The Line Between Science and Pseudoscience

Gisteron wrote: Dear Theweirdtophat,
So the most recent activity available to my viewing as a guest of Yabuturtle was incidentally the day before your joining date, Tophat. Yabu posted more or less the same questions and exactly the same argument about pretty much the same topic in his thread on telekinesis .
Now, a few quotations to show that this is more than just my paranoia:

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Theweirdtophat wrote: Some things can't even be recorded and need to be experienced. Such as if there was a ritual casting a protection or healing spell around someone, the act and spell was complete and took effect but the camera didn't catch it when it was recording it? How could it? The camera is not designed to catch it so when we watch it, we think nothing happened when in reality it actually did take effect.	Yabuturtle wrote: People ask for proof but there are things that would be difficult to prove. Such as if you were casting a blessing spell on someone. You can watch it on film but the film wouldn't catch it, but that doesn't mean the person wasn't blessed in some way.
Theweirdtophat wrote: And of course when people think of telekinesis or magic, they think of stuff from hollywood, but a lot of that stuff is exaggerated and real psionics and magic doesn't work like that. It isn't flashy and it's more subtle but nonetheless real.	Yabuturtle wrote: I really think it's because when people think of magic, they imagine people hurling fire balls or something from the movies, when real magic doesn't work that way. With Telekinesis, they imagine people using it like in the movies, flinging numerous objects all over the place, when telekinesis is a little more subtle than that.
Theweirdtophat wrote: If psionic abilities or magic and mysticism was fake, how come some of the greatest scientists and thinks practiced it or at least had an interest in it. Leonardo Da Vinci had plenty of occult symbols in his art, Isaac Newton was said to have done rituals and George Washington Carver had even said he was able to communicate with plants. Yet scientists today discredit such abilities despite the fact that they idolize scientists who did practice such abilities.	Yabuturtle wrote: Of course one should also mention that many of the great scientists practiced or at least had an interest in psychic abilities or magic or mysticism. George Washington Carver, Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, ect. did as well. These were scientists yet they didn't dismiss such things and these guys are looked up by scientists today, many of which that dismiss such abilities are fake. It's ironic to me.

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Since I have myself already addressed just about every point on this, I shan't. I have also covered the topic outside of that numerous times so I shall do that only when asked. This peculiar similarity is the only thing I'm pointing out for now, as a humble service to the Temple.
*bows*

steamboat28 wrote: I'm not saying strange and unusual things don't exist, I'm saying that you're wrong in your approach to them.

steamboat28 wrote: Science, as currently defined and understood, has boundaries. It is only concerned by those physically-measurable and quantifiable natural things. Anything outside of that can be viewed with a scientific mindset, but is beyond the grasp of science itself.

Bertrand Russell wrote: Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

J. B. Bury wrote: Some people speak as if we were not justified in rejecting a theological doctrine unless we can prove it false. But the burden of proof does not lie upon the rejecter.... If you were told that in a certain planet revolving around Sirius there is a race of donkeys who speak the English language and spend their time in discussing eugenics, you could not disprove the statement, but would it, on that account, have any claim to be believed? Some minds would be prepared to accept it, if it were reiterated often enough, through the potent force of suggestion.