One of the most common equivocations is the word "theory". In science, theory means "a logically coherent model well supported by evidence". In popular usage, the definition of "theory" is closer to conjecture or opinion. Do not confuse the two!
Agreed. That's why it's important to ask people for their definitions. "What do you mean by 'theory?'" See if their definition matches the scientific definition. Ask them to explain to you how they understand science works, and how they know this is true. Where did they learn it from? Is that source reliable? They may end up exposing that their understanding of science isn't as thought out as they first thought. They may discover spots where they don't know, or find themselves circling around, trying to rationalize. Once they realize it may not work the way they thought it did... Will they accept the difference in definitions? Are they curious why the discrepancy exists? Would they be willing to revise their definition to match the scientific definition when talking about science? No? They'd much rather prefer to believe that science is a matter of opinion? Then they're doxastically closed and not open to belief revision. You can choose to continue to talk with them to see if they're open to reason, or save yourself time and energy and move on to someone else who is less closed.
I'm in the middle (10+hrs) of listening to a series of lectures he done in the 90's called the history of science. He has the very same approach as he does in this video, but he's lecturing to his peers and some of the Drs who taught him. Very informative. Among my favourites. Available on audible.
Carl Sagan Balony Detection Kit: In the essay "The Dragon in my Garage from the book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle In the Dark", Carl Sagan uses the example of an invisible dragon breathing heatless fire that someone claims lives in his garage. The supposed dragon cannot be seen, heard, or sensed in any way, nor does it leave footprints; thus, there is no reason to believe this purported dragon exists.
IamRangers It did? That's amazing. I wonder what your "view process" was beforehand. I found this to be shallow and facile. "#1. Generalization. One anecdotal example. #2 New generalization. New anecdote. #3 Next new generalization. Next new anecdote." That was pretty much it. You can tell that the fellow is extremely well satisfied with himself, but I don't know what I should get out of that. If you want to think about the scientific method, there are lots better explanations. You could even think about the limits of the scientific method or consider how to draw (or not) inferences from empirical facts. That'd be a bit more challenging than this, "Gee whiz kiddies" bit of fluff. If you're over 12 years of age, I mean.
+Leighton Anderson It was a 15-minute video, how much detail do you require? If you're looking for a complete dissertation on the value and importance of science, maybe you should look someplace other than < 15minute youtube videos.
+0509killer Right. I agree that the 15-minute video was practically worthless. I thought that's what I said in the first place. (Eleven months ago.) But if you liked it, that's cool too.
+Leighton Anderson let's brush up on the reading skills. I never said it was worthless...so you're agreeing with yourself on that point. that's cool though.
See, unlike you I'm not trying to be offensive. I said if you liked it, that's fine with me. I thought you were making the point that a 15-minute video isn't going to provide too much of an education into the scientific method, which I took to be a response to my earlier comment criticizing it is really very shallow. But, again, you liked it, so good for you. I am happy for you. Really. Eleven months after I pointed out how shallow and superficial the thing is, you want to pick a fight with me over ... what. I can't even tell. But maybe you'll learn manners when you're older.
We need critical thinking today, especially with media and the internet. There are people who jump to conclusions and those who are gullible. Always keep an open mind, but remain skeptical.
Absolutely! I'm from Canada and we need to change our children's curriculum. Number one is teach critical thinking. Number two, don't JUST teach a subject, teach them HOW to learn a subject. I remember recitation of my times tables when I was a kid, I had no idea what it meant. 😢
For anyone whos wondering, point 10 and 2 are NOT ad hominems as the validity of the claim is deal with first, then possible reasons (particularly psychological ones) can be discussed for why a person ends up at their faulty decision, not as an actual refutation of the point itself. Baloney is great with pickles but can also completely mess up your life.
I was a hardcore conspiracy theorist in my college years and one day i watched this video and realized that much of what i had believed was nonsense, i dont always agree with shermer but i have to credit him with much of what i believe nowadays, hes been a great inspiration to me
"Have claims been verified by somebody else?" Means: Have the claims withstood extreme tests by the scientific community?" (virtually ALL of the world's religions have TOTALLY failed such tests)
I saw this video about a year ago. It's one of the most important things I've ever learned. I know you'd hear the same things from some people after watching an Oprah episode lol. But I think this is different.
We need to get this topic into mandatory education. Hitting everyone with it twice: once in Middle School, and again in High School. It's our best attack against Facebook, bullshit and Fake News (ahem, NOT the Trump version).
I would add an 11th one (though this was probably covered in part by the others) - will this information profit the population in general, or does it support certain financial interests?
In my definition, science is the best understanding of the world among human beings, of course at the given time. So if someone has different belief than science, that's ok, but he has to beat the intelligence of the most intelligent scientists.
This is a wonderful talk distinguishing scientific mode of learning from methods that are not, but do claim so. I do think however, scientific method is not the only mode of learning. Economics, psychology, Anthropologies etc do not share all the rigors of science, but they are useful in their own way. When I say science does not answer the “meaning” questions, I am not looking down on science, I am simply recognizing limitation of a method that is wonderful otherwise. This is why I do love discussions on consciousness, Advaita etc but dislike people who bring in pseudo scientific claims by their painful attempt to link with quantum physics. So, multiple modes of learning and modeling are valuable - just do not claim what you are not to look more authentic.
I would add another question to your baloney kit, "Does the person making the claim challenging you to prove a negative?" An example would be, "Well, prove that the pyramids were NOT built by aliens." As James Randi said, "You can't prove a negative. I can't prove to you that Santa Claus doesn't exist. I really can't." Or a similar comment by Bertrand Russell, "I can't prove to you that there isn't a China tea set orbiting between Mars and Jupiter." (However, the Easter Bunny is another story. My dad couldn't PROVE to me that it WASN'T the Easter Bunny who left that candy out for me. My Dad said he left it, but I didn't believe him. I still don't. Particularly because he ate some of the candy.)
I really need this. The last time I ordered a sandwich, I got baloney sandwich instead of a pastrami sandwich. But the idiot at the counter insisted it was pastrami, when it was CLEARLY baloney. I KNOW WHAT PASTRAMI LOOKS LIKE!! Anyways, if I had a detection kit I would have had scientific evidence of the fake pastrami.
I'm thinking that the order of the items in this "Baloney Detection Kit" should be re-examined. For example, #1 should have been farther down the list, and I'll say why. If a person is being fooled by a particular class or category of lies, they are not likely to recognize the people spreading related lies as unreliable sources because other people believing the same lies will tend to present such people as trust-worthy. Perhaps #4 should be the first on the list, but I would add if something passes that test to also ask yourself the question of whether the world really VERIFIABLY works the way you think it works. This may seem silly to some people, but it's important because otherwise we may never discover areas in which we have been wrong for a very long time. Anyway, my point is that having tests like this to check the validity of something is a good idea, but the tests themselves should be carefully evaluated as well, and improved upon whenever possible. To me, probably the most important red-flag about any claim is when you are expected to believe it with too little actual evidence, especially when "faith" is placed as a higher priority than making sure it's not a lie first.
fullyawakened I had thought about that. Perhaps they are meant to be equal, or interchangeable, or unequal but with the order unimportant, or whatever, but it was not specified, and it occurred to me that at least in some cases and at least to some extent, the order does matter... so I attempted to make such suggestions for improving it, compared to the order they were listed in. That's all. :)
Totally agree as some seem a bit more important than others at least as far as saving yourself time and effort when researching a topic. If I think I could easily disprove something easily using rule #9 then why bother going step by step through #1-8 right?
fullyawakened Yeah, that's basically what I was saying. There are too many things in this world to investigate for any all of us combined to investigate them all thoroughly, let along each one of us as individuals, but it is good to do much of our own investigation personally when we can, and making the process more efficient would increase how often doing so is a reasonable option.
About a year ago, Mr Shermer was strongly criticized because such pattern recognition help us to survive. Statistics cannot prove statements... He states that there no interest to prove anything...
The trouble for me is that, are we to understand science as from a scientific realism point or as scientific pragmatism or constructive empiricism? And also what about "ceteris paribus laws” in science? I’m just confused that’s all.
I tried this test while in college on every religion that I could find... not a single one passed. No "supernatural belief system" can stand up to scientific scrutiny. That is why, to this day, I am an anti-theist (which is different from an atheist - google it).
@AAH Replies Why don’t you include the full context of Micheal’s words you’ve cherry picked to fit your agenda? It’s ok I’ll quote you Micheal’s explanation of his “abduction” “My abduction experience was triggered by sleep deprivation and physical exhaustion. I had just ridden a bicycle 83 straight hours and 1,259 miles in the opening days of the 3,100-mile nonstop transcontinental Race Across America. I was sleepily weaving down the road when my support motor home flashed its high beams and pulled alongside, and my crew entreated me to take a sleep break. At that moment a distant memory of the 1960s television series The Invaders was inculcated into my waking dream. In the series, alien beings were taking over the earth by replicating actual people but, inexplicably, retained a stiff little finger. Suddenly the members of my support team were transmogrified into aliens. I stared intensely at their fingers and grilled them on both technical and personal matters. After my 90-minute sleep break, the experience represented nothing more than a bizarre hallucination, which I recounted to ABC’s Wide World of Sports television crew filming the race. But at the time the experience was real, and that’s the point. The human capacity for self-delusion is boundless, and the effects of belief are overpowering. Thanks to science we have learned to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.” See? He believed he genuinely had this experience but realised after it wasn’t real despite his brain convincing him it was. You failed the bullshit detector and actually proved Micheal 100% correct by only including a snippet of his words to fit your point, you’re dishnonest! Oh and science isn’t a religion despite your desperation for it to be, I don’t have to believe a plane will fly because I know it does, it’s been proven to me.
I never understood why people attach themselves to political parties or identifying as left/right wing etc. And anytime I try to talk to someone about their opposing political party they just throw insults & say they are better >.< Its so pathetic
Except that that fact can ultimately be nothing more than a red-herring - or merely constitute an ad hominem attack. Point is: it is not necessarily a reliable guide to what is or is not true.
It is completely irrelevant who is paying who or who stands to make money, all that matters is the truth of the statement. Accusing someone of saying something simply for financial gain says literally nothing about how true or false their statement is. Just like steveb said, its a distraction and not an argument, you might as well make fun of their nose or haircut.
Fact: This was posted 9 years ago but it has only accrued 185K views. To date, the most viewed non-music video is still “Charlie Bit My Finger”. (Granted, it’s hysterically funny, but still…) 🙄
+Amber Harrison brain chemistry, actually if you google shermer or sam harris or ramachandran you might find the best explanation for this. My recollection is V.S. Ramachandran. Very entertaining speaker too
+Amber Harrison brain chemistry, actually if you google shermer or sam harris or ramachandran you might find the best explanation for this. My recollection is V.S. Ramachandran. Very entertaining speaker too
There are points in the brain that correlate to memory and if your senses send a signal to the brain that is interpreted even a half second behind other senses… boom, Deja vu
Out of all the possible images to represent superstitious thinking, they chose the oldest video recording of Native Americans performing a culturally significant tradition to their people. This recording was taken only four years after 150 other such Ghost Dancers were assassinated by the U.S. Armed Forces in the Wounded Knee Massacre, one single event in the long and ongoing genocide of first nations, cultural and otherwise. And here we are, 130 years later and America still actively and continuously dehumanize the original inhabitants of the land. Make no mistake: this video representation was a choice. Someone sitting in the editing room had to think "Mhm, what's the best representation of superstitious thinking I could use here?" and had to then decide that this was the most fitting. This is but one step in the continuation of a long standing effort to represent non-white peoples as 'uncivilized', barbarian, superstitious and clearly lesser-than, all the while the U.S. is one of the most religiously fundamentalist countries on the planet, but of course Christianity doesn't count as superstition. Goes to show you how all-pervasive white supremacist thinking is. How about that for baloney?
Ikr. Ironic because in the absence of fearing anything (& not having a deeply spiritual connection to the land), us humans seem to over exploit our environment and destroy ourselves/ all traces of sane society. This whole video, while logical, misses the point humans are inherently a story-telling creatures. Stories being fiction, but are based in at least some aspect or generally "set in" reality to the mind's eye/ imagination... the inherent irrationality/ high predisoposition to being manipulated and indoctrinated from a young age can't seem to be helped (see any youtube comment land pertaining to science &/or religion, very clearly apparent. And bring up any other fictitious religion logically akin to Christianity but more foreign feeling and everybody would call those followers morons I betcha xD But the point of this not being to bash any organized way of thinking. But it is ironic that these videos by their nature won't be fully heard by those that need it most (could maybe be argued it's impossible to get to some people, who already always have their minds made up. But to the rationalist, every detail and fact/ viewpoint we hold most holy should ideally be perpetially open to scrutiny and doubt. Even many institutes of science I've heard are guilty of close mindedness as well But anyways yeah. It is sick how many cultures are seen as "illogical" and "barbaric" in retrospect. As if modern capitalistic industrial society doesn't fit those regards xD... history and propaganda of the age is truly written by those in power
Honestly I had an issue with this too, showing a video of a Native American cultural tradition and calling it "superstitious" is downright offensive. And yeah, its really hypocritical to call their beliefs superstitious but of course ours aren't...its stupid.
When it comes to seeking and finding patterns one big thing must be that for 100.000s years nobody died from running away from shadows in the trees that looked like a predator and those who didn't see patterns... We'll they more often became a meal
@AAH Replies that was quite a story. Wow!.. And you're sure you didn't hallucinate or something? That must've been an intense thing to process afterwards. So it's safe to say that in your case, there's no doubt that aliens really exists and abducted you?!. My first question is, how the hell do you even begin to try to explain what happened to you without fear that people will think you're making it up or are crazy? I know i had an experience with a ufo. Nothing at all like yours. Just witnessed a "cigar" shaped craft 1996 in Stockholm when I was 25. Still haven't told anyone what me and my friend saw. Nobody would believe us or try to come up with explanations to what we saw. I/we have no idea what the hell it was. But we know that it wasn't a blimp or a plane or something like that. Clearly a metal craft "parked" in the sky for minutes. Then gone! In a blink. This world is crazy. And I'm usually the most sceptical man you can think of. Holy crap!.. Your thing?.. What happened after? "woke up" in your car like nothing had happened? No traces on your body or clothes?!.
@AAH Replies hah, 😅 I remember now. His bicycle tournament. I just tried to be polite. I don't believe in aliens or spoonbendings and things like that. Yea he hallucinated. About what I saw, I think it was some secret military stuff. That's all
Him saying about the pyramids being just a pile of rocks when they are very precise and they don't know how to even build them today with all the inner passages seems like he is simplifying that one a bit too much even though I do think Egyptians did it on their own. I agree with his other points though.
Okay, Baloney Detection used on Patterson-Gimlin footage of unusual hominid filmed 1967. 1. How reliable is the source of the claim? A. Film footage evidence. No claim needed. 2. Does the source make similar claims? A. There is no claim made. 3. Have the claims been made by someone else? A. There is no claim made. 4. Does this fit the way the world works? A. It is film evidence of a hominid-like creature. If true then it is simply another species of hominid or a human with verifiably bizarre proportions closer to a Neanderthal. 5. Has anyone tried to disprove the claim? A. Yes, many have tried, but the footage has never been credibly duplicated with historical accuracy. An alternate explanation requires an elaborate and dubious conspiracy theory. 6. Where does the preponderance of evidence point? A. Either a new species of hominid or a human with verifiably bizarre proportions closer to a Neanderthal. 7. Is the claimant playing by the rules of science? A. There is no claim made. 8. Is the claimant providing positive evidence? A. There is only evidence, no claim is made. 9. Does the new theory account for as many phenomena as the old theory? A. Yes. There is already established evidence that other species of hominid have existed. 10. Are personal beliefs driving the claim? A. There is no claim made. In 2017 a new species of orangutan was recognized by science. The reason it took so long is because they were in the mountains near the other two species of orangutan and it was difficult for scientists to get to them. Orangutans are slow moving primates who tend to stay around the same general vicinity. They also have a familiar behavior profile. The subject in the Patterson-Gimlin footage is clearly MUCH faster than an orangutan and seems to be moving quickly through a wooded area much less accessible than a Sumatran rain forest. Also, there is no stigma in pursuing the study of orangutans whereas a study of this as yet unrecognized species of hominid is a risk to a scientist's credibility and is heavily stigmatized. All that is needed is a scientific investigation led by someone willing to risk ridicule and possibly jeopardize their career, the resources to follow and observe a fast moving hominid-like animal which may have a level of intelligence on par with humans, and said scientist would also be risking their life as the creature in question appears as large or larger than humans and may be hostile. Basically, a scientist would be risking their career, possibly their life, and they would need a lot of resources. Gosh, why isn't the evidence piled up to the ceiling? Why don't more people kill something that looks similar to a human? Where are all of the brave scientists with deep financial resources who can pursue a stigmatized subject? It's much easier to simply dismiss it and hope some evidence emerges that can be studied while drinking coffee and pursuing the life of a bureaucrat.
"The pyramids are just a pile of rocks". He should start replicating them. There's plenty of room in the California deserts and I bet he could get a federal grant to do it. He would not only be the worlds most famous scientist to ever exist but also engineer and architect. He could even use modern day equipment to do it to save money, time and man power. He could make money off of it becoming a tourist attraction before it's even completed.
***** The reason I think they would have been more technologically advanced than we think is because the pyramid is estimated to have 2,300,000 blocks weighing between 2 and 30 tons and some 50 tons. I don't believe people handled these with primitive technology especially considering they weren't just thrown in a pile. There are many other things besides these as well. Oh, lets go ahead and have a field day with this. I believe what people think are aliens are in actuality demons.
"We tend to believe..." Huh? I never did ...not from the moments my brain connections started to call out to me "what should my body do?" Again i hear ..."not so open that your brains fall out.." a new meme?
The problem with the global warming issue is not that the planet is evidently warming and becoming more extreme in the weather shifts, it's that the "prescription" is political and there are clearly people benefitting by these politically prescribed "solutions". It's right to question the remedies coming from people and organizations which are connected financially.
Key points 1-10 fine. Video of BIPOC people while he is say "the problem is a lot of patterns are false and superstitious they aren't real" is really not okay at :53 -1:01
Now only if science inspired the same sort of enthusiasm that religion does. Okay, maybe it does. But religion has had quite a head start, and has had time to take root in the pathologically ascetic, and more negative aspects of human nature, while also being an intrinsic part of our brilliantly devised eighteenth century society. There has to be better ways of promoting science; better ways that help mankind.
My detection kit alarm started ringing when i found out Shermer tried to have a book banned because it has a conversation in it that he doesnt want anyone to know about. This guy is a fraud.
Point three seems wrong to me. What if something that happens to someone is deeply personal, if it can't be replicated by others, or let's assume can't be replicated by the same person at another time too. Why does something have to wrong with that? (PS I'm not talking about religious revelation, only pointing out the dogma of science (yes it exists :) which might lead us away from the truth.)
The whole way the skeptical scientific community is handling the claims put forward by Christopher Dunn about twenty years ago in his , "The Giza Power Plant" book should have been setting off all kinds of major alarms for baloney detection against Shermer and his ilk. Dunn is a lead engineer at an aeronautics firm with advanced expertise in laser technology, machining, and tooling technology. When I say Dunn has many years of experience we are talking about someone who has been doing this since before he became an American citizen from England in the year 1969! The first thing you should notice is that none of the critics calling him various names like "pyramidiot" , critics that Shermer and his ilk would agree with by the way, have nowhere near his technical knowledge or expertise. In other words his critics are not engineers, or scientist, and they probably don't have anywhere near his technical knowledge, and they are trying to debunk a theory based on the knowledge that he has gained through many years of engineering experience. That should already set off alarm bells that something is wrong here. But no not with Shermer and his ilk, their minds have already gone to sleep because Dunn's critics are authoritarian scholars and Shermer and his ilk are too afraid to challenge their authority and so in essence Shermer turned his back on scientific and engineering expertise in favor of ignorance. Dunn's critics are basically scholars who don't have the relevant technical experience to know what they or Dunn is talking about. And please don't get me wrong, by all means challenge Dunn's theories, but at least get people who have something approaching his expertise to float various alternative explanations so that Dunn doesn't have to waste a lot of time trying to educate ignorant but extremely arrogant scholars about why their cherished beliefs about how the ancients did things could not possibly account for all the details Dunn sees when he looks at the evidence before him. Get over yourselves scholars you are an embarrassment to critical thinking here. Another key detail that should set off major alarm bells is the utter lack of scientific curiosity on display by Dunn's critics including people like Shermer. The whole book is a lead up to a power plant even more advanced than anything we have today. Are his critics even remotely interested in the question of whether or not such a power plant could actually work, that Dunn could be reverse engineering a system we could use and benefit from today as a future source of clean renewable energy? Nope. We can look high and low over their various criticisms and we don't find any one of his critics trying to answer that question. Probably most of them don't feel qualified to answer that question because they are not engineers or scientist after all--but then maybe they should have disqualified themselves on the same basis from their general criticisms from the very beginning. No with Dunn's critics the major point seems to be that Dunn challenged the orthodox view of things and should be punished and ridiculed accordingly, whether or not such a system could actually work seems rather besides the point for them. Amazing! What do engineers and scientist who are much more qualified to pass judgments on this system think? That is a good question one I've been trying to ask for quite sometime now. Invariably one is met with a wall of silence should they seek to answer this question. Before they can pass judgment most of them would actually have to read his work and become acquainted with the theory. Most of them probably haven't because why would they? When seemingly level headed people like Shermer and his ilk call Dunn a pyramidiot and suggest he is a "woo" engineer most of them are are probably not even going to bother reading what Dunn has to say, so most of them don't even know his energy theory. Of the few remaining who do read his work and have some kind of relevant scientific background one wonders if they did agree with Dunn that it could work would they have the courage to stand by that conviction if it meant being called a pyramidiot and ridiculed and dismissed by academia? Probably not! Certainly I don't think Shermer has that kind courage even if he did have the relevant background. So for someone like me who maybe interested in exploring these ideas as a possible energy source for the future how do I overcome all the silence? At one point I even tried to get General Electric interested in building a power plant that worked on the principles that Dunn outlined in his work. Nope we are not interested in doing it was their answer. Why not? Silence! They never got back to me! The problem with silence is you can't debate silence, you can't reason with silence so that is a very big foe that someone like me has to fight, and I'm working on it. Right now I'm trying to convince a French team of filmmakers who are interested in Dunn's work to create a documentary that focuses on his energy theory. My hope is that maybe such a work can gather enough publicity so that more scientist and engineers will feel they must weigh in on the technical questions that are currently being ignored. To give some of you some idea of how advanced Dunn's system would be if we could replicate it today let me say this. Dunn's theory posited that the great pyramid worked as a coupled oscillator, yes but to what? It worked on the principle of resonance and made use of Helmholtz type resonators long before Helmholtz himself existed. Yes but what was the source that it amplified through resonance? The Earth's hum, or at least this is what the clues Dunn uncovered led him to speculate. What is the Earth's hum? Sounds like a "woo" concept some of you might be thinking. The Earth's hum is a purely mechanical vibration produced by the Earth on a continuous basis even though you can't feel it because it operates in a Hertz range beyond what you can feel. You might be forgiven in thinking this is a "woo" concept at the time Dunn postulated this in his book Dunn had no way of proving that this hum even existed, much less what Hertz range it operated in. However, the interesting thing that I recently discovered by corresponding with Dunn, is that a little after he published his book, but in the same year it just so happens that a Japanese team, of scientist, totally independent of Dunn's work, was able to confirm that this hum actually existed, and the precise Hertz range it operated in, and they were able to publish their findings! So we are talking about an energy system that would be sustained on a perpetual basis by an energy source produced by the Earth we didn't even know existed as recently as as twenty years ago, that uses a resonance process of amplification that is well known to science!! So just maybe Dunn is not so "woo" after all! I have learned through correspondence that Dunn is working on updating this and many other things that have come to light since he published his book in a new, revised edition. In the meantime while these things are in the works I hope my words can inspire those with the relevant scientific background to learn the theory and break the silence. Even if it is just to criticize the work by all means do so. However if you find that it might work I hope you have the courage to stand up to any authority and fight for something that can benefit mankind in the future. There might be other fears you might have to overcome along the way. Many of you are hardened atheist who just know how religions began. At this point you might have to face the notion that maybe there were people who lived in ancient times whose technological understanding was so advanced they appeared as Gods to others, and this is how religions began. Well where is the evidence of things that used this power system in the ruins? This might be a valid question, however one might ask where is the capstone that sat on top of the pyramid? If that was taken, why? to where? Maybe other things have been taken as well. Why? I don't know why this may have been done, but perhaps there is an ominous reason behind it all. After all what sits in front of the great Pyramid as guard? The Sphinx! What does the word Sphinx literally mean? It literally translates into, "The father of terrors". When something with such an ominous title literally stands guard in front of the thing you are trying to explore it just might be a warning that what you may discover may shock you to the core! What are we talking about? I have no idea but for the greater good I hope we have the courage to face whatever it might be.
Detection kit item number eleven: Just one question: DO you really believe you are smarter than tens of thousands of scientists, like Hawking, Newton, Fermi,Oppenheimer, Einstein, et al.? You found something they missed...right?
I'm not that good with acronyms so I looked it up on Wikipedia but that didn't make it any clearer. Which of these do you mean? I'm hoping for the beef one myself. =) Family Tax Benefit, a component of social security in Australia Fifth Third Bank (5/3 Bank) FITB, U.S. regional banking corporation, headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio First Trust Bank, a commercial bank in Northern Ireland A First Time Buyer in the United Kingdom property market California Franchise Tax Board, a California state agency that collects taxes Canon FTb, 35mm single-lens reflex camera Fukui Television Broadcasting Flower Travellin' Band, a Japanese rock band Follow That Bird, a motion picture "Finely Textured Beef", an edible beef product derived from beef-fat trimmings Feed the Beast, Bonded by Blood's debut album Feed-the-beast, a popular mod-pack for Minecraft I was thinking Facebook since a lot of crap seems to be spread there but I couldn't get the T (in FTB) to fit.
ScottishAtheist The ones that run the Atheist Experience among other things? Ahh thank you for telling me. But I don't understand why they in particular need to be taking notes. They are very rational and good at using the scientific process in my experience. Unless of course "Hugh Jarce" is just another troll/fundie. On another note I find it strange that other people can see my comment when I can't see it myself. I can only respond to you thru my notification thing.
***** "The ones that run the Atheist Experience among other things?" I don't know about that, I don't think they are. Maybe Matt Dillahunty? "But I don't understand why they in particular need to be taking notes. They are very rational and good at using the scientific process in my experience." PZ Myers and possibly others at FTB published some sordid allegations of sexual harassment against Shermer. Lawyers got involved, much drama, that's as much as I know. I guess the taking notes part is not to jump to conclusions until the facts are known. Bad skeptical form.
Instructors: for a nice lesson in skepticism/critical thinking created specifically for this video, consider using this question set. www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/TH-cam-Skepticism-Baloney-Detection-Kit-4410249
this is my shortlist for whether or not to believe some claim someone made: 1: magic doesn't exist. 2: miracles don't exist. 3: paranormal phenomena don't exist. 4: god doesn't exist. 5: science is real.
Has this guy not seen what happens when scientists are paid to report certain things. Doesn't anyone remember when we were told by doctors that smoking was good for our health?
Steven Dennis Point 3: Have the claims been verified by somebody else? How do we now know that smoking is actually not good for your health? Somebody else checked the data and found positive indications of "Baloney".
The apostle Paul's letter to Timothy: Second Timothy 1. This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3. Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4. Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. 6. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, 7. Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. 9. But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was. 10. But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, 11. Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me. 12. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. 13. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. 14. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; 15. And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17. That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
@AAH Replies - He was hallucinating due too extreme sleep deprivation, according to his own statements... From his own website... "My abduction experience was triggered by sleep deprivation and physical exhaustion. I had just ridden a bicycle 83 straight hours and 1,259 miles in the opening days of the 3,100-mile nonstop transcontinental Race Across America. I was sleepily weaving down the road when my support motor home flashed its high beams and pulled alongside, and my crew entreated me to take a sleep break. At that moment a distant memory of the 1960s television series The Invaders was inculcated into my waking dream. In the series, alien beings were taking over the earth by replicating actual people but, inexplicably, retained a stiff little finger. Suddenly the members of my support team were transmogrified into aliens. I stared intensely at their fingers and grilled them on both technical and personal matters. After my 90-minute sleep break, the experience represented nothing more than a bizarre hallucination, which I recounted to ABC’s Wide World of Sports television crew filming the race. But at the time the experience was real, and that’s the point. The human capacity for self-delusion is boundless, and the effects of belief are overpowering. Thanks to science we have learned to tell the difference between fantasy and reality." I'm going to assume you didn't realize that he is not "promoting aliens".
@AAH Replies Let's have a look at your latest post, shall we... "has it not occurred to you that passing something off, that seemed entirely real to him at the time, by using the word 'hallucination ' is not just a complete cop out but explains nothing. Where did this come from - this fantasy he believes himself to have experienced - it explains nothing. Perhaps everything you and he are experiencing is a fantasy, a waking dream, and you are hallucinating what you blithely call 'reality'. If the world is a quantum world, what you are exeriencing is a total and continuous hallucination Maybe what he experienced is closer to 'reality' and much of the rest of his life has been a hallucination contructed for him by his mind"
It's just continuing in his teaching, skeptical thinking isn't something Carl sagan came up with, he probably 'ripped off' the big names in skeptisism that came before him.
He’s saying there’s no evidence of any alternative idea, that’s how this detection kit works. No evidence? Then it can’t be considered end of. There’s evidence of when and by whom the pyramids were built, as he says it was the Egyptians!
MATERIALISM contradicts itself and proves God 1. Materialism assumes all reality is made of MATTER and ENERGY 2. INFORMATION is always encoded in matter or energy 3. So assumes information comes from mass + energy 4. But we know from Claude Shannon information is a COMMUNICATION requiring an ENCODED LANGUAGE 5. But language only comes from a MIND 6. So matter + energy cannot be the source of information 7. Since the origin of information can only be a mind 8. If reality includes information predicting its origin from a mind that mind must be outside of our reality ie *GOD!*
One of the most common equivocations is the word "theory".
In science, theory means "a logically coherent model well supported by evidence".
In popular usage, the definition of "theory" is closer to conjecture or opinion.
Do not confuse the two!
Evolution is just a theory!
Agreed. That's why it's important to ask people for their definitions. "What do you mean by 'theory?'" See if their definition matches the scientific definition. Ask them to explain to you how they understand science works, and how they know this is true. Where did they learn it from? Is that source reliable? They may end up exposing that their understanding of science isn't as thought out as they first thought. They may discover spots where they don't know, or find themselves circling around, trying to rationalize. Once they realize it may not work the way they thought it did...
Will they accept the difference in definitions? Are they curious why the discrepancy exists? Would they be willing to revise their definition to match the scientific definition when talking about science? No? They'd much rather prefer to believe that science is a matter of opinion?
Then they're doxastically closed and not open to belief revision. You can choose to continue to talk with them to see if they're open to reason, or save yourself time and energy and move on to someone else who is less closed.
Joshua Nicholls gravity is a theory too
But I don’t think you are gonna jump from your balcony screaming it
@@christos5332 I'm pretty sure he was just being humerous.
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Four years ago, watching this presentation has radically changed my perception of the world.
I'm in the middle (10+hrs) of listening to a series of lectures he done in the 90's called the history of science. He has the very same approach as he does in this video, but he's lecturing to his peers and some of the Drs who taught him. Very informative. Among my favourites.
Available on audible.
Carl Sagan Balony Detection Kit:
In the essay "The Dragon in my Garage from the book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle In the Dark", Carl Sagan uses the example of an invisible dragon breathing heatless fire that someone claims lives in his garage. The supposed dragon cannot be seen, heard, or sensed in any way, nor does it leave footprints; thus, there is no reason to believe this purported dragon exists.
@AAH Replies - Again, This is simply wrong, and I suspect you know this and are deliberately lying about it.
It's good to see someone continuing Carl Sagan's brilliant boloney detection kit. since Carl Sagan left us way too soon. he is definitely missed.
So you're applauding Shermer?
Was hoping this Baloney Detection Kit video was going to show how to detect deli meats. Very disappointed.
srsly? lol
Belatedly, I appreciate your humor
:)
but if it the video sunk in, you will have superior life skills...and deli meats will be a simple issue....
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4 People Don't Want Their Baloney Detected
PixelSlayer247 it's up to 52 now!
I wish early education focused more on teaching children the scientific method.
Agreed
sadly, most teachers have never heard of it .
2:46 Brilliant! Excelent idea! This needs to be understood by everyone.
I am not going to lie, this was a terrific vid. Really challenged my view process.
IamRangers It did? That's amazing. I wonder what your "view process" was beforehand. I found this to be shallow and facile. "#1. Generalization. One anecdotal example. #2 New generalization. New anecdote. #3 Next new generalization. Next new anecdote."
That was pretty much it. You can tell that the fellow is extremely well satisfied with himself, but I don't know what I should get out of that. If you want to think about the scientific method, there are lots better explanations. You could even think about the limits of the scientific method or consider how to draw (or not) inferences from empirical facts. That'd be a bit more challenging than this, "Gee whiz kiddies" bit of fluff. If you're over 12 years of age, I mean.
+Leighton Anderson It was a 15-minute video, how much detail do you require? If you're looking for a complete dissertation on the value and importance of science, maybe you should look someplace other than < 15minute youtube videos.
+0509killer Right. I agree that the 15-minute video was practically worthless. I thought that's what I said in the first place. (Eleven months ago.) But if you liked it, that's cool too.
+Leighton Anderson let's brush up on the reading skills. I never said it was worthless...so you're agreeing with yourself on that point. that's cool though.
See, unlike you I'm not trying to be offensive. I said if you liked it, that's fine with me. I thought you were making the point that a 15-minute video isn't going to provide too much of an education into the scientific method, which I took to be a response to my earlier comment criticizing it is really very shallow. But, again, you liked it, so good for you. I am happy for you. Really. Eleven months after I pointed out how shallow and superficial the thing is, you want to pick a fight with me over ... what. I can't even tell. But maybe you'll learn manners when you're older.
This is the video featuring the happiest Michael Shermer ❕.
Honestly I just loved it that way ❣️
Justin is the perfect moderator/interviewer..so intelligent and courteous.
We need critical thinking today, especially with media and the internet. There are people who jump to conclusions and those who are gullible. Always keep an open mind, but remain skeptical.
Absolutely!
I'm from Canada and we need to change our children's curriculum. Number one is teach critical thinking. Number two, don't JUST teach a subject, teach them HOW to learn a subject. I remember recitation of my times tables when I was a kid, I had no idea what it meant. 😢
5:30 This is why you should always argue anonymously on the internet for months before going public with a new idea.
9:25 I'd like to inform you, Mr. Shermer, that there are actually 30+ million bipedal hominids running around in Canada. :)
NEW one?
As a Canadian, I can confirm that. Especially in Scarborough!
For anyone whos wondering, point 10 and 2 are NOT ad hominems as the validity of the claim is deal with first, then possible reasons (particularly psychological ones) can be discussed for why a person ends up at their faulty decision, not as an actual refutation of the point itself.
Baloney is great with pickles but can also completely mess up your life.
Epic video by Michael Shermer
I was a hardcore conspiracy theorist in my college years and one day i watched this video and realized that much of what i had believed was nonsense, i dont always agree with shermer but i have to credit him with much of what i believe nowadays, hes been a great inspiration to me
"Have claims been verified by somebody else?"
Means: Have the claims withstood extreme tests by the scientific community?"
(virtually ALL of the world's religions have TOTALLY failed such tests)
I saw this video about a year ago. It's one of the most important things I've ever learned. I know you'd hear the same things from some people after watching an Oprah episode lol. But I think this is different.
Baloney is a lighter word than I would have used :P
This is a great primer on the scientific method :D
Starts with a B, doesn't it?
Dan Strayer Only one of them does. I have many words :)
@AAH Replies You sure those bright lights weren't an oncoming truck? Funny this kind of thing doesn't happen any more in the era of dashcams.
@AAH Replies And what "religion" is that, exactly?
@AAH Replies You're the one who said it was Michael Shermer's "religion," not God. Back up your statement, please.
Wonderful video. It is so clear and practical too. Well done!
We need to get this topic into mandatory education. Hitting everyone with it twice: once in Middle School, and again in High School.
It's our best attack against Facebook, bullshit and Fake News (ahem, NOT the Trump version).
And yet, we have good evidence. What have you got?
I would add an 11th one (though this was probably covered in part by the others) - will this information profit the population in general, or does it support certain financial interests?
In my definition, science is the best understanding of the world among human beings, of course at the given time. So if someone has different belief than science, that's ok, but he has to beat the intelligence of the most intelligent scientists.
This is a wonderful talk distinguishing scientific mode of learning from methods that are not, but do claim so. I do think however, scientific method is not the only mode of learning. Economics, psychology, Anthropologies etc do not share all the rigors of science, but they are useful in their own way. When I say science does not answer the “meaning” questions, I am not looking down on science, I am simply recognizing limitation of a method that is wonderful otherwise. This is why I do love discussions on consciousness, Advaita etc but dislike people who bring in pseudo scientific claims by their painful attempt to link with quantum physics. So, multiple
modes of learning and modeling are valuable - just do not claim what you are not to look more authentic.
This is essential viewing.
People believe what they want to believe.
Brilliant analysis! The best 15 minutes you will spend to put you on the right track to truth. This guy has inherited the mantle of Carl Sagan.
damn, I hoped this was about detecting the lunch meat. :(
Oh dear I've just read the comments further below and its all kicking off with verbal aggression and violent threats. shame
I would add another question to your baloney kit, "Does the person making the claim challenging you to prove a negative?" An example would be, "Well, prove that the pyramids were NOT built by aliens." As James Randi said, "You can't prove a negative. I can't prove to you that Santa Claus doesn't exist. I really can't." Or a similar comment by Bertrand Russell, "I can't prove to you that there isn't a China tea set orbiting between Mars and Jupiter." (However, the Easter Bunny is another story. My dad couldn't PROVE to me that it WASN'T the Easter Bunny who left that candy out for me. My Dad said he left it, but I didn't believe him. I still don't. Particularly because he ate some of the candy.)
I really need this. The last time I ordered a sandwich, I got baloney sandwich instead of a pastrami sandwich. But the idiot at the counter insisted it was pastrami, when it was CLEARLY baloney. I KNOW WHAT PASTRAMI LOOKS LIKE!! Anyways, if I had a detection kit I would have had scientific evidence of the fake pastrami.
Can we somehow make everyone in the world watch and understand this?
Measurement errors do not necessarily cancel each other out.
I'm thinking that the order of the items in this "Baloney Detection Kit" should be re-examined. For example, #1 should have been farther down the list, and I'll say why. If a person is being fooled by a particular class or category of lies, they are not likely to recognize the people spreading related lies as unreliable sources because other people believing the same lies will tend to present such people as trust-worthy. Perhaps #4 should be the first on the list, but I would add if something passes that test to also ask yourself the question of whether the world really VERIFIABLY works the way you think it works. This may seem silly to some people, but it's important because otherwise we may never discover areas in which we have been wrong for a very long time. Anyway, my point is that having tests like this to check the validity of something is a good idea, but the tests themselves should be carefully evaluated as well, and improved upon whenever possible. To me, probably the most important red-flag about any claim is when you are expected to believe it with too little actual evidence, especially when "faith" is placed as a higher priority than making sure it's not a lie first.
I'm pretty sure the list is not in an order of importance. All ten questions should be applied in equal measure.
fullyawakened I had thought about that. Perhaps they are meant to be equal, or interchangeable, or unequal but with the order unimportant, or whatever, but it was not specified, and it occurred to me that at least in some cases and at least to some extent, the order does matter... so I attempted to make such suggestions for improving it, compared to the order they were listed in. That's all. :)
Totally agree as some seem a bit more important than others at least as far as saving yourself time and effort when researching a topic. If I think I could easily disprove something easily using rule #9 then why bother going step by step through #1-8 right?
fullyawakened Yeah, that's basically what I was saying. There are too many things in this world to investigate for any all of us combined to investigate them all thoroughly, let along each one of us as individuals, but it is good to do much of our own investigation personally when we can, and making the process more efficient would increase how often doing so is a reasonable option.
The alarms should go off on Egyptology with bells and whistles.
About a year ago, Mr Shermer was strongly criticized because such pattern recognition help us to survive.
Statistics cannot prove statements... He states that there no interest to prove anything...
YES.. Always follow the data, not your believes
Everyone sharing "Plandemic" needs to come back here and watch this video first...
It was planned 😂, do the research not that hard to find out
The trouble for me is that, are we to understand science as from a scientific realism point or as scientific pragmatism or constructive empiricism? And also what about "ceteris paribus laws” in science? I’m just confused that’s all.
He probably made this for Deepak Chopra 😂😂
Chopra is just word salad
"Not even wrong" != Rational-Wiki - This video is great stuff.
How do we know that this science detection kit isn't faulty itself?
Test it out for yourself!
Because it TESTS ITSELF!
Still fire after all the years
🔥🔥🔥
I tried this test while in college on every religion that I could find... not a single one passed.
No "supernatural belief system" can stand up to scientific scrutiny.
That is why, to this day, I am an anti-theist (which is different from an atheist - google it).
@AAH Replies Why don’t you include the full context of Micheal’s words you’ve cherry picked to fit your agenda? It’s ok I’ll quote you Micheal’s explanation of his “abduction”
“My abduction experience was triggered by sleep deprivation and physical exhaustion. I had just ridden a bicycle 83 straight hours and 1,259 miles in the opening days of the 3,100-mile nonstop transcontinental Race Across America. I was sleepily weaving down the road when my support motor home flashed its high beams and pulled alongside, and my crew entreated me to take a sleep break. At that moment a distant memory of the 1960s television series The Invaders was inculcated into my waking dream. In the series, alien beings were taking over the earth by replicating actual people but, inexplicably, retained a stiff little finger. Suddenly the members of my support team were transmogrified into aliens. I stared intensely at their fingers and grilled them on both technical and personal matters.
After my 90-minute sleep break, the experience represented nothing more than a bizarre hallucination, which I recounted to ABC’s Wide World of Sports television crew filming the race. But at the time the experience was real, and that’s the point. The human capacity for self-delusion is boundless, and the effects of belief are overpowering. Thanks to science we have learned to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.”
See? He believed he genuinely had this experience but realised after it wasn’t real despite his brain convincing him it was. You failed the bullshit detector and actually proved Micheal 100% correct by only including a snippet of his words to fit your point, you’re dishnonest!
Oh and science isn’t a religion despite your desperation for it to be, I don’t have to believe a plane will fly because I know it does, it’s been proven to me.
I never understood why people attach themselves to political parties or identifying as left/right wing etc. And anytime I try to talk to someone about their opposing political party they just throw insults & say they are better >.< Its so pathetic
Arkaidyn en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribalism
Arkaidyn | Senpai -´
And you think that the position you take when you say that is not political? It's pathetic.
@@chAlfred76 point proven with this comment right here,there's Always one....
One more that should be added to this kit. "Follow the Money"
Who stands to gain (money) for this idea ?
Good one!
Yes a very good point! I would say it is almost more important than all of the ones that Shermer listed.
Except that that fact can ultimately be nothing more than a red-herring - or merely constitute an ad hominem attack. Point is: it is not necessarily a reliable guide to what is or is not true.
It is completely irrelevant who is paying who or who stands to make money, all that matters is the truth of the statement. Accusing someone of saying something simply for financial gain says literally nothing about how true or false their statement is. Just like steveb said, its a distraction and not an argument, you might as well make fun of their nose or haircut.
That would fall under #10.
Fact: This was posted 9 years ago but it has only accrued 185K views. To date, the most viewed non-music video is still “Charlie Bit My Finger”. (Granted, it’s hysterically funny, but still…) 🙄
Very interesting video. I lean more towards the science side as well. A bit off topic, but whats the explanation for Déjà vu?
As far as I'm aware, there are many hypotheses, but none have been firmly established yet.
+Amber Harrison brain chemistry, actually if you google shermer or sam harris or ramachandran you might find the best explanation for this. My recollection is V.S. Ramachandran. Very entertaining speaker too
+Amber Harrison brain chemistry, actually if you google shermer or sam harris or ramachandran you might find the best explanation for this. My recollection is V.S. Ramachandran. Very entertaining speaker too
There are points in the brain that correlate to memory and if your senses send a signal to the brain that is interpreted even a half second behind other senses… boom, Deja vu
Out of all the possible images to represent superstitious thinking, they chose the oldest video recording of Native Americans performing a culturally significant tradition to their people. This recording was taken only four years after 150 other such Ghost Dancers were assassinated by the U.S. Armed Forces in the Wounded Knee Massacre, one single event in the long and ongoing genocide of first nations, cultural and otherwise.
And here we are, 130 years later and America still actively and continuously dehumanize the original inhabitants of the land. Make no mistake: this video representation was a choice. Someone sitting in the editing room had to think "Mhm, what's the best representation of superstitious thinking I could use here?" and had to then decide that this was the most fitting. This is but one step in the continuation of a long standing effort to represent non-white peoples as 'uncivilized', barbarian, superstitious and clearly lesser-than, all the while the U.S. is one of the most religiously fundamentalist countries on the planet, but of course Christianity doesn't count as superstition.
Goes to show you how all-pervasive white supremacist thinking is. How about that for baloney?
Ikr. Ironic because in the absence of fearing anything (& not having a deeply spiritual connection to the land), us humans seem to over exploit our environment and destroy ourselves/ all traces of sane society.
This whole video, while logical, misses the point humans are inherently a story-telling creatures. Stories being fiction, but are based in at least some aspect or generally "set in" reality to the mind's eye/ imagination... the inherent irrationality/ high predisoposition to being manipulated and indoctrinated from a young age can't seem to be helped (see any youtube comment land pertaining to science &/or religion, very clearly apparent. And bring up any other fictitious religion logically akin to Christianity but more foreign feeling and everybody would call those followers morons I betcha xD
But the point of this not being to bash any organized way of thinking. But it is ironic that these videos by their nature won't be fully heard by those that need it most (could maybe be argued it's impossible to get to some people, who already always have their minds made up. But to the rationalist, every detail and fact/ viewpoint we hold most holy should ideally be perpetially open to scrutiny and doubt. Even many institutes of science I've heard are guilty of close mindedness as well
But anyways yeah. It is sick how many cultures are seen as "illogical" and "barbaric" in retrospect. As if modern capitalistic industrial society doesn't fit those regards xD... history and propaganda of the age is truly written by those in power
Honestly I had an issue with this too, showing a video of a Native American cultural tradition and calling it "superstitious" is downright offensive. And yeah, its really hypocritical to call their beliefs superstitious but of course ours aren't...its stupid.
I usually look for an Oscar Meyer label when seeking baloney.
When it comes to seeking and finding patterns one big thing must be that for 100.000s years nobody died from running away from shadows in the trees that looked like a predator and those who didn't see patterns... We'll they more often became a meal
@AAH Replies that was quite a story. Wow!.. And you're sure you didn't hallucinate or something? That must've been an intense thing to process afterwards. So it's safe to say that in your case, there's no doubt that aliens really exists and abducted you?!. My first question is, how the hell do you even begin to try to explain what happened to you without fear that people will think you're making it up or are crazy? I know i had an experience with a ufo. Nothing at all like yours. Just witnessed a "cigar" shaped craft 1996 in Stockholm when I was 25. Still haven't told anyone what me and my friend saw. Nobody would believe us or try to come up with explanations to what we saw. I/we have no idea what the hell it was. But we know that it wasn't a blimp or a plane or something like that. Clearly a metal craft "parked" in the sky for minutes. Then gone! In a blink. This world is crazy. And I'm usually the most sceptical man you can think of. Holy crap!.. Your thing?.. What happened after? "woke up" in your car like nothing had happened? No traces on your body or clothes?!.
@AAH Replies hah, 😅 I remember now. His bicycle tournament. I just tried to be polite. I don't believe in aliens or spoonbendings and things like that. Yea he hallucinated. About what I saw, I think it was some secret military stuff. That's all
The list boils down to corollaries of Baye's Method
Him saying about the pyramids being just a pile of rocks when they are very precise and they don't know how to even build them today with all the inner passages seems like he is simplifying that one a bit too much even though I do think Egyptians did it on their own. I agree with his other points though.
Yes... we CAN build them today. Just not with ancient tools.
Okay, Baloney Detection used on Patterson-Gimlin footage of unusual hominid filmed 1967.
1. How reliable is the source of the claim?
A. Film footage evidence. No claim needed.
2. Does the source make similar claims?
A. There is no claim made.
3. Have the claims been made by someone else?
A. There is no claim made.
4. Does this fit the way the world works?
A. It is film evidence of a hominid-like creature. If true then it is simply another species of hominid or a human with verifiably bizarre proportions closer to a Neanderthal.
5. Has anyone tried to disprove the claim?
A. Yes, many have tried, but the footage has never been credibly duplicated with historical accuracy. An alternate explanation requires an elaborate and dubious conspiracy theory.
6. Where does the preponderance of evidence point?
A. Either a new species of hominid or a human with verifiably bizarre proportions closer to a Neanderthal.
7. Is the claimant playing by the rules of science?
A. There is no claim made.
8. Is the claimant providing positive evidence?
A. There is only evidence, no claim is made.
9. Does the new theory account for as many phenomena as the old theory?
A. Yes. There is already established evidence that other species of hominid have existed.
10. Are personal beliefs driving the claim?
A. There is no claim made.
In 2017 a new species of orangutan was recognized by science. The reason it took so long is because they were in the mountains near the other two species of orangutan and it was difficult for scientists to get to them. Orangutans are slow moving primates who tend to stay around the same general vicinity. They also have a familiar behavior profile.
The subject in the Patterson-Gimlin footage is clearly MUCH faster than an orangutan and seems to be moving quickly through a wooded area much less accessible than a Sumatran rain forest. Also, there is no stigma in pursuing the study of orangutans whereas a study of this as yet unrecognized species of hominid is a risk to a scientist's credibility and is heavily stigmatized. All that is needed is a scientific investigation led by someone willing to risk ridicule and possibly jeopardize their career, the resources to follow and observe a fast moving hominid-like animal which may have a level of intelligence on par with humans, and said scientist would also be risking their life as the creature in question appears as large or larger than humans and may be hostile.
Basically, a scientist would be risking their career, possibly their life, and they would need a lot of resources. Gosh, why isn't the evidence piled up to the ceiling? Why don't more people kill something that looks similar to a human? Where are all of the brave scientists with deep financial resources who can pursue a stigmatized subject? It's much easier to simply dismiss it and hope some evidence emerges that can be studied while drinking coffee and pursuing the life of a bureaucrat.
I love scieŋce!.
"The pyramids are just a pile of rocks". He should start replicating them. There's plenty of room in the California deserts and I bet he could get a federal grant to do it. He would not only be the worlds most famous scientist to ever exist but also engineer and architect. He could even use modern day equipment to do it to save money, time and man power. He could make money off of it becoming a tourist attraction before it's even completed.
***** Are you implying that it would be as simple as piling up rocks?
***** And you think they just simply piled up rocks?
***** oops, forgot to add the very carefully part.
***** Either they had way more technology than we give them credit for or it was an outside force, maybe both.
***** The reason I think they would have been more technologically advanced than we think is because the pyramid is estimated to have 2,300,000 blocks weighing between 2 and 30 tons and some 50 tons. I don't believe people handled these with primitive technology especially considering they weren't just thrown in a pile. There are many other things besides these as well.
Oh, lets go ahead and have a field day with this. I believe what people think are aliens are in actuality demons.
"We tend to believe..." Huh? I never did ...not from the moments my brain connections started to call out to me "what should my body do?"
Again i hear ..."not so open that your brains fall out.." a new meme?
The problem with the global warming issue is not that the planet is evidently warming and becoming more extreme in the weather shifts, it's that the "prescription" is political and there are clearly people benefitting by these politically prescribed "solutions". It's right to question the remedies coming from people and organizations which are connected financially.
Professor Wilson of SSC bought me here haha
Key points 1-10 fine. Video of BIPOC people while he is say "the problem is a lot of patterns are false and superstitious they aren't real" is really not okay at :53 -1:01
Now only if science inspired the same sort of enthusiasm that religion does. Okay, maybe it does. But religion has had quite a head start, and has had time to take root in the pathologically ascetic, and more negative aspects of human nature, while also being an intrinsic part of our brilliantly devised eighteenth century society. There has to be better ways of promoting science; better ways that help mankind.
Love this.
What about wishful theory ? Were some people wish what their disturbed minds have come up with is fact.
My detection kit alarm started ringing when i found out Shermer tried to have a book banned because it has a conversation in it that he doesnt want anyone to know about. This guy is a fraud.
What book, please don't post something without telling the whole story... My baloney detector went off on your comment
Just search michael shermer and david cole. Its on yt.
rikiwakwak found it, thanks for pointing me to it
Yup no prob
Eh, it was a dumb thing to do, but you can see why he'd be against a holocaust denier.
I have something better. It's called a bullshit detection kit.
haha you gotta love this guy! even though i m Christian and he is an atheist :(
13:46 the computer says searchy haha
Point three seems wrong to me. What if something that happens to someone is deeply personal, if it can't be replicated by others, or let's assume can't be replicated by the same person at another time too. Why does something have to wrong with that? (PS I'm not talking about religious revelation, only pointing out the dogma of science (yes it exists :) which might lead us away from the truth.)
If you're taking this dumbass seriously, then that's your problem.
In that wall of text you’ve not actually given an example of “something deeply personal” what specifically? Fed up with word salads like this.
Baloney Detection Kit? I'm calling baloney on THAT. 🤭 'Baloney' is clearly a tongue-in-cheek euphemism for the sceptic's preferred 'B'-word: 🐂💩!
The whole way the skeptical scientific community is handling the claims put forward by Christopher Dunn about twenty years ago in his , "The Giza Power Plant" book should have been setting off all kinds of major alarms for baloney detection against Shermer and his ilk. Dunn is a lead engineer at an aeronautics firm with advanced expertise in laser technology, machining, and tooling technology. When I say Dunn has many years of experience we are talking about someone who has been doing this since before he became an American citizen from England in the year 1969! The first thing you should notice is that none of the critics calling him various names like "pyramidiot" , critics that Shermer and his ilk would agree with by the way, have nowhere near his technical knowledge or expertise. In other words his critics are not engineers, or scientist, and they probably don't have anywhere near his technical knowledge, and they are trying to debunk a theory based on the knowledge that he has gained through many years of engineering experience. That should already set off alarm bells that something is wrong here. But no not with Shermer and his ilk, their minds have already gone to sleep because Dunn's critics are authoritarian scholars and Shermer and his ilk are too afraid to challenge their authority and so in essence Shermer turned his back on scientific and engineering expertise in favor of ignorance. Dunn's critics are basically scholars who don't have the relevant technical experience to know what they or Dunn is talking about. And please don't get me wrong, by all means challenge Dunn's theories, but at least get people who have something approaching his expertise to float various alternative explanations so that Dunn doesn't have to waste a lot of time trying to educate ignorant but extremely arrogant scholars about why their cherished beliefs about how the ancients did things could not possibly account for all the details Dunn sees when he looks at the evidence before him. Get over yourselves scholars you are an embarrassment to critical thinking here.
Another key detail that should set off major alarm bells is the utter lack of scientific curiosity on display by Dunn's critics including people like Shermer. The whole book is a lead up to a power plant even more advanced than anything we have today. Are his critics even remotely interested in the question of whether or not such a power plant could actually work, that Dunn could be reverse engineering a system we could use and benefit from today as a future source of clean renewable energy? Nope. We can look high and low over their various criticisms and we don't find any one of his critics trying to answer that question. Probably most of them don't feel qualified to answer that question because they are not engineers or scientist after all--but then maybe they should have disqualified themselves on the same basis from their general criticisms from the very beginning. No with Dunn's critics the major point seems to be that Dunn challenged the orthodox view of things and should be punished and ridiculed accordingly, whether or not such a system could actually work seems rather besides the point for them. Amazing!
What do engineers and scientist who are much more qualified to pass judgments on this system think? That is a good question one I've been trying to ask for quite sometime now. Invariably one is met with a wall of silence should they seek to answer this question. Before they can pass judgment most of them would actually have to read his work and become acquainted with the theory. Most of them probably haven't because why would they? When seemingly level headed people like Shermer and his ilk call Dunn a pyramidiot and suggest he is a "woo" engineer most of them are are probably not even going to bother reading what Dunn has to say, so most of them don't even know his energy theory. Of the few remaining who do read his work and have some kind of relevant scientific background one wonders if they did agree with Dunn that it could work would they have the courage to stand by that conviction if it meant being called a pyramidiot and ridiculed and dismissed by academia? Probably not! Certainly I don't think Shermer has that kind courage even if he did have the relevant background.
So for someone like me who maybe interested in exploring these ideas as a possible energy source for the future how do I overcome all the silence? At one point I even tried to get General Electric interested in building a power plant that worked on the principles that Dunn outlined in his work. Nope we are not interested in doing it was their answer. Why not? Silence! They never got back to me!
The problem with silence is you can't debate silence, you can't reason with silence so that is a very big foe that someone like me has to fight, and I'm working on it. Right now I'm trying to convince a French team of filmmakers who are interested in Dunn's work to create a documentary that focuses on his energy theory. My hope is that maybe such a work can gather enough publicity so that more scientist and engineers will feel they must weigh in on the technical questions that are currently being ignored.
To give some of you some idea of how advanced Dunn's system would be if we could replicate it today let me say this. Dunn's theory posited that the great pyramid worked as a coupled oscillator, yes but to what? It worked on the principle of resonance and made use of Helmholtz type resonators long before Helmholtz himself existed. Yes but what was the source that it amplified through resonance? The Earth's hum, or at least this is what the clues Dunn uncovered led him to speculate. What is the Earth's hum? Sounds like a "woo" concept some of you might be thinking. The Earth's hum is a purely mechanical vibration produced by the Earth on a continuous basis even though you can't feel it because it operates in a Hertz range beyond what you can feel. You might be forgiven in thinking this is a "woo" concept at the time Dunn postulated this in his book Dunn had no way of proving that this hum even existed, much less what Hertz range it operated in.
However, the interesting thing that I recently discovered by corresponding with Dunn, is that a little after he published his book, but in the same year it just so happens that a Japanese team, of scientist, totally independent of Dunn's work, was able to confirm that this hum actually existed, and the precise Hertz range it operated in, and they were able to publish their findings! So we are talking about an energy system that would be sustained on a perpetual basis by an energy source produced by the Earth we didn't even know existed as recently as as twenty years ago, that uses a resonance process of amplification that is well known to science!! So just maybe Dunn is not so "woo" after all! I have learned through correspondence that Dunn is working on updating this and many other things that have come to light since he published his book in a new, revised edition.
In the meantime while these things are in the works I hope my words can inspire those with the relevant scientific background to learn the theory and break the silence. Even if it is just to criticize the work by all means do so. However if you find that it might work I hope you have the courage to stand up to any authority and fight for something that can benefit mankind in the future. There might be other fears you might have to overcome along the way. Many of you are hardened atheist who just know how religions began. At this point you might have to face the notion that maybe there were people who lived in ancient times whose technological understanding was so advanced they appeared as Gods to others, and this is how religions began.
Well where is the evidence of things that used this power system in the ruins? This might be a valid question, however one might ask where is the capstone that sat on top of the pyramid? If that was taken, why? to where? Maybe other things have been taken as well. Why? I don't know why this may have been done, but perhaps there is an ominous reason behind it all. After all what sits in front of the great Pyramid as guard? The Sphinx! What does the word Sphinx literally mean? It literally translates into, "The father of terrors". When something with such an ominous title literally stands guard in front of the thing you are trying to explore it just might be a warning that what you may discover may shock you to the core! What are we talking about? I have no idea but for the greater good I hope we have the courage to face whatever it might be.
Detection kit item number eleven: Just one question: DO you really believe you are smarter than tens of thousands of scientists, like Hawking, Newton, Fermi,Oppenheimer, Einstein, et al.? You found something they missed...right?
Just in case someone wants info about HHO, just takes one word "SCAM"
Well my day is ruined. Basically just said Santa Claus isn't real!
Users of FTB, please take notes......
I'm not that good with acronyms so I looked it up on Wikipedia but that didn't make it any clearer. Which of these do you mean? I'm hoping for the beef one myself. =)
Family Tax Benefit, a component of social security in Australia
Fifth Third Bank (5/3 Bank) FITB, U.S. regional banking corporation, headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio
First Trust Bank, a commercial bank in Northern Ireland
A First Time Buyer in the United Kingdom property market
California Franchise Tax Board, a California state agency that collects taxes
Canon FTb, 35mm single-lens reflex camera
Fukui Television Broadcasting
Flower Travellin' Band, a Japanese rock band
Follow That Bird, a motion picture
"Finely Textured Beef", an edible beef product derived from beef-fat trimmings
Feed the Beast, Bonded by Blood's debut album
Feed-the-beast, a popular mod-pack for Minecraft
I was thinking Facebook since a lot of crap seems to be spread there but I couldn't get the T (in FTB) to fit.
The first one.
***** Free Thought Blogs.
ScottishAtheist
The ones that run the Atheist Experience among other things? Ahh thank you for telling me.
But I don't understand why they in particular need to be taking notes. They are very rational and good at using the scientific process in my experience. Unless of course "Hugh Jarce" is just another troll/fundie.
On another note I find it strange that other people can see my comment when I can't see it myself. I can only respond to you thru my notification thing.
***** "The ones that run the Atheist Experience among other things?"
I don't know about that, I don't think they are. Maybe Matt Dillahunty?
"But I don't understand why they in particular need to be taking notes. They are very rational and good at using the scientific process in my experience."
PZ Myers and possibly others at FTB published some sordid allegations of sexual harassment against Shermer. Lawyers got involved, much drama, that's as much as I know. I guess the taking notes part is not to jump to conclusions until the facts are known.
Bad skeptical form.
Perfect for 9/11 Truthers and other conspiracy theorists.
Instructors: for a nice lesson in skepticism/critical thinking created specifically for this video, consider using this question set.
www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/TH-cam-Skepticism-Baloney-Detection-Kit-4410249
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5:15
5:56
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Nigeria in the mud once again☹
this is my shortlist for whether or not to believe some claim someone made:
1: magic doesn't exist.
2: miracles don't exist.
3: paranormal phenomena don't exist.
4: god doesn't exist.
5: science is real.
Science is coming to the conclusion that we're in a simulation. So....thoughts?
Add the start I thought this dude was a bit right-leaning, but after listening to the full vid... yeah, he's alright!
yep, he's awesome. I love his podcast
Wow!
yeah this is simple.. your all just looking for the axioms.. thats it really
N64 at the end?
Good video bad input of personal bias in a video on some subjects as if the video makes it true though.
Looks somewhat like Kevin Spacey's brother
I think he looks more like Lieutenant Gerard from the original The Fugitive series.
here from filthy frank
Has this guy not seen what happens when scientists are paid to report certain things. Doesn't anyone remember when we were told by doctors that smoking was good for our health?
Steven Dennis Point 3: Have the claims been verified by somebody else?
How do we now know that smoking is actually not good for your health?
Somebody else checked the data and found positive indications of "Baloney".
+Steven Dennis And you obviously haven't seen the documentary "Merchants of Doubt" that he makes an appearance in. go watch it.
Isn't "The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science" an oxymoron?
+John Q. Public
"Moron!"
Science is based exclusively on reason and logical thinking. And Richard Dawkins is indeed a scientist.
I thought it was spelled bolagna
wrong
The apostle Paul's letter to Timothy:
Second Timothy
1. This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3. Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4. Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
6. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7. Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
8. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
9. But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.
10. But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience,
11. Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me.
12. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
13. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
14. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;
15. And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
16. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
17. That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
YAWN YAWN YAWN!!
@AAH Replies - He was hallucinating due too extreme sleep deprivation, according to his own statements...
From his own website...
"My abduction experience was triggered by sleep deprivation and physical exhaustion. I had just ridden a bicycle 83 straight hours and 1,259 miles in the opening days of the 3,100-mile nonstop transcontinental Race Across America. I was sleepily weaving down the road when my support motor home flashed its high beams and pulled alongside, and my crew entreated me to take a sleep break. At that moment a distant memory of the 1960s television series The Invaders was inculcated into my waking dream. In the series, alien beings were taking over the earth by replicating actual people but, inexplicably, retained a stiff little finger. Suddenly the members of my support team were transmogrified into aliens. I stared intensely at their fingers and grilled them on both technical and personal matters.
After my 90-minute sleep break, the experience represented nothing more than a bizarre hallucination, which I recounted to ABC’s Wide World of Sports television crew filming the race. But at the time the experience was real, and that’s the point. The human capacity for self-delusion is boundless, and the effects of belief are overpowering. Thanks to science we have learned to tell the difference between fantasy and reality."
I'm going to assume you didn't realize that he is not "promoting aliens".
@AAH Replies Let's have a look at your latest post, shall we...
"has it not occurred to you that passing something off, that seemed entirely real to him at the time, by using the word 'hallucination ' is not just a complete cop out but explains nothing. Where did this come from - this fantasy he believes himself to have experienced - it explains nothing.
Perhaps everything you and he are experiencing is a fantasy, a waking dream, and you are hallucinating what you blithely call 'reality'.
If the world is a quantum world, what you are exeriencing is a total and continuous hallucination
Maybe what he experienced is closer to 'reality' and much of the rest of his life has been a hallucination contructed for him by his mind"
@AAH Replies - I am asking for citations.
You are running away.
I would love to know who pays this guy? Mainly because my baloney detection kit says he is full of it.
you got nothing
STANIS! :)
He kind of just rips off Carl Sagan...
Ya but what he claims as his own idea is basically the same...
It's just continuing in his teaching, skeptical thinking isn't something Carl sagan came up with, he probably 'ripped off' the big names in skeptisism that came before him.
Scientists are fine with "ripping off" their predecessors. Science wouldn't work otherwise.
I was believing the baloney detection kit idea until he said that alternative idea's to the pyramids being made is bogus.
He’s saying there’s no evidence of any alternative idea, that’s how this detection kit works. No evidence? Then it can’t be considered end of. There’s evidence of when and by whom the pyramids were built, as he says it was the Egyptians!
*ancient aliens guy* "IT HAS TO BE ALIENS"
I could have done without the annoying music throughout -- why people think this is a good idea is beyond me.
sovereign God divine hegemony substantive choice organize people of world in place of political government / nations empire
MATERIALISM contradicts itself and proves God
1. Materialism assumes all reality is made of MATTER and ENERGY
2. INFORMATION is always encoded in matter or energy
3. So assumes information comes from mass + energy
4. But we know from Claude Shannon information is a COMMUNICATION requiring an ENCODED LANGUAGE
5. But language only comes from a MIND
6. So matter + energy cannot be the source of information
7. Since the origin of information can only be a mind
8. If reality includes information predicting its origin from a mind that mind must be outside of our reality
ie *GOD!*
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