(Part 3) Top products from r/skeptic

You can look at religion (in my example religious text) from an academic lens (ex:Bart D. Ehrman’s textbook on the New Testament) where using historical fragments of manuscript you can see what portions were likely edited or added later. You factor in writing styles and other variables and evaluate it as a historical text that changes over time (and why those changes occur). This evaluation let’s you see that say some authors may have influenced the writing of other later writers who may have added elements they thought weren’t sufficiently elaborated (ex: resurrection) which then led to later editors adding that to the earlier authors so they all were in agreement. It can actually be really interesting to look at the text in this way.

Within Catholicism, the Jesuits are particularly interested in science / academia which has sometimes created theological debate where they push / publish something at odds with a historically held position. They’ve actually contributed to several areas of science (ex: experimental physics in the 17th century), but someone with more background would need to speak more to this.

Comparing a class I had in primary school (the equivalent of 6th grade) to later classes outside of school in the US there were notable differences. The first emphasized ethics and pulled in history and science as tools to help explain and answer “why is this the case” or “how does this work” questions while the second was more “this is what is true and anything that conflicts must not be true” which threw out a lot of history / science that didn’t agree (ex: evolution).

It’s the difference between allowing scientific knowledge to influence your beliefs so that you see evolution as an even greater and more powerful miracle than a simple creation as is vs. ignoring science and seeing evolution as fiction because it wasn’t in the book.

Well, in TM-theory, the ultimate state of meditation is called "pure consciousness," considered to be the deepest state of rest possible for an alert brain. Researchers have been publishing studies of the EEG patterns and whatnot of people in this state for the past 30 years. The state even gets token mention in at least one introductory textbook on neuroscience , though the citations are all wrong, since this state has never, to my knowledge, been reported in Benson's Relaxation Response, and the figure found on page 299 is actually from a study on TM (see figure on page 143).

Here's a very striking illustration of the kind of EEG found during the pure consciousness state, although the global sine wave pattern marked by the vertical line may merely be an artifact due to volume conductance (higher frequency EEG has been filtered out in order to emphasize that sine wave). Assuming it isn't, my own bet is that it is a striking example of a thalamocortical oscillator involving the entire cortex, rather than a cortical standing wave. Who knows, it might even be evidence of an "infraslow" oscillator.


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All of this is prelude to a discussion of "enlightenment" as a physiological state, that being the condition wherein "devas" are allegedly perceived.

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The first state of enlightenment in TM theory, arises over a period of years of alternating TM with normal activity, leading to a situation where EEG and other physiological conditions associated with the pure consciousness state, start to co-exist with normal waking, dreaming and sleeping activity. Eventually, the presence of pure consciousness elements outside of meditation becomes so strong, that people start to note a non-participatory, inner-watchfulness. As this perception grows, people naturally associate this with their "self," since that is how people describe their "self" anyway: typically, the most constant aspect(s) of their mental landscape -their thoughts, desires, etc. Spiritual traditions like yoga sometimes call this the "true self" or "Self".

Some very long-term meditators report that this "Self" aspect becomes a constant thoughout all normal activity and states of consciousness: in some sense, their "Self" is present, even during deep sleep or dreaming. Studies have been published on the EEG and psychological profiles of such people, who are considered to be in the beginning stages of the first of several higher states of consciousness collectively called "enlightenment" in TM theory.

"Higher" states of consciousness, based on new dimensions of development (not mystical dimensions, just the typical mathematical term used to described orthogonal measurements), are said to exist, but no research has been published on them. "Deva" perception is allegedly found in these higher states, which are thought to be based on further integration of the pure consciousness pattern beyond what is seen in the first state.

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There are two main higher states, "god consciousness," allegedly driven by emotional growth, where, analogous to the experience of meditation, more and more subtle aspects of perception and thought become apparent, eventually leading to the perception of god and lesser entities (devas), and Unity Consciousness, driven by further intellectual development, where all mental/emotional/perceptual activity is perceived as fluctuations of pure consciousness (since one already identifies "Self" as pure consciousness, perceiving that all things are fluctuations of/composed of pure consciousness leads to the appreciation that "all is Self," hence the term "Unity"). In theory, it should be possible to measure the physiological correlates of such states...

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...whether or not these higher states have any practical value, is another question entirely, of course.

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The point of all this being that just because mystical terminology is being used, doesn't mean that scientific investigation can't be performed.

First, you might have gotten a bad/lazy doctor (even though his objections are sound). It is good-practice to get second opinions as often as possible, but for some reason people only do it when they're diagnosed with cancer or something. And second opinions can (should) come from other real doctors; you don't need to go to "alternative" practitioners to get a fresh look at a problem.

Second, to the extent that chiropractic has been tested, it appears to have some relevant degree of success regarding musculoskeletal disorders, the purpose it appears to have been originally devised for. The common opposition against chiropractic is that its proponents are now claiming that it can also treat asthma, cancer and other ailments that have nothing to do with manipulation of bones, muscle or nerves. A claim that has also never been properly substantiated by experiment.

Your problem was a musculoeskeletal disorder. That's what chiropractic "is for", and the little success rate it has, it has in that field.

Also, keep in mind: that kind of testimony is very easy to find. Just check out some of the praise for urotherapy and you'd be amazed. When you have no solid understanding of how substances interact with the human body, it's natural to doubt the efficacy of treatments and medications, when they fail to produce results you imagine they should, and very easy to experiment with "alternative" treatments and fall prey to the cognitive bias that's basically the father of superstition.

For example, not much long ago I had a bad throat infection. In the second day of throat pain and high fever I went to the ER and started taking the prescribed antibiotics, which I should keep doing for the next 10 days.

Seven days later, it was as if I had never even started treatment. So I went back to the ER, got examined, this time by a different doctor. He examined me (a tad more thoroughly this time) and saw no reason to believe the first doctor had made any mistake. So he recommended me to stay on the prescribed meds for the remaining 3 days of the original treatment, and if I was still in a bad shape by then, to start taking some other meds he prescribed, and return there in 10 days (from that day).

I followed his advice and on the 9th day of the original medication (2 days later) I was as good new, and have been for a couple months now.

Had I seen that failure of the prescribed treatment to produce the results I imagined they should (and not the doctors) and started drinking my own piss, for example, and 2 days later I was cured; that would be outstanding proof that urotherapy works – and works fast!

There is a passage on John Diamond's book, Snake Oil, in that he mentions this phenomenon, and comments on how, by the logic and beliefs of people who get convinced by that kind of "miracle cures" from alternative medicine, what really caused his cancer to go into remission would be vodka and cigar, I think.

So who knows, perhaps you were cured by the meds the first doctor prescribed and you just don't know it, because when you thought it didn't work you went ahead to try a different approach and then thought "after this, therefore because of this".

> So the doctor gave me some prescription to mask the pain that was the symptom, not the problem...

Classic argument from "holistic" therapies proponents. Look, if you go to a specialized doctor with a specific symptom (e.g. an ear doctor to check why your ear aches), 9 times out of 10 the general treatment for the specific problem will work. If it doesn't, you either look for another doctor or, better yet, tell that doctor, in detail, it didn't work. He will adjust his approach accordingly. That's what doctors are trained to do (each treatment is actually a hypothesis being carried out) and what science is, after all.

However, if you want a "holistic" experience from the get-go, get yourself a general clinician for "family doctor", and go there when nothing is wrong with you for a check up. He needs to establish the baseline of what you look like when you're healthy so he can start recognizing when things are off in other areas (e.g. you ear hurts, but you're also a little pale; could it be related?).

Holistic practitioners start out from some idealized notion of what the healthy, normal human body is supposed to be – often colored by their preferred flavor of woo; for example, your chakras are aligned, your Ki is balanced, the energy flow in your body is good, your aura is green, etc. They know nothing about you.

But then they take you in, make you feel comfortable, take more time with you and appear to take more of an interest in your life as a whole – and then you're sold and the placebo effect kicks in.

If they had to treat as many people as real doctors do, believe me, all the attention and illusion of personalized care would be the first thing to go.

And your last argument, really?

If people didn't think astrology was a legitimate divination option, why are there so many successful astrologers practicing?

Replace that by psychics, dowsers, homeopaths, etc, and the answer will always be the same: uninformed (or ill-informed) people can not properly evaluate the efficacy of those ideas.

A lot of it is probably confirmation bias, but yes, it does happen.

HP used to have expiry dates on their cartridges claiming they degraded printing after a certain time: http://www.hp.com/pageyield/articles/uk/en/InkExpiration.html

Another example from the software development world: Red Gate announced that one of their products (Reflector) would no longer be free starting from the next version and disabled all existing free copies, a move that upset many developers: http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/02/NET-Reflector-Not-Free

College textbooks are the most literal example of planned obsolescence; the new editions often contain very few new material and cost a lot while all older versions can be bought for almost nothing... and of course most classes require the new version.
For instance, Kenneth Rosen's "Discrete Mathematics and its Applications" currently sells for $125 if you want the [latest edition] (http://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-Kenneth-Rosen/dp/0073383090/), $100 for the one before that and $16 for an older one even though the number of pages only increased by 100 each time. Thankfully, my teacher gave us the page numbers for both the latest and the second-latest editions...

That sounds interesting! Do you happen to remember the author? On Amazon I see:

• Sit Down and Shut Up: Punk Rock Commentaries on Buddha, God, Truth, Sex, Death, and Dogen's Treasury of the Right Dharma Eye by Brad Warner
  
• Sit Down & Shut Up: A Guide to Simple Meditation & Practical Wisdom by Thom Rutledge, and
  
• Just Sit Down and Shut the F--k Up: 7 Easy Steps to Meditate Like a Monk... by Brady Nelson, though that just seems to be an audiobook

An interesting book on the topic.

> Singleton's surprising - and surely controversial - thesis is that yoga as it is popularly practiced today owes a greater debt to modern Indian nationalism and, even more surprisingly, to the spiritual aspirations of European bodybuilding and early 20th-century women's gymnastic movements of Europe and America, than it does to any ancient Indian yoga tradition.

>I was making the case which you can read in the studies above that OspA in desseminated infection can induce immunosupression through indirect mechanisms.

Which as I pointed out a very long time ago is pretty meaningless since OspA is expressed in the tick stage.

>Question, can not TLR2 agonists supress immune system?

No.

>Can not OspA interfere with the response of lymphocytes to proliferative stimuli including a blocking of cell cycle phase progression?

According to a single paper that was never cited and only used purified lymphocytes, maybe. But the immune system works together. Without T cells and macrophages together that's not very useful information.

>Yeah, I'm interested! What books do you recommend?

Janeway's [Immunobiology] (https://www.amazon.com/Janeways-Immunobiology-Immune-System-Janeway/dp/0815342438/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505745700&sr=8-1&keywords=immunobiology+janeway+8th+edition) has been the gold standard for years. David White's [The Physiology and Biochemistry of Prokaryotes ] (https://www.amazon.com/Physiology-Biochemistry-Prokaryotes-David-White/dp/019539304X) and [Molecular Genetics of Bacteria] (https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Genetics-Bacteria-Larry-Snyder/dp/1555816274/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505745797&sr=1-1&keywords=molecular+genetics+of+bacteria) are the best microbiology references. For something more specific, ASM Press periodically puts out books on specific groups of bacteria.

Is there any reason for you to be concerned about risks (family history of vaccine reactions, autoimmune disease, etc)? If not, I don't understand your concerns at all. Thousands (millions?) of kids have gotten all of their vaccines and were just fine. And I am not sure what you mean by skeptical that "every single one is necessary" - is there some diseases you would want your child to have?

Actually, I was the same way, I was swayed by the anti-vaxxers at first, but did some research while pregnant and I am very pro-vaccine now. I liked this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Vaccine-Book-Decision-Parenting/dp/0316180521

In the end all my kids got all their vaccines with only MMR being slightly postponed from what was recommended. Dr. Sears provides an alternative schedule in the book if it's something you would be interested in.

Highly recommend Escaping the Rabbit Hole by Mick West which was written with exactly your situation in mind. It is written in a sympathetic way to help 'friends' discuss conspiracy theories in a way that is non-confrontational and should maximise dialogue. He also includes some very thorough debunking of popular tropes about 9/11 (including AE911 Truth and the insurance claims, IIRR). Sections ask you to 'ask your friend...' to help give you the tools to raise issues.

I disagree with other people here that 'truthers' don't listen to evidence. That is categorically wrong and counter-productive. Everyone goes through stages in their life when they believe certain things that turn out to be poorly informed. Although it won't always work, making your friend aware of counter-arguments against his claims is very important. Sure, sometimes they will just reject your claims out of hand, but often they are not aware that there is a counter-argument. It's always worth giving it a go.

Source: Used to believe in plenty of conspiracy theories.

>Do you have any non-Jewish sources?


I linked to the The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) website above. that isn't good enough for you?

United States Library of Congress: Nuremberg Trials



https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/jackson-rpt-military-trials.pdf

https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/Nuremberg_trials.html


 


http://www.holocaustresearch.pl/?l=a&lang=en


Ordinary Men : Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, New York, by Christopher Browning

> Mathematical literacy is more important than the typical person things.

The way you phrased that reminded me of Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos, which is a great book on these types of things.

You might find Mick West's book, Escaping the Rabbit Hole, to be helpful. It's all about how and why otherwise smart and reasonable people can fall into conspiracist beliefs, and how to approach the topic with them. It also goes into some of the details of the arguments behind specific conspiracy theories like the 9/11 ones. And it's a surprisingly good read, IMO.

All good recommendations, but if you want a textbook for skeptics (and it is a textbook), then pick up "How to Think About Weird Things" by Theodore Schick. It is the most comprehensive guide to skepticism I've read: he tackles everything from cryptozoology to free energy machines; from homeopathy to conspiracy theories. The author doesn't just identify bunk: he explains WHY it's bunk. More importantly, he explains how we arrive at these strange beliefs, and the philosophical justification of skepticism. Seriously, it's the most dog eared of my skeptic text that I have.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Think-About-Weird-Things/dp/007353577X

And I love Shermer's books -- especially "Why People Believe Weird Things." His two-chapter destruction of the Holocaust deniers is a thing of beauty.

I've heard great things about John Allen Paulos' Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences but haven't read it myself yet so I don't know how much it covers about probability.

Well...like this one.

https://www.amazon.com/Vaccine-Book-Decision-Parenting-Library/dp/0316180521

>Do you have any links to corroborate this?

http://www.amazon.com/Thermodynamics-Engineering-Approach-Student-Resources/dp/0077366743/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407866245&sr=8-1&keywords=thermodynamics

Sorry it took so long to reply, it wasn't for lack of trying just lack of time.

Three books that really stuck out to me were The Cheese and The Worms, Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath and Bread of Dreams. What facinated me about the picture they presented was how little influence The Christian Church had in rural Europe (which was most of Europe). Most people in Europe not only knew little to nothing about Christianity, but many rural priests were just as confused. As a result, a very interesting cosmology existed in a time where I assumed most people were Catholic.

In summary: Most people in medieval Europe were not Christian.

Doubt: A History by Hecht

Decent springboard. http://www.amazon.com/Doubt-Doubters-Innovation-Jefferson-Dickinson/dp/0060097957

>Source.

What source would you accept? Most of the research on this topic has been done by the people who signed the declaration. For example, Marian Stamp Dawkins has written a number of solid articles on the topic, and has even written a book that summarises all of the recent research: Why Animals Matter: Animal Consciousness, Animal Welfare, and Human Well-being.

Of course, your article suggests that Dawkins doesn't believe that animals are conscious so it seems weird that she wrote a book about it...

>You forgot to read the title I guess.

I read the title, it doesn't support your position.

>Willful ignorance on your part, I can't help you there.

Why don't you quote some arguments you find particularly compelling and I'll explain to you how they are misrepresentation. I'm not going to wade through that Gish Gallop debunking every wrong statement just for you to ignore it.

>No, it's a summary of the position of 12 scientists.

Why do you keep saying "12" scientists? It was signed by all participants of the conference. There were 15 speakers so we know there were at least 15 people there - and that's not even including all of the other participants (i.e. the audience of scientists).

Even the picture in your Uncommon Descent article shows that, on one page alone, it was signed by nearly 30 scientists.

>Get out of town.. They require a witness to sign a note that says "we think this"? Source please.

Of course they need a witness, otherwise people will doubt that all those scientists actually signed it! They can't be their own witness otherwise they'll be questioned over their impartiality.

You've fucked up here. You thought you'd found a dubious document, ran your mouth off with only an article from the Disco 'Tute, and now instead of admitting a failure in your skepticism you're just soldiering on by digging your hole even deeper.