt.

You can ask a physics professor, "how does a car work?" he/she can can give you a comprehensive explanation of the physics involved, but if you asked the same professor "why did my car stop working?" he/she wouldn't have a clue, you need a mechanic for that.

So ask yourself, what is my version of a success?

The wrong type of bias is never letting go of the bone, just in case it starts the car... 😉

 

Having success is not my intention; presenting information that is overlooked is what I am here for

What were Steve Jobs last words before he died?…….oh wow, oh wow, oh wow!

[dimreepr]

8 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

Having success is not my intention

Well, you've succeeded in that...

Edited June 19 by dimreepr

[Luc Turpin]

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Well, you've succeeded in that...

Good one 😊😊