Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at 10:22:12 PM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 07:01:55 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

Paul wrote:

I don't know anyone who motivate their religious belief on scientific
grounds. Do you?

I was mainly referring to atheists but some other religions do too.

Apart from Christian Science, which religiond do that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Science

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scient...of_Scientology

science today. Now, if the "One True Supreme God" would choose to reveal
itself to us humans on a larger scale, the situation would become very
different. But for some strange reason that hasn't happened in modern
times, despite the description of numerous such revelations have been
described, both in the Bible and in the Holy Scriptures of other
religions.
How come? Does the "One Supreme True God" enjoy playing hide-and-seek
with us?

I believe He HAS revealed Himself, it's just that YOUR definition of
"reveal" is different from mine.

A genuine revelation would also convince skeptics and non-believers.

Highly doubtful.

Like e.g. a total solar eclipse, after the eclipse only maniacs would
deny that it happened. An all-powerful God who wants people to acknowledge
his existence could easily do that. So why doesn't it happen?

Perhaps you misunderstand what God "wants."

There are many measurements of the universe confirming that the visible
matter alone cannot account for the observed movements in and among the
galaxies.

And it is still unexplained. And some scientists disagree:

Does it disturb you that there are phenomena for which we have found
no scientific explanation yet?

"Disturb" isn't the right word. "Challenge" is more like it.

If science had explanations for everything, then there would be no
new science left to do...

Indeed.

However, even if we don't yet know what dark matter is, there is still
plenty of good evidence that dark matter does exist.

As I said, some scientists disagree. Milgram and McGaugh, for example.

The only measurement of a human body losing weight you can point to is
one single measurement made by one individual in isolation. Even you
admit that it is a very meager set of empirical data. More empirical
data is needed before any reasonably reliable conclusion can be made,
either way.

You keep trying to dismiss the data. Why? Does it make you
uncomfortable?

Not particularly. But it is disturbing that you are so overly confident in
it. It is like trying to talk to a UFO zealot.

You seem to be in denial, even to the point of falsely claiming there was
only ONE measurement. This is untrue.

Just like atheists are.

Only the hard atheists which claim there cannot be any suprebe being in
existence. You cannot accuse the soft atheists for this, they merely
claim we don't know if there is a supreme being or not.

You're describing agnostics, not atheists.

I was actually talking about non-theists in general. The hard
atheists you refer to are a small minority.

But they are quite vociferous.

I'm mostly describing myself here. I consider myself an agnostic, but
you have called me an atheist several times. Which means that in your
vocabulary, someone who claims we don't know if there is a supreme being
or not is an atheist.

The Jews thought that they would gladly accept their Messiah, too, but
they didn't. You believe that you would accept REAL evidence, but you
demand "scientific" evidence. You require evidence on YOUR terms, not
God's.

And you strongly exaggrregate this probability, calling it "almost
certain", "99%", "99.9%" or whatever.

That's what a scientific analysis concludes. Haven't you investigated
that?
Why not? Is it because you can continue to think wishfully?

Please describe your scientific analysis in more detail, and in
particular how you handle the possibility of systematic errors.
Confidence levels can handle only random errors, not systematic
errors.

Systematic errors have been and are being discussed. YOU brought up one
(farting) and Mike Collins brought up another (evaporation). Both are
too small and too slow to affect the data. MacDougall mentioned another
(sensitivity of his system). Got any more?

Here you sound like a Jehovas Witness. Are you a Jehovas Witness?

No :-))

Well, your belief seems quite close to theirs, so perhaps you should
consider joining them?

No, my beliefs are very different from theirs. If you knew anything
about them, you would know that.

What's the difference? You criticise all contemporary churches and
want to return to Christianity as described in the Bible. Jehovas
Witnesses also want to do this. So in that respect you are very much
like them.

Do you think I believe that we are slaves?

Btw do you, or do you not, believe in the trinity of the Father, the Son
and the Holy Spirit? Or do you belive that the Father is the one and
only god?

We have already discussed this. Christianity, Judaism and Islam ARE
polytheistic in one sense, but in another they are monotheistic.

Judaism is older than the Christian doctrine of trinity. And Islam
rejects it and considers it to be polytheism. Didn't you know that?

I thought Islam accepted Genesis as well as the Prophets.

I'm only trying to find out if your Christian belief is of the Nicaean or
the non-Nicaean kind. If you are Nicaean, you accept the doctrines from
the church council of Nicaea in AD 325, and if you are non-Nicaean you
reject them.

Some of it I agree with and some of it I don't.

On Wednesday, October 31, 2018 at 12:45:27 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at 6:40:20 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

And you strongly exaggrregate this probability, calling it "almost
certain", "99%", "99.9%" or whatever.

That's what a scientific analysis concludes. Haven't you investigated
that? Why not? Is it because you can continue to think wishfully?

I have now found, and read, the Wikipedia article about this experiment,
which can be found he

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_grams_experiment

And I have to conclude that you're a fraud, a chead, and a liar. SInce
you call yourself a Christian, let me remind you of the 8th commandment:

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour"

If you're not a hypocrite, you should take this seriously.

So how did you lie? Well, you admitted that the data from MacDouball is
meager, and has not been replicated. But you have falsely claimed that
there is no data suggesting that the human body does not lose mass at
death. And then you have, several times, asked "isn't one measurement
more statistically significant than no measurements?". And you've been
babbling about 99% confidence leve, "almost certain", and other nonsense.

YOU are the one being taken in by lies and repeating them. There were
FOUR measurements, not one. YOU are the one that glibly accepted what
Wiki said instead of going to the actual source. YOU are the one who
didn't consider who wrote that article and what his biases were.

Well, guess what? There **are** measurements failing to show that the
human body loses weight at the moment of death. To be more precise, these
measurements were performed my MacDougall himself !!!

MacDougall measured the weight of six different people while they were
dying. In five of these six cases he failed to find any weight loss at
the moment of dearth. In only one of these six cases did he find a weight
loss at the moment of death.

This is dead wrong. That's what comes from gullibly accepting material
written by someone who is either ignorant or a liar. HERE is a copy of
the original paper:

http://spiritualscientific.com/yahoo....203123041.pdf

The Wiki article is correct in claiming there were six patients, but there
weren't six experiments. One patient died before MacDougall's equipment
could be set up and another patient couldn't be measured properly because
of interference by those opposed to the work. So right there is proof that
the Wiki author is a liar.

He is also a liar (and so are you by promulgating his lies) because the
other three cases did NOT have zero weight loss. The FACTS are

Patient #1: 3/4 oz.
Patient #2: 1/2 oz.
Patient #3: 1/2 oz.
Patient #5: 3/8 oz.

MacDougall himself stated that the experiment would have to be repeated
many times before any conclusions could be made. But it has not been
repeated by anyone else, so therefore we cannot conclude that the human
body loses weight at the moment of death. In the available data, it did
not lose weitgh at the moment of death in 5 cases out of 6.

You write "That's what a scientific analysis concludes. Haven't you
investigated that?" about your claimed 99% confidence level. Now, please
share your scientific "analyssis" which concludes, with 99% confidence
level, that the human body loses weight at the moment of death when in 5
of the 6 available cases it does **not**. Describe your method in enough
detail so it can be repeated by anyone who wishes to do so.

Of the four cases with results, the average of the four is 0.53 ounce.
Find the variance for each case, sum them, divide by one less than the
number of cases and take the square root. This is the standard deviation,
which is 0.157.

Find the confidence levels for 95, 99 and 99.9%:

The range for the true population size is 0.38 to 0.58 at 95% confidence.
The range for the true population size is 0.33 to 0.73 at 99% confidence.
The range for the true population size is 0.27 to 0.79 at 99.9% confidence.

The rest of your post is baloney. I've given you more than enough
information and I've had enough of your defamatory behavior.

Your description should include:

1. Initial assumptions.
2. The method you have chosen.
3. The initial data.
4. Your calculations.
5. Your result.
6. Your conclusion, including the motivation for your conclusion.

I'm awaiting your description. If it doesn't arrive, I see that as a
confirmation that you indeed are a fraud, a cheat, a liar and a con
artist.

In article ,
says...

On Wednesday, October 31, 2018 at 12:45:27 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at 6:40:20 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

And you strongly exaggrregate this probability, calling it "almost
certain", "99%", "99.9%" or whatever.

That's what a scientific analysis concludes. Haven't you investigated
that? Why not? Is it because you can continue to think wishfully?

I have now found, and read, the Wikipedia article about this experiment,
which can be found he

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_grams_experiment

And I have to conclude that you're a fraud, a chead, and a liar. SInce
you call yourself a Christian, let me remind you of the 8th commandment:

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour"

If you're not a hypocrite, you should take this seriously.

So how did you lie? Well, you admitted that the data from MacDouball is
meager, and has not been replicated. But you have falsely claimed that
there is no data suggesting that the human body does not lose mass at
death. And then you have, several times, asked "isn't one measurement
more statistically significant than no measurements?". And you've been
babbling about 99% confidence leve, "almost certain", and other nonsense.

YOU are the one being taken in by lies and repeating them. There were
FOUR measurements, not one. YOU are the one that glibly accepted what
Wiki said instead of going to the actual source. YOU are the one who
didn't consider who wrote that article and what his biases were.

That Wikipedia article gave a link to a post of the original paper, which
word by word agreed with the paper you gave another link to.

Now, if you think that Wikipedia article is wrong, why don't you correct
it? You do know that anyone can make any changes to any Wikipedia article
they want, don't you? But you'd better give a good motivation, preferably
to some reliable reference, for any significant changes you make or else
they will very likely be changed back by others. But if you can give a
good motivation for your changes, they will remain.

So don't complain about Wikipedia being bad. Instead, change it to make
it better! If we all do that, the quality of the Wikipedia articles will
improve.

Well, guess what? There **are** measurements failing to show that the
human body loses weight at the moment of death. To be more precise, these
measurements were performed my MacDougall himself !!!

MacDougall measured the weight of six different people while they were
dying. In five of these six cases he failed to find any weight loss at
the moment of death. In only one of these six cases did he find a
weight loss at the moment of death.

This is dead wrong. That's what comes from gullibly accepting material
written by someone who is either ignorant or a liar. HERE is a copy of
the original paper:

http://spiritualscientific.com/yahoo....203123041.pdf

Another link to that paper was given in that Wikipedia article -- DIDN'T
YOU NOTICE THAT? The two versions of that paper agree with one another,
word by word.

The Wiki article is correct in claiming there were six patients, but there
weren't six experiments. One patient died before MacDougall's equipment
could be set up and another patient couldn't be measured properly because
of interference by those opposed to the work. So right there is proof that
the Wiki author is a liar.

How? Quote from that Wikipedia article: "MacDougall disregarded the
results of another patient on the grounds the scales were "not finely
adjusted", and discounted the results of another as the patient died
while the equipment was still being calibrated."

Why do you think that correctly telling this is "being a liar"?

He is also a liar (and so are you by promulgating his lies) because the
other three cases did NOT have zero weight loss. The FACTS are

Patient #1: 3/4 oz.
Patient #2: 1/2 oz.
Patient #3: 1/2 oz.
Patient #5: 3/8 oz.

The sensitivity of the balance was 2/10 oz, so all his results are not
that far from the inherent measurement errors of the balance.

Patient #3 lost 1/2 oz at the moment of death but a few minutes later he
lost even more, one full oz. How could that be? It couldn't have been the
soul leaving the body since he already was dead and the soul supposedly
already had left his body. So there you have a weight loss unexplained by
that "soul hypothesis". If a human body can suddenly lose weight after
death, without any solul leaving the body, why couldn't it lose weight
right at death without any soul leaving the body?

The same with patient #2 who lost 1/2 oz at the moment of death but an
additional full oz plus 50 grains some minutes later.

Patient #5 seems to have gained weight after the weight loss at death.
The language in the paper is vague here.


MacDougall himself stated that the experiment would have to be repeated
many times before any conclusions could be made. But it has not been
repeated by anyone else, so therefore we cannot conclude that the human
body loses weight at the moment of death. In the available data, it did
not lose weitgh at the moment of death in 5 cases out of 6.

You write "That's what a scientific analysis concludes. Haven't you
investigated that?" about your claimed 99% confidence level. Now, please
share your scientific "analyssis" which concludes, with 99% confidence
level, that the human body loses weight at the moment of death when in 5
of the 6 available cases it does **not**. Describe your method in enough
detail so it can be repeated by anyone who wishes to do so.

Of the four cases with results, the average of the four is 0.53 ounce.
Find the variance for each case, sum them, divide by one less than the
number of cases and take the square root. This is the standard deviation,
which is 0.157.

Find the confidence levels for 95, 99 and 99.9%:

The range for the true population size is 0.38 to 0.58 at 95% confidence.
The range for the true population size is 0.33 to 0.73 at 99% confidence.
The range for the true population size is 0.27 to 0.79 at 99.9% confidence.

But why do you exclude the weight losses of an additional ONE FULL OUNCE
in two of the cases? And the weight gain a few minutes after death in one
of the cases...

The rest of your post is baloney. I've given you more than enough
information and I've had enough of your defamatory behavior.

Your description should include:

1. Initial assumptions.
2. The method you have chosen.
3. The initial data.
4. Your calculations.
5. Your result.
6. Your conclusion, including the motivation for your conclusion.

I'm awaiting your description. If it doesn't arrive, I see that as a
confirmation that you indeed are a fraud, a cheat, a liar and a con
artist.

But you have, implicitly, given a partial answer anyway. Your method is
called Cherry Picking:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking

You ignore that two of the patients lost even more weight a few minutes
after death, and one of them gained weight after death. Why? Because it
does not fit your pet idea of a soul having mass leaving the body upon
death.

The original paper says explicitly: "I am aware that a large number of
experiments would require to be made before the matter can be proved
beyond any possibility of error."

So there you are - even the author himself says we cannot draw any
reliable conclusions from his measurements alone. And the original paper
says so.

And your confidence leverls are baloney - you cannot disregard
uncomfortable data if you want reliable confidence levels.

On Wed, 31 Oct 2018 14:59:57 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:
On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 07:01:55 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

How come? Does the "One Supreme True God" enjoy playing
hide-and-seek
with us?

I believe He HAS revealed Himself, it's just that YOUR
definition of
"reveal" is different from mine.

A genuine revelation would also convince skeptics and
non-believers.

Highly doubtful.

Would an all-powerful God be unable to reveal himself in such a way
that also skeptics became convinced?


Like e.g. a total solar eclipse, after the eclipse only maniacs
would
deny that it happened. An all-powerful God who wants people to
acknowledge
his existence could easily do that. So why doesn't it happen?

Perhaps you misunderstand what God "wants."

OK, God wants to play hide-and-seek and that I find a bit childish.
And definitely far below the dignity of an all-wise and all-powerful
entity. But it is what could be expected from a "God" invented by
humans in order to control other people - those who invented him
knows he can never actually reveal himself since he does not exist,
and therefore they must say he is invisible.

However, even if we don't yet know what dark matter is, there is
still
plenty of good evidence that dark matter does exist.

As I said, some scientists disagree. Milgram and McGaugh, for
example.

This is as it should be in science. May the best hypothesis win! Some
50+ years ago many respectable cosmologisos doubted the Big Bang
theory. One of them - Fred Hoyle - even coined the phrase "Big Bang",
as a ridicule, but it caught on. But then the cosmic microwave
background radiation was discovered. Now Hoyle is dead but Big Bang -
both the theory and the name of the theory - lives on.

The Jews thought that they would gladly accept their Messiah, too,
but
they didn't. You believe that you would accept REAL evidence, but
you
demand "scientific" evidence. You require evidence on YOUR terms,
not
God's.


Here you sound like a Jehovas Witness. Are you a Jehovas
Witness?

No :-))

Well, your belief seems quite close to theirs, so perhaps you
should
consider joining them?

No, my beliefs are very different from theirs. If you knew
anything
about them, you would know that.

What's the difference? You criticise all contemporary churches
and
want to return to Christianity as described in the Bible. Jehovas
Witnesses also want to do this. So in that respect you are very
much
like them.

Do you think I believe that we are slaves?

Of course you do! Why else would you write things like "You require
evidence on YOUR terms, not God's"...

If God is unable to provide evidence on our terms instead of his
terms, then he is a terrible teacher and that is far far below the
dignity of an all-powerful, all-wise and all-knowing entity.

Suppose you had a dog. You try to teach your dog higher mathematics
which the dog of course does not understand. Then you punish your dog
for not understanding that... I think you get the idea...


Judaism is older than the Christian doctrine of trinity. And
Islam
rejects it and considers it to be polytheism. Didn't you know
that?

I thought Islam accepted Genesis as well as the Prophets.

It does. Islam accepts Jesus too, but only as a great prophet, not as
a God. In Islam not even Mohammed is considered to be a God. Near
Ephesus there is a house where Virgin Mary is believed to have lived
and died after the crucification of Jesus. Beside the house there is
a wall where many Muslims write down a prayer on a small piece of
paper and attach it to the wall. That wall is some 100 yards long and
full of these small notes. Not far from there you can find the ruin
of "Mr Jesus' Mosque".

I'm only trying to find out if your Christian belief is of the
Nicaean or
the non-Nicaean kind. If you are Nicaean, you accept the
doctrines from
the church council of Nicaea in AD 325, and if you are
non-Nicaean you
reject them.

Some of it I agree with and some of it I don't.

Do you believe in the trinity? Do you celebrate Christmas and Easter
on the commonly accepted dates? Do you think the current year is AD
2018? All these things were decided in Nicaea in AD 325.

In the realm of astronomy where the individual and the Universal maintain a physical connection via inspiration with the greater life encompassing the temporal journey through life, there is a type of existence more intimate than those occupied with nonsense notions that begin and end in their heads..

It is not an endeavor to know more but rather to experience an intimacy which connects us to our local or celestial surroundings and ultimately to each other. Whether they are pseudo-Christian or pseudo-intellectuals, the great sense of Christian life is always there for those who look for it in places they don't expect to find it.

"That it that is the pre-eminent Cause of all things intelligibly perceived is not itself any of those things.

Again, ascending yet higher, we maintain that it is neither soul nor intellect; nor has it imagination, opinion reason or understanding; nor can it be expressed or conceived, since it is neither number nor order; nor greatness nor smallness; nor equality nor inequality; nor similarity nor dissimilarity; neither is it standing, nor moving, nor at rest; neither has it power nor is power, nor is light; neither does it live nor is it life; neither is it essence, nor eternity nor time; nor is it subject to intelligible contact; nor is it science nor truth, nor kingship nor wisdom; neither one nor oneness, nor godhead nor goodness; nor is it spirit according to our understanding, nor filiation, nor paternity; nor anything else known to us or to any other beings of the things that are or the things that are not; neither does anything that is know it as it is; nor does it know existing things according to existing knowledge; neither can the reason attain to it, nor name it, nor know it; neither is it darkness nor light, nor the false nor the true; nor can any affirmation or negation be applied to it, for although we may affirm or deny the things below it, we can neither affirm nor deny it, inasmuch as the all-perfect and unique Cause of all things transcends all affirmation, and the simple pre-eminence of Its absolute nature is outside of every negation- free from every limitation and beyond them all." Dionysius the Areopagite

The mind cannot grasp the Eternal but the Eternal fills the heart in greater or smaller measure depending on the generosity of each individual. All genuine mathematicians would know this and so perhaps Pascal is left with the final word -

“The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart." - Blaise Pascal�

On Thursday, November 1, 2018 at 3:15:07 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

Would an all-powerful God be unable to reveal himself in such a way
that also skeptics became convinced?

Of course not. But maybe He doesn't want to.

So far, almost plausible.

Where I start having problems is when the conclusion is that the all-powerful
God has chosen to provide salvation only to those who are sufficiently credulous
that they will believe in God because their local priesthood tells them He
exists.

This sounds more like what the local priesthood wants one to believe than what
God wants to do.

The fact that after this has been running for a while, some people who actually
believe in this God managed to get into the priesthood, and if it was just them,
it might look like a commendable institution for doing good works, instead of
one set up to exploit the sheep... while it is an argument against religious
persecution, it's not one in favor of the truth of their supernatural claims.

John Savard

On Thursday, November 1, 2018 at 2:28:53 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Wednesday, October 31, 2018 at 12:45:27 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

I have now found, and read, the Wikipedia article about this experiment,
which can be found he

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_grams_experiment

And I have to conclude that you're a fraud, a chead, and a liar. SInce
you call yourself a Christian, let me remind you of the 8th commandment:

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour"

If you're not a hypocrite, you should take this seriously.

So how did you lie? Well, you admitted that the data from MacDouball is
meager, and has not been replicated. But you have falsely claimed that
there is no data suggesting that the human body does not lose mass at
death. And then you have, several times, asked "isn't one measurement
more statistically significant than no measurements?". And you've been
babbling about 99% confidence leve, "almost certain", and other
nonsense.

YOU are the one being taken in by lies and repeating them. There were
FOUR measurements, not one. YOU are the one that glibly accepted what
Wiki said instead of going to the actual source. YOU are the one who
didn't consider who wrote that article and what his biases were.

That Wikipedia article gave a link to a post of the original paper, which
word by word agreed with the paper you gave another link to.

Now, if you think that Wikipedia article is wrong, why don't you correct
it? You do know that anyone can make any changes to any Wikipedia article
they want, don't you? But you'd better give a good motivation, preferably
to some reliable reference, for any significant changes you make or else
they will very likely be changed back by others. But if you can give a
good motivation for your changes, they will remain.

So don't complain about Wikipedia being bad.

It's not "complaining" when false claims are pointed out. YOU should be
more skeptical of what you read.

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the
easiest person to fool.� -- Richard P. Feynman

Instead, change it to make it better! If we all do that, the quality of
the Wikipedia articles will improve.

There are thousands of incorrect statements and I'm not the internet police..
Why don't YOU clean up your own false claims:

Well, guess what? There **are** measurements failing to show that the
human body loses weight at the moment of death. To be more precise,
these measurements were performed my MacDougall himself !!!

MacDougall measured the weight of six different people while they were
dying. In five of these six cases he failed to find any weight loss at
the moment of death. In only one of these six cases did he find a
weight loss at the moment of death.

This is dead wrong. That's what comes from gullibly accepting material
written by someone who is either ignorant or a liar. HERE is a copy of
the original paper:

http://spiritualscientific.com/yahoo....203123041.pdf

Another link to that paper was given in that Wikipedia article -- DIDN'T
YOU NOTICE THAT? The two versions of that paper agree with one another,
word by word.

SO WHY DIDN'T YOU READ THE ORIGINAL instead of parroting what the Wiki
article claimed?

The Wiki article is correct in claiming there were six patients, but there
weren't six experiments. One patient died before MacDougall's equipment
could be set up and another patient couldn't be measured properly because
of interference by those opposed to the work. So right there is proof
that the Wiki author is a liar.

How? Quote from that Wikipedia article: "MacDougall disregarded the
results of another patient on the grounds the scales were "not finely
adjusted", and discounted the results of another as the patient died
while the equipment was still being calibrated."

Why do you think that correctly telling this is "being a liar"?

So you lie by quoting the wrong quotation. The lie is THIS:

"The experiment is widely regarded as flawed and unscientific due to the
small sample size, the methods used, as well as the fact only one of the
six subjects met the hypothesis."

There were FOUR, not one:

He is also a liar (and so are you by promulgating his lies) because the
other three cases did NOT have zero weight loss. The FACTS are

Patient #1: 3/4 oz.
Patient #2: 1/2 oz.
Patient #3: 1/2 oz.
Patient #5: 3/8 oz.

The sensitivity of the balance was 2/10 oz, so all his results are not
that far from the inherent measurement errors of the balance.

Not in the case of the two 1/2 ounce and 3/4 ounce measurements. They
are all three sigma away from that number. Furthermore, although MacDougall
claimed 2/10 ounce sensitivity, that was VERY conservative since:

" If placed at balance one-tenth of an ounce would lift the beam up close
to the upper limiting bar, another one-tenth ounce would bring it up and
keep it in direct contact"

So 1/10 ounce sensitivity is more realistic.

Patient #3 lost 1/2 oz at the moment of death but a few minutes later he
lost even more, one full oz. How could that be?

It's called "evaporation." YOU were one of those babbling about that,
remember?

It couldn't have been the
soul leaving the body since he already was dead and the soul supposedly
already had left his body. So there you have a weight loss unexplained by
that "soul hypothesis". If a human body can suddenly lose weight after
death, without any solul leaving the body, why couldn't it lose weight
right at death without any soul leaving the body?

The same with patient #2 who lost 1/2 oz at the moment of death but an
additional full oz plus 50 grains some minutes later.

Babble, babble, babble. Can't you use your brain?

Patient #5 seems to have gained weight after the weight loss at death.
The language in the paper is vague here.

There is an OBVIOUS difference between sudden (a few seconds) weight loss
and slow weight change (many seconds to minutes).

MacDougall himself stated that the experiment would have to be repeated
many times before any conclusions could be made. But it has not been
repeated by anyone else, so therefore we cannot conclude that the human
body loses weight at the moment of death. In the available data, it did
not lose weitgh at the moment of death in 5 cases out of 6.

You write "That's what a scientific analysis concludes. Haven't you
investigated that?" about your claimed 99% confidence level. Now, please
share your scientific "analyssis" which concludes, with 99% confidence
level, that the human body loses weight at the moment of death when in 5
of the 6 available cases it does **not**. Describe your method in enough
detail so it can be repeated by anyone who wishes to do so.

Of the four cases with results, the average of the four is 0.53 ounce.
Find the variance for each case, sum them, divide by one less than the
number of cases and take the square root. This is the standard deviation,
which is 0.157.

Find the confidence levels for 95, 99 and 99.9%:

The range for the true population size is 0.38 to 0.58 at 95% confidence.
The range for the true population size is 0.33 to 0.73 at 99% confidence.
The range for the true population size is 0.27 to 0.79 at 99.9%
confidence.

But why do you exclude the weight losses of an additional ONE FULL OUNCE
in two of the cases? And the weight gain a few minutes after death in one
of the cases...

More disingenuous babbling baloney.

But you have, implicitly, given a partial answer anyway. Your method is
called Cherry Picking:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking

Completely dishonest babbling baloney.

You ignore that two of the patients lost even more weight a few minutes
after death, and one of them gained weight after death. Why? Because it
does not fit your pet idea of a soul having mass leaving the body upon
death.

And you're not using your brain.

The original paper says explicitly: "I am aware that a large number of
experiments would require to be made before the matter can be proved
beyond any possibility of error."

So there you are - even the author himself says we cannot draw any
reliable conclusions from his measurements alone. And the original paper
says so.

And I admitted that right off the bat. The problem is that you demand
absolute scientific proof to five nines confidence. Sorry, old bean, I
can only give you three nines.

And your confidence leverls are baloney - you cannot disregard
uncomfortable data if you want reliable confidence levels.

Your monumental skepticism leads you to the point of dishonesty, particularly
when you ignore sudden versus longer term changes. Why don't you apply
this skepticism to AGW? :-))

�I’m laughing at your superior intellect.� – James T. Kirk

On Thu, 1 Nov 2018 02:41:36 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
wrote:
On Thursday, November 1, 2018 at 3:15:07 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter
wrote:


Would an all-powerful God be unable to reveal himself in such a
way
that also skeptics became convinced?

Of course not. But maybe He doesn't want to.

So far, almost plausible.

Which means God might want some people to remain non-believers. Why?
Perhaps because otherwise he would have created Hell in vain, for no
purpose...

An all-powerful God could of course do this. But would such a God
also be all-bening, without the slightest trace of evil in him?

And that brings us right into the classical theodice problem...


Where I start having problems is when the conclusion is that the
all-powerful
God has chosen to provide salvation only to those who are
sufficiently credulous
that they will believe in God because their local priesthood tells
them He
exists.

This sounds more like what the local priesthood wants one to
believe than what
God wants to do.

The fact that after this has been running for a while, some people
who actually
believe in this God managed to get into the priesthood, and if it
was just them,
it might look like a commendable institution for doing good works,
instead of
one set up to exploit the sheep... while it is an argument against
religious
persecution, it's not one in favor of the truth of their
supernatural claims.

John Savard

On Thursday, November 1, 2018 at 3:15:07 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

On Wed, 31 Oct 2018 14:59:57 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:


A genuine revelation would also convince skeptics and non-believers.

Highly doubtful.

Would an all-powerful God be unable to reveal himself in such a way
that also skeptics became convinced?

He COULD, but why would you think that is His goal?

Like e.g. a total solar eclipse, after the eclipse only maniacs
would deny that it happened. An all-powerful God who wants people
to acknowledge his existence could easily do that. So why doesn't
it happen?

Perhaps you misunderstand what God "wants."

OK, God wants to play hide-and-seek and that I find a bit childish.

Again, you're demanding proof on YOUR terms, and you don't even realize
how arrogant that is!

“Ignorance and weakness is not an impediment to survival. Arrogance
is.� ― Cixin Liu

And definitely far below the dignity of an all-wise and all-powerful
entity. But it is what could be expected from a "God" invented by
humans in order to control other people - those who invented him
knows he can never actually reveal himself since he does not exist,
and therefore they must say he is invisible.

Such arrogance, typical of a "fanatical atheist."

"Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as
that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source
… They are creatures who can’t hear the music of the spheres."
-- Albert Einstein

However, even if we don't yet know what dark matter is, there is still
plenty of good evidence that dark matter does exist.

As I said, some scientists disagree. Milgram and McGaugh, for example.

This is as it should be in science. May the best hypothesis win! Some
50+ years ago many respectable cosmologisos doubted the Big Bang
theory. One of them - Fred Hoyle - even coined the phrase "Big Bang",
as a ridicule, but it caught on. But then the cosmic microwave
background radiation was discovered. Now Hoyle is dead but Big Bang -
both the theory and the name of the theory - lives on.

Not forever.

The Jews thought that they would gladly accept their Messiah, too,
but they didn't. You believe that you would accept REAL evidence,
but you demand "scientific" evidence. You require evidence on YOUR
terms, not God's.

What's the difference? You criticise all contemporary churches and
want to return to Christianity as described in the Bible. Jehovas
Witnesses also want to do this. So in that respect you are very
much like them.

Do you think I believe that we are slaves?

Of course you do! Why else would you write things like "You require
evidence on YOUR terms, not God's"...

So you believe arrogancy is independence and humility is degrading.

If God is unable to provide evidence on our terms instead of his
terms, then he is a terrible teacher and that is far far below the
dignity of an all-powerful, all-wise and all-knowing entity.

He is able, but his goals don't include satisfying the whims of arrogant
atheists.

Suppose you had a dog. You try to teach your dog higher mathematics
which the dog of course does not understand. Then you punish your dog
for not understanding that... I think you get the idea...

I get the idea that you are promoting a straw man argument. God is
trying to teach us to become like Him (which demolishes your assertion
that he wants us to be slaves).

Judaism is older than the Christian doctrine of trinity. And Islam
rejects it and considers it to be polytheism. Didn't you know that?

I thought Islam accepted Genesis as well as the Prophets.

It does.

And in Genesis the word often translated as God is Elohim, which is a
plural.

Islam accepts Jesus too, but only as a great prophet, not as
a God. In Islam not even Mohammed is considered to be a God. Near
Ephesus there is a house where Virgin Mary is believed to have lived
and died after the crucification of Jesus. Beside the house there is
a wall where many Muslims write down a prayer on a small piece of
paper and attach it to the wall. That wall is some 100 yards long and
full of these small notes. Not far from there you can find the ruin
of "Mr Jesus' Mosque".

Interesting, but non sequitur.

I'm only trying to find out if your Christian belief is of the Nicaean
or the non-Nicaean kind. If you are Nicaean, you accept the doctrines
from the church council of Nicaea in AD 325, and if you are non-Nicaean
you reject them.

Some of it I agree with and some of it I don't.

Do you believe in the trinity?

Not in the sense of the creeds accepted by most Christian churches.

Do you celebrate Christmas and Easter on the commonly accepted dates?

Yes.

Do you think the current year is AD 2018?

Close to it, anyway.

All these things were decided in Nicaea in AD 325.

Decided by a bunch of apostates.

On Thu, 1 Nov 2018 04:38:42 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:
Instead, change it to make it better! If we all do that, the
quality of
the Wikipedia articles will improve.

There are thousands of incorrect statements and I'm not the
internet police

Nobody has asked that of you. But you could be a contributor to
Wikipedia, if you want to. But instead you prefer to whine...


Why don't YOU clean up your own false claims:

I'd be happy to, but only if they really are false, not just because
you dislike what I say.



So you lie by quoting the wrong quotation. The lie is THIS:

"The experiment is widely regarded as flawed and unscientific due
to the
small sample size, the methods used, as well as the fact only one
of the
six subjects met the hypothesis."

There were FOUR, not one:

Three of those four had additional weight changes, not explainable by
a soul having weight leaving the body at death. If those additional
weight changes could occur without souls involved, why not those
weight changes at the moment of death?


Patient #3 lost 1/2 oz at the moment of death but a few minutes
later he=

lost even more, one full oz. How could that be?

It's called "evaporation." YOU were one of those babbling about
that,
remember?

And you dismissed that explanation. Are you claiming that evaporation
somehow ceases at the moment of death, to be resumed shortly
afterwards?



But why do you exclude the weight losses of an additional ONE
FULL OUNCE
in two of the cases? And the weight gain a few minutes after
death in one
of the cases...

More disingenuous babbling baloney.

But you have, implicitly, given a partial answer anyway. Your
method is
called Cherry Picking:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking

Completely dishonest babbling baloney.

Nice try, but those cheap con artist tricks cannot hide the obvious
fact that you are cherry picking...

So there you are - even the author himself says we cannot draw
any
reliable conclusions from his measurements alone. And the
original paper
says so.

And I admitted that right off the bat.

So why did you even bring it up if you knew from the start that this
study was unreliable?

The problem is that you demand
absolute scientific proof to five nines confidence. Sorry, old
bean, I
can only give you three nines.

FYI: "absolute scientific proof" does not exist. Any scientific
conclusion is open for modification, if and when reliable evidence
for that appears.


Your monumental skepticism leads you to the point of dishonesty,
particular=
ly
when you ignore sudden versus longer term changes. Why don't you
apply
this skepticism to AGW? :-))

Back in the days of Svante Arrhenius, who in the 1800's was the first
person to point out the future risk of AGW, being skeptical about AGW
would have been a reasonable point of view. Today the situation is
very different. Being skeptical of AGW today is much like being
skeptical about the Earth being round and not flat.