An excellent article and clip. Thanks for posting them Norm!

Interesting. You're the man. :)

I found it quite intriguing, open minded, and relatively free of bias. The argument can be made however that these tendencies are evidence of God's existence. Perhaps our unique evolution has brought us to the point where we are capable of an intuitive awareness. Either way, I think this piece contributes more to the debate than some previous posts have.

"The new approach to explaining religion that Boyer and Bloom (and Scott Atran and Justin Barrett and Deborah Kelemen and others) represent"

... and Daniel Dennett, and Susan Blackmore, and David Hume....

As an aetheist (or a "beyond aetheist" as Penn Teller would denote) I say a hearty "God bless you!" for being such a wonderful resource.

Religion to me means repeatedly performing some prescribed ritual and this article does not meet that description; however, it does give insight into our inborn spirtual being - our own godliness. Now if we can just dump the religion approach and start over with the god/godess within, then we have something and it can't be politicised or prescribed.

Distaste for Dissent said, "The argument can be made however that these tendencies are evidence of God's existence. Perhaps our unique evolution has brought us to the point where we are capable of an intuitive awareness."

My response: How on Earth is the human propensity to see intentionality everywhere, even when it isn't actually there, evidence for God's existence? It sounds more like evidence that in fact casts into doubt all those stories about gods and spirits and supernatural things that go bump in the night, because now there is another explanation for these stories: Either 1) there really is an invisible god or ghost behind these stories, or 2) it's just people decieving themselves, and seeing intentionality behind purely natural phenomena when it isn't actually there (as the article says we are prone to doing).

It would be curiously coincidental if our cognitive errors should in fact turn out to be accurate depictions of an otherwise hidden reality. Speaking of coincidentally accurate cognitive errors, which is more likely: (1) That there really is a pink elephant in front of you that is turning itself inside out, but you just have to take LSD to see it? Or (2) that there is no elephant, and if you 'see' it while taking LSD you are just hallucinating?

http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/dalailamaatthesocietyforneuroscience/

Distaste for Dissent said: "The argument can be made however that these tendencies are evidence of God's existence."

DFD, what you said is an example of how we interpret what we read in a way which fits into the moral constructs which fit our own beliefs. Did you read the entire article? Here is the closing comment:

"Obviously, to see this sort of naturalistic account of religious and other supernatural beliefs as an endorsement or defense of religion would be to commit a naturalistic fallacy of the worst sort."

When I was young, I wanted to believe in God because everyone around me did and I wondered why was it that God came to everyone but me. I then set out to find the answer and questioned every believer to the point that most of them would get upset with me and end the conversation. And yet, my intention was never to upset them, but to try and understand what brought them to believe in God. I come from a very religious family and I have questioned them ad nauseum and never could find any rational reason for their belief in God. It all boils down to "faith", which is why discussions like this lead no where.

PS DFD.. you remind me a lot of Cure4Pain.. a good-hearted fellow, but I never understand the way you two arrive at your decisions. Hannah is the most powerful, logical, intelligent Christian who I have ever encountered, bless her heart! She is a true gift to this universe.

In 2003 (I think), Pascal Boyer wrote a fantastic, fascinating book called "Religion Explained." It's dense, but it's got a huge amount of studies behind its ideas. By far the best, most comprehensive theory of humanity's recurring drift towards supernatural explanations.

From above: "I found it quite intriguing, open minded, and relatively free of bias. The argument can be made however that these tendencies are evidence of God's existence." --Distaste For Dissent

Which God are you talking about? Allah? Jehovah? Kali? Satan? Apollo? Odin? It's a nice tidy word, "God," but it just covers up the truth that there are as many supernatural explanations as there are tribes.

Good site, by the way, sir.

Hello!

I have forever had a distrust of Science. Mostly I suppose because I love it so and love finding the hard, solid reason for things. Science, by definition, cannot describe an event that is by its nature extremely rare or unique. It also fails to explain (not describe) events or phenomenon that are easily reproduced by the layman, like, Light or Gravity. (gravity makes sense until you realllly look at it)

For these reasons, I have never trusted science alone, although a good 98% of the time it does an outstanding job.

I am certainly not into the occult, but have had several direct, personal experiences with ghosts. So have my close, trusted, highly scientific friends. When inanimate objects fly across a room in front of five people, you tend to stop thinking in terms of 'athiesm' vs. 'religion'. I want to describe these things that are obviously part of our natural world. I don't think Science can do that with current instruments or tools, thus, good rational minds don't believe in the Authority of people who experience these things. Simply experiencing them makes us a dubious source and our testimony less than sterling.

Although I believe that the human mind is primarily metaphoric and describes complicated things with the easiest package possible (that is, we simplify EVERYTHING we see so that our minds may quickly process information) I cannot believe that all 'scientifically undescribable' phenomenon are extensions of our ancestral minds.

I could counter-argue that this article is a rationalization of a complicated natural world by an athiest, designed to fit his world-view.

In my mind, if every culture in the world has experienced ghosts/spirits (as the art states), perhaps we should start researching them?

Thanks, and fantastic site!

-Craig

Mary in Florida - a quick thought - by your definition brushing my teeth would be a religious experience. "Religion to me means repeatedly performing some prescribed ritual..." We all succumb to ritual - it may be the way we tie our shoes, or comb our hair, or button blouses/shirts, which leg goes in the pants first, how we eat our food, etc. Ritual, to me, is a repeatable process, however when that ritual is conneted to an inner inexplicable experience that requires some fomr of group activity or affiliation then it borders upon religion.

I have had the opportuinity to witness many types of religious experiences while travelling - for example, the morning food offerings in Kuta and Ubud on Bali so that a shop owner's business will thrive. I felt that they were somehow holding their spiritual dieties responsible for their success or failure. (And that is one man's opinion).

My own personal definition of religion is any practice or belief which allows me to be less than 100% accountable or responsible for my morals, ethics, standards, behavours and the consequences of those actions. It is when I remove my personal accountability from a situation and make someone or somethig else my internal eternal support.

In regards to this article and the "film" - I support the concepts and find that coincides with my research and experiences. To illustrate: I have spent time with the Ulchik Nani in Eastern Russia - thier ancestors are what we call Shaman today - it means visitor between the worlds. Thier belief is that these individuals (men and women) are able to travel to worlds of light and dark and while there intercede spiritually for people in their village. They provide spiritual and physical healing - often the herbal remedies that they used (by shaman all over the world) have become the basis for many of the synthetic medications that we use today.

These Shaman believe that they actually visit with departed souls and with other disembodied beings. Their results are remarkable and does it just mean that in ancient societies as today that the acceptance of an inner duality and the conflict it creates has been used to the advantage of the Shaman? Are they but the greatest psychologists and social workers? They do not ordinarily subscribe thier powers to a god-like being nor do they think that other's cannot communicate across the "divide".

These practices have been followed for over 220,000 years by disconnected communities all over the world. And yet there was no direct communication. How were rituals so similar? There was no sense of spiritual blackmail or my Shaman is better than your Shaman. They just were there.

I truly enjoyed the Pascal Boyer interview - clear, concise and cogent. The 3 "C"s that I like in a presentation. I do not think that religion is a crutch or a salvation - I feel it is the personal way a man or woman expresses themselves to the inner mystery. how that desire forms - is one of the mysteries to me - somewhat answered by this interview.

I don't find religion right or wrong - nor do I feel that everyone must believe the same. What I do know that there is no direct evidence of anyone's god, God, G-D, goddess, Allah, Jack-In-The-Box. Just supposition and conjecture. That doesn't make it wrong for me - it just doesn't work for me.

Also, I don't mind what someone believes - just as long as they do not push it on me - no matter how well intentioned.

Thanks,Norm, as always.

Jo Ann,

I have a friend who became Buddhist after growing up Baptist. She said something once that always stuck with me. She had struggled her whole life about believing in God and became Buddhist because she thought “the idea of helping others, disciplining short-term desires for spiritual and moral development, cultivating introspection was important whether or not she was sure of the existence of God. And once she stopped worrying about the existence of God, she said she realized the journey was the destination.”

Corp.Punishment,

I have a few problems with your post:

1) Science can and does work for rare phenomena, and even for unique, one-off events. All processes and phenomena, whether rare or common, leave traces of themselves after they have occured -- traces that can in principle be examined by science. While murders are unfortunately not rare, each particular murder is a one-off event that cannot be repeated in a lab; yet we have the science of forensics that can work out what happened and whodunnit by studying the physical remnants left by the murder. Similarly, the Age of Dinosaurs won't happen twice and cannot be studied in the lab; but we still have the science of paleontology that can examine fossil remains and tell us how dinosaurs lived and died.

2) Science does explain light and gravity and other everyday matters, at least as well (if not more so) than it does any other phenomena.

3) Science has studied 'ghosts'. Thus far nothing much has come of it. Most reports have proved to be either fakes, mistakes, or the stuff of jakes. The few instances that aren't demonstrable hogwash are at best wildly inconclusive. For science to study ghosts more and/or with more fervor and ethusiasm, there has to be at least one instance of respectible scientists, using thorough and careful methods, conclusively ruling out all the more ordinary and mundane explanations for a ghost sighting -- such as lies, tricks, mistakes, misunderstandings, embellished memories, insanity, and drugs.

Also, it would help to have some sort of solid theoretical underpinning to go with the empirical findings -- some idea of what ghosts are made of and how they interact with the world. Unfortunately, in this sense ghosts are tied to the notion of the soul, a concept that holds very little water in modern science (for being incoherent, unnecessary, and generally at odds with everything else in science).

J.D.

Thanks for the reply, and you get to a few key points!

Imagine going back 2000 years and telling people about our modern atomic or quantum theories. What reaction would you recieve? You are a modern man, but left there without an Instrument by which to prove these ideas of yours. Would anyone believe you?

Now, imagine yourself just 200 years ago describing modern Mach 4 flight to a major university. Even AFTER photos of the Wright Bros. were published around the world, many rational open minded individuals did not believe man had flown (powered flight).

Today, most school children can roughly describe 'how to fly' and think nothing of an SR-71's amazing ability.

My point is simple. We don't currently have the tech to measure much in our world. Even things that are easily measured have unasnwered questions. How many quations would we have thn if the object of our research could not be measured with traditional equipment? Even if you KNEW beyond a shadow of doubt it existed, prove it!

Prove Electristy to the Incas or Egyptians (notice I said nothing of ancient baghdad grin)! How would you do it?

Unless you believe that our current tech is the end all, be all (and you seem a reasonable chap) then you know as well as I that at some point, much of what we know about a particular subject will be proven utterly incorrect with the invention of a better instrument of observation.

Many many people have repeatedly seen things that could roughly be described as a 'ghost' I have no idea what these things are, but if more people have seen these things than ever saw Mark Twain, I'd say it was worth another look.

So, my question to you is:

1) If we could measure a Ghost, would you believe it? 2) Given that 'Ghosts' do exist (for agument's sake) do you think any known instrument could measure one?

I personally wouldn't believe in these things if they hadn't happened to myself, and people around me my entire life. As they have, constantly, I'm faced with the problem of explaining them.

Light, gravity: School Children know exactly what these things are, but try asking a quantum physicist or a high energy physicist some time. We know EXACTLY what we don't know about these things, but we are getting closer. Ex: Do tell me what the SPEED of gravity is. We have had one experiment that hasn't yet passed major peer review (most think they came up with a roundabout way to measure the speed of light).

After all of my studies, I can frankly admit that the ONLY thing I CAN prove is that I don't know it all. Can you admit the same? grin

OH, and I'm neither delusional, a drug user, or suffering from embelished memory (but thanks for the suggestion, I could use those this weekend with my Family in town) *8)

Cheers! And thanks again for the reply! -Craig PS: what part of England are you from?

Edward O. Wilson won a Pulitzer prize for his book 'On Human Nature' in which he addresses the sociobiological roots of religion. I think that was published in 1978.

Ditto, Corp.Punishment, excellent post. The more you know makes you realize just how much more there is to know.

Corp.punishment,

You make several points, I will respond to each in turn. Correct me if I have misunderstood one of your points:

Point One: We know for a fact that we don't know everything, perhaps ghosts are hiding in the Unknown, just like electricity and the possibilitiy of supersonic jets were in the Unknown hundreds of years ago. Perhaps this is because ghosts cannot be measured by 'traditional instruments'.

My response:
Supposedly humans can detect ghosts. Humans only have a certain number of senses to do such detecting: they can see within a small range of the electromagnetic spectrum, they can detect certain kinds of particles that reach a high enough concentration in the air around their noses, they can hear sonic vibrations within a certain range of frequency and volume, they can feel temperature and physical impacts with their skin, and can detect the presence of sugars, salts, acids and the like with their tongues, they can also detect certain properties of their bodies via internal 'senses', like the feeling of hunger.

'Traditional' scientific instruments can detect absolutely everything that a human's sense organs can and more besides, often with far greater accuracy and sensitivity. The only way scientific instruments couldn't detect something that humans could detect is if humans are not detecting it through their senses; and you know what that means, right? Everything that you don't detect through your senses is something you are generating right there inside your head.

But wait! What if ghosts could interact with the mind without going through the channels of the sense-organs? Like being seen with 'the mind'e eye', or something...

Well there are two options in that case: i) If the mind is generated entirely by the brain, then if ghosts are real then they somehow affect the brain. ii) If the mind is some kind of different 'stuff' than the brain, then ghosts could also be made of this 'stuff' and could thus interact without bothering the material universe.

If (i) is the case, then scientific instruments can and would have necessarily detected ghosts already. Anything that can affect the brain will necessarily affect other matter, including the matter of instruments.

Option (ii) is incoherent, at odds with everything else in science, and would require far more evidence than just "people sometimes see spooky things" to even begin to be plausible. It also means that we will never be able to use scientific instruments to detect ghosts...not in one year or a million.

Point Two: Lots of people have seen ghosts, so aren't they worth investigating?

My response: Yes. And they have been investigated. So far: Zilch. Right now it looks far more likely that this is all due to human fallibility (a phenomenon which we know exists and is very common).

Point Three: Your two questions to me...

My responses: 1) Yes. 2) If current instruments cannot detect them then humans cannot detect them. Humans think they can detect them, but current instruments do not. Thus humans are not actually detecting ghosts, they just think they are.

Point Four: What is the speed of gravity?

My response: The speed of gravity is the speed of light.

Pount Five: I wasn't crazy or on drugs when I saw ghosts. I didn't embellish my memory. So how can you explain my detection event?

My response: I'll assume that you weren't crazy or on drugs or plain lying. But there are a number of very common fallibilities in humans, including you, that are far more likely than ghosts and can explain ghost-sightings.

You may think you aren't embellishing your memory, but it's a far more common thing than you might think -- and you can't very well check your memory against your memory to see if it's accurate. Moreover, can you really say for certain that you weren't being tricked or that you didn't misunderstand the situation somehow? Are you certain that you aren't ascribing intentionality to a purely mundane and inanimate phenomena? How can you be certain? if you can be certain, then why couldn't scientists? i.e. Why haven't scientists found 'certain' evidence, in all the years that they have dutifully wasted money investigating this stuff?

Point Six: What part of England are you from?

No part. I am from the US and live in Virginia.

There are ghosts only because we name them ghosts. That which we do not identify or name, does not exist until we do so. The intuitive "seeing" sees without naming, but responds as if it were real. That is the what makes it beyond religion and beyond science. A mother wakes up in the night and knows her child is in harms way even tho the child is thousands of miles away. In the morning she learns her child has been attacked and is hospitalised. That is seeing intuitively. It is more common than anyone could guess.

Hiya J.D.

I admire your rational mind, and also agree with the majority of your points. I do disagree with one key point and have only anecdotal ev. to back it up (thus, as you were not there, you will find me delusional and embellishming my memory -j/k).

EX: Five people wathing TV. A metal cup on the mantle is propelled (somehow) ten feet to the floor, where it rests. The cup next to it did not move. This happened twice, the second object was non-metallic and sitting on a dresser. Also in front of multiple witnesses.

EX: a 'medicine woman' (Souix) walks into a store I work in.. looks into the eyes of my cousin and moves her hand up his body.. stopping at his lower ribcage and says "you were kicked by a horse here when you were 10." (dead on accurate)

Far too many unusual things happen that aren't within the realm of modern Science, and as I stated earlier, I believe it IS a matter of finding the right Instrument to bring it INTO Science.

You accurately state that our Instruments mimic and perfect our known senses. A few do things better than that (super colliders for instance). But ALL Instruments that are trusted, measure things that can be repeatedly seen or measured by either eyes or alternate Instruments.

I very strongly beleive that evidence exists that Humans can accurately, repeatedly percieve things outside of their known senses. DIA/INSCOM thinks so too, and has used psychics to find downed enemy planes in Africa, and do Remote Viewing of enemy facilities with Project Stargate.

decent site: http://www.theuniversalseduction.com/archives/inside-the-cias-psychic-program

Quote from woman hired by Congress to review the program before funding renewal: "There are very interesting underlying questions, some of which can be answered with available data and some of which can't. The most obvious questions are, 'Why are the results consistently better than would be expected by chance -- what is going on?'" "

My personal belief (that is at least partially wrong) is that Bodies are made up of more than Matter. Lets call that 'Energy" for lack of a better term.

There are spots on our bodies that interact with this energy force (some call them chakras) and possibly store this energy (like capacitors). This stuff workes like our nervous system to keep us healthy and people attribute religious significance to it. This energy may or may not be part of our 'mind' but our minds probably do interact with it and it interacts with the rest of the Energy out there (as all fomrs of enrgy tend to do).

This is no more 'spiritual' than dirt, I believe it is simply part of the working world and explains a "crapload" (technical term) of stuff.

Give this Energy Stuff the ability to slightly effect matter (it ineracts with us, why not interact with other stuff) and you suddenly have telekinesis, and ghosts (trace energy?).

Give it the tendency to sympathize with nearby Energy fields (pehaps people or residual traces of Energy on things) and you have Telepathy or Somnatic Transference (empathy).

I also feel there is evidence that this Energy does not interact with TimeSpace the same way as physical matter does.

One thing I POSITIVELY know is the frailty of peception. Yours, Mine, the cat's. What you WANT to see is usually what you DO see. This applies to Scientists as well as Loonies. Some folkes think of Science as the End. Science is mearly a process to get to the next question and far far too often is limited to previous findings to take the next step toward the Truth. (Telsa, obvious genius.. shunned.)

I'm not relegious, really... but I've always wondered why Religious people disliked Science.. I mean: If you want to knw this Creator Guy, then STUDY THE CREATION.. Science is that study. Ex: If God didn't get us to this stage through some process similar to Evolution, then why did he leave all this evidence laying around? Personally, I think Intelligent Design advocates are so full of themselves they want to TELL GOD HOW HE CREATED THE WORLD. Kinda arrogant, no?

J.D. You seem a very nice guy, I hope you have a great number of interesting things happen to you during your life. Of course, as Quantum theory will point out: You may have to WANT to see things in an Interesting Way for that to happen. grin

Cya, and thanks for the discussion. great fun!

-Craig

Mary in Florida writes, "There are ghosts only because we name them ghosts. That which we do not identify or name, does not exist until we do so."

My response: Let me get this straight. Are you saying: 1) If we name something, then it exists. 2) If we don't name something, then it doesn't exist.

So then dragons, Zeus, unicorns, gravity gnomes (they make things fall), and the Great Green Arkleseizure....they all exist, simply because we have named them?

How about the molten "Mantle" layer deep beneath the surface of the Earth? Did it not exist until we realized the Earth was a sphere and extremely hot down there?

Corp.punishment,

"EX: Five people wathing TV. A metal cup on the mantle is propelled (somehow) ten feet to the floor, where it rests. The cup next to it did not move. This happened twice, the second object was non-metallic and sitting on a dresser. Also in front of multiple witnesses."

Some questions: 1) Was the metal cup round? i.e. Could it have rolled 10 feet from the mantle if it fell? Alternatively, could it have had enough energy to bounce and rebound 10 feet if it fell? 2) If everyone was watching TV, did anyone actually observe the cup fall, or did they just look over at it when it fell? 3) When did you notice it had fallen? Instantly -- i.e. when it made a sound or you saw it fall? Or only after a while, when you noticed it was no longer on the mantle? 4) Was the metal cup on the edge of the mantle beforehand, or otherwise is a precarious position? 5) Does this house have cats or other pets that could have leapt up and knocked it off?

"EX: a 'medicine woman' (Souix) walks into a store I work in.. looks into the eyes of my cousin and moves her hand up his body.. stopping at his lower ribcage and says "you were kicked by a horse here when you were 10." (dead on accurate)"

This example sounds like 'hot reading' to me. Are you absolutely sure this woman didn't hear you guys talking about this horse incident (or even just mentioning it obliquely)? Are you sure she couldn't possibly have known about it by some entirely mundane route, like talking about your cousin with someone who knew him?

As for 'remote viewing', I am highly skeptical. Try this link: http://skepdic.com/remotevw.html

With respect to 'energy', why do you think scientists haven't found this 'energy' yet? Every crackpot says that if someone just paid attention and/or gave them 'research' money then the world would realize that they've discovered something everyone overlooked. Occasionally one of these crackpots is right. But the vast majority of them are completely wrong, and/or are trying to scam people. Are you sure the crackpots are right about this 'energy'? The odds are considerably against it...

Just a note on quantum mechanics: 'wanting' has nothing to do with QM. Don't believe anything that the New Age movement or mystics of any kind say about QM; almost invariably they get it wrong or massively distorted. For instance, the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know" completely misrepresented QM, and I do mean completely.

Perhaps I am overlooking something but it seems that the article fails to address a major question, "What is origin or mechanism of this ability?". It makes a case that we have an inate ability to distinguish between psychological agents and inanimate objects but only goes so far as to say religion is an evolutionary accident when addressing the reason that such an ability exists. I would also like to argue against the application of empiricism for all questions. Requiring the use of the senses or other means of measurement to establish the existence of objects ignores the fact that an object can exist ethereally as a concept or purpose. I believe 'intention' is such an object. It cannot be measured or defined other than as an abstract within our mind. We can ascribe varying moral responsibility to individuals, animals, and even objects but it is a subjective process. We can look at the criminal justice system and the difficulty that arises when it attempts to assign percentages of culpabilty or when it attempts to determine malice, cruelty, or negligence. Strict determinism or causality based reasoning that depends on empiricism to explain phenomena is incapable of acknowledging the concept of true moral choice or intent (i.e. free will). Supernatural events or deities may or may not exist as physical and testable 'objects' but they do represent an assumption and a belief regarding the nature of the universe. The assumption is that experience is not the only factor in understanding and perceiving reality. I know I stray so I shall return to the essential point. We have been endowed with a unique ability. If it is not the result of our spiritual significance, what evolutionary purpose would it serve?

Distaste for Dissent, "Perhaps I am overlooking something but it seems that the article fails to address a major question, "What is origin or mechanism of this ability?""

Thinking about things in terms of intentions is good for dealing with things that do have intentions -- it helps us understand, predict and manipulate things with intentions, which is an ability with very clear evolutionary benefits (especially when you consider that the ability to deal with other people is incredibly important to a social species like us).

On a related note, humans are extremely good at recognizing faces -- we are perceptually optimized for it, as such an ability is good for a social species (especially one with a poor sense of smell). A side effect of this optimization is a propensity to see faces even where there clearly is no person or face, such as in rocks, or cloud formations.

We can look at this two ways: either (1) clouds actually do have faces, and we have somehow acquired the ability to see them; or (2) clouds don't have faces, and our propensity so see them is a cognitive error associated with a valuable skill (i.e. recognizing actual faces). I'm going with (2), but if you were consistent then you would believe (1), since the logic is the same with respect to our ability to percieve intentionality and the 'supernatural'.

J.D.

Ans: Cup flew (arced) horizontally between the TV and our eyes, as it it were hit hard on one side with a hammer, though no impact was heard. Impact was ten feet from point of origin.

Ans 2: The Horse Kick Wound was an event my cousin hadn't thought about in years, but was a well known fact to my mother and aunts.

I could add a BUNCH of other events that are at best statistically improbable.

one thing you should carry with you from this J.D. Not all people who belive in 'stuff undescribed by science' are crackpots or illogical. Some are even Scientists (Einstien).

Please re-read your answers and notice a use of pejorative terms when describing people attempting to explain things they have experienced. I believe bad experiences with less than reputable individuals have prejudiced your judgement (respectfully, good sir). Your mind deserves to be uninhibited. Y'er one smart cookie.

++++++++++

Some thoughts on current Human Behavior: 1) People who are bored and wander into the kitchen, open a cabinet or three and yet find they aren't really hungry are exhibiting a modern Hunting And Gathering reflex. statement: If Bored: Go To Where Food Is, Pick it.

2) Women are more interested in Sales (and the color red, during them) because in Hunting and Gathering Societies, they harvested the majority of food: berries, fruits, tubers (while men hunted for the 20%/protein). When things are Ripe, they are motivated to snatch them up quick.

3) Men remember Sports Statistics better than Birthdays. Why? Men's role was not that of the center of society (= women's) but that of Hunter/Protector. Exchanging/retaining known tactics offered an advantage. (so did working together as a unified group toward a single goal with known social enemies, something I have found uncommon in groups of women)

4) Women remember everything and LOVE to talk about it. = the Center of Society. If you don't belive in the Oral Tradition, give your mom a call

All obvious stereotypes, and not descriptive of all individuals to be sure, but observable behaviors that cross societies.

A bit more where that came from, if interested.

J.D., these are some other theories of mine (I have free time at work grin), care to give them feedback?

Thanks, -Craig

PS: forgot.. why haven't we 'found' Energy? Well, I think plenty fo people interact with it regularly on a conscious level, but we don't have an instrument to detect it predictably. Also, people who don't desire to interact with it, generally don't. Some Martial Arts call it Chi, Ki or Flow and it can lead to very unusual physical abilites (research Aikido's "unbreakable arm")

PPS: J.D. you would love the book "Unconventional Flying Objects" written by a NASA engineer (the guy that invented that flying fan/platform we've all seen). He did a fantastic Scientific look at reliable observations of UFOs, testing hypothoses, form an interesting clonclusion: UFO's follow the laws of physics. Written after he saw two balls rotating around each other doing (what he calculated as) 10+ Gs. Something beyond our science at the time. Was published Posthumously, naturally, though endorsed by an astronaut or two. Is written the way you write. *8)

If we see a face in a cloud it is not a cognitive error. We do not confuse the cloud for an actual person. It is a willful application of pattern recognition. We are taking the features we understand to compose a face and intentionally applying them to the features of the cloud. This is a creative action on the part of the individual who is applying aesthetic value to a mass of water vapor. This behavior does not have an evolutionary benefit but it does carry meaning because of the creative intent.

Corp.Punishment,

"I believe bad experiences with less than reputable individuals have prejudiced your judgement (respectfully, good sir). Your mind deserves to be uninhibited."

My response: Actually it was experience with my own fallibility. I have detected in myself the propensity for gullibility, wishful thinking, and unintentional embellishment of memory, not to mention the tendency to focus on positive hits and disregard negative misses, an inability to intuitively grasp probability, and many, many more cognitive deficiencies and errors that I must constantly strive to correct.

In addition, I have spent considerable time studying magic tricks and various scams that con-artists perennially pull on people, and I know very well that these cognitive deficiencies that I see in myself are very common in the rest of humanity, and are responsible for a great profusion of silly beliefs. Moreover, I have an interest in logic and have studied it in some depth; and as such I am well aware of the huge number of ways that human reasoning can (and all too often does) go astray.

I have nothing personally against ghosts or astral projection or UFOs, there just isn't any good evidence for them as far as I can tell. I say this because every anecdote and report I have ever looked into has been tainted with the sort of human fallibility that I described above, and this apparently has also been the determination of others whose methods of inquiry I share.

Contrast this with other seemingly incredible claims that scientists have found good evidence for -- that life in all its diversity and complexity came from a simple, common ancestor, that the universe is ridiculously gargantuan and absurdly old, or that spacetime itself is relative. I accept these things and not stories about ghosts (even though they are not necessarily any less superficially incredible than ghosts) because they are the products of the scientific method.

This method is a rigorous process that scrubs out as much human fallibility as possible, and hence its products can be trusted far more than those of less rigorous processes. Note that this most rigorous process has thus far not found any ghosts or instances of astral projection. I find it dubious that such things can only be 'detected' by less reliable processes, that are more tainted by human fallibility. If you need an instrument that is unreliable to detect something, that is a very good indication that you are just 'detecting' the shadows cast by the flaws of your instrument.

Having an open mind is indeed a virtue, but equally so, I submit, is skepticism. This means being willing to listen to new claims, and attempting to fairly and charitably investigate them...but also not just accepting these claims unless and until a careful and thorough investigation has shown the claims to be more likely true than not. If, with regards to a particular claim, you cannot mitigate sources of error and rule out the skewing effect of human fallibility, then you really have no business accepting the claim. It would be unwise to believe such claims yourself, and immoral to relate such claims as truth to others.

To illustrate this last point, I have an anecdote about 'Chi': During the Boxer rebellion in China many of the rebels belonged to a school of Chi-based martial arts that they thought would make them invulnerable to bullets. The invading colonial armies soon violently disabused them of this notion. The rebels were 'uninhibited' in accepting the claims about Chi-invulnerability, and this uninhibitedness caused the deaths of countless thousands.

Distaste,

1) Faces, more so than virtually any other object, are much easier to 'see' in clouds and the like. Indeed, it can be hard to not see faces. e.g. I don't know about you, but I have to 'willfully' focus just to NOT see a face in the infamous 'Face on Mars' picture: http://www.csicop.org/si/8512/face-on-mars.jpg

2) Of course most people are sophisticated enough to know that the faces we see are just random configurations that coincidentally resemble faces (though there is the curious phenomenon of sightings of Jesus and Mary in water stains and dirt smudges). But nevertheless, just because we can easily compensate for our cognitive errors does not mean they aren't cognitive errors. For instance, very young babies apparently cannot tell the difference between actual faces and crudely drawn smiley faces -- they have the same cognitive error we do, but they lack the experience to compensate for it.

J.D.

http://www.csicop.org/si/8512/face-on-mars.jpg

What face? I see Darth Vader with a light sabre staring at the Death Star.

Otherwise your points are brilliantly argued - most impressed.

Actually Corp.Punishment. I believe you are insane. grin

The cyclical nature of science is an interesting phenomenon, according to Kuhn the science we think of as science is a normative type and all of its work is essentially pigeonholing observations. Eventually, observations that can't be pigeonholed by current theory pile up enough that some rebellious souls decide its time to rethink some of that paradigm's presuppositions (ie Earth is at the center of the universe, light must be either a particle or a wave) and the whole of science is rebuilt (amid much consternation from the die hards of the old school) and the new rules are tested with both old, already analysed observations and then they are tested with the new, previously incoherent facts.

Many will see in this the inexactitude or fallability of science. I, however, have noted two trends...1) Science doesn't backtrack (ie I highly doubt science will one day go "Ooh, my bad about the origin of species and speciation, it really is all God) while the next theory may seem radically different from the theory it replaces, usually only one or two presuppositions is being upgraded/replaced. and 2) Science has to fight really damn hard against Religion in every society on earth. Many of the 'upgrades' in scientific theory come only as science is effectively able to cast off the yoke of superstition (and prevent its practitioners from being burned at the stake or hanged or whatnot).

I believe that you are either wholehearted lying about your ghost experience because you really want to believe in it or you simply misinterpreted events. I'm not saying that I know for a fact that there aren't any ghosts, any more than I'd say that I know for a fact that there is no God. But I find both propositions unlikely. People constantly sincerely believe that God is talking to them, even people with radically different notions of God. If Allah is Allah and is talking to you and Jehovah is Jehovah and is talking to him and Shiva is Shiva and is talking to her and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, who is of course absolutely real talks to me all the time...do you see where this is going. As only the Flying Spaghetti Monster is real, none of you can hope to be correct about the god to whom you believe you are in direct communique and are most likely being contacted by demons. Wait that was all facetious and I just got really bored with this post. Goodbye.

It is also well understood that the human mind looks for patterns and often sees them even when no clear pattern exists. Essentially, we ignore contrary evidence and place increased significance on supporting evidence. It's like having a dream that your mother goes on a trip and waking up to find out she has died. Most people focus only on that dream and see a pattern. I dreamed she was leaving and she did, therefore my dream foretold her death. But how many dreams of family members leaving on trips, dying or saying cryptic things have not resulted in an actual death? When a dream supports a connection, we tend to forget all the previous dreams that did not.

Same thing perhaps with Corp. Punishment's medicine woman. How many people have encountered your cousin's midsection without "knowing" about the horse kick? Perhaps there was some conversation that tipped her off that you are now forgetting. Magicians use the same trick. David Blaine, for example, can tell you which card you are simply thinking of in your head. When he does this trick, you believe he knows your mind. But, he has manipulated you; he has taken advantage of the way the human mind works. You have willfully forgotten the seemingly insignificant incidents leading up to the trick in which he has "planted" the card in your mind. He waves it in front of you a few times and your subconscious takes note. The "magic" happens and you don't recall the card being shown to you first. The Medicine Woman probably did the same thing. You probably have forgotten the preceding conversation because it seemed at the time totally insignificant, but in reality, she extracted relevant information used to dazzle you.

I find I have a hard time accepting that there are so many religious people around me. It seems like such primitive hogwash. Hard to imagine someone going to church or voting Republican, but I guess it still happens.

Noah,

you are correct, quite a few people have encountered my cousin's midesction without saying "you got kicked here by a horse when you were 10" but funnily enough, not a one to my memory waved their hand over it and said "you got stung here by a bee when you were 12" (or anything like that).

She was new in town (a new college student that later I got to know), and we never talked about the horse kick, not for years. Later, I saw her do the same thing to other people, letting them know what was wrong with them, physically or psychologically and usually how to fix it. She had no need to lie or impress (she was actually a bit embarrassed), but I'll also tell ya, that she could read a 'closed mind' a mile away and NEVER 'introduced' herself to people that would obviously have a negative reaction. Her reason? "they are not ready yet".

Fuck if I know what she meant by that, but I never once got the feeling that she was afraid of much of anything, most espescialy closed minds. I think it was more that she didn't want to jar them in a way that wouldn't be helpful to them.

Now, care to debunk this some more? Or, do you still think I have lied somehow?

Geez people, what will you go through to keep your WorldView intact? shakes head Some things just aren't explainable yet, though I believe that with the correct instruments, ALL OF THIS will fall under Science someday...

Every civilization has thought "we know the answers" only to be proven wrong by the next civilization. Only the arrogant believe they are correct and no other alternative exists, whether Scientist or Religious Person. And frankly, too many people use Current Scientific Knowledge as their new Religion. The article heading this discussion is a perfect example of one Religion (science) trying to stamp out all others.

I suggest holding the attitude that 99% of science is on the ball, while leaving the last 1% open for new ideas, perhaps even things that are totally absurd. Try them on, test them against known theories or equasions. reach for the next great idea!

Also, it is incorrect to assume that the Human Experience does not count as evidence to support a hunch (for more accurate testing). Ex: Humans are the best pattern recognizion devices on the planet. No machine can match us. What else can we do?

Can geese "see" magnetic north? How could you prove it? Would that count as some 'psychic power' to you if they did?

We are just begniing to discover the world...

Enjoy the process! and don't be arrogant. Really is annoying to your friends (just ask em).