They’ll keep suing, and they’ll just keep losing. Do you all remember the student who was mad because he made a speech opposing marriage equality, and his teacher allegedly called him an idiot, or something else equally rude but otherwise protected under the First Amendment? The student, or his Religious Right handlers, obviously doesn’t understand when you actually have grounds to sue, or what the judicial system is actually for:
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday unanimously overturned a lower court decision allowing Los Angeles City College student Jonathan Lopez’ case to go forward.
A three-judge panel says Lopez failed to show he was harmed by the incident days after California voters in November 2008 enacted Proposition 8 a ban on gay marriages.
Lopez alleged that speech instructor John Matteson cut him off midway through his oration when he quoted a dictionary definition of marriage and recited a pair of Bible verses. He said Matteson also called him a “fascist bastard.”
Welcome to college, Jonathan. They challenge your beliefs, and sometimes they don’t hold your widdle hands while they’re doing it.
Bob, yes ESP is testable and there’s never been any consistent repeatable evidence that it exists despite centuries of attempting to prove that it does. The only reasonable conclusion, the one the scientific community takes, is that it does not exist.
If you can’t measure something the claim that it has an effect on our world is completely debunked – that is the same as saying it does not exist. Unscientific means that your judgments are going to be no more accurate than random chance, in fact, less so because you are consistently taking the position for which the evidence is against. Thus if you are being unscientific you have no reason to believe your beliefs are true, in fact you have very good reason to believe they are untrue.
“there’s never been any consistent repeatable evidence”
I doubt the validity and objectivity of your statement so there is simply no point going on.
This ESP issue is part of the reason I feel technically more comfortable with the label “agnostic” rather than “atheist,” although for all practical purposes I am an atheist (and a non-believer in ESP, so far). (And, yes, I realize that ESP is not necessarily linked to religious belief.) The agnostic label feels like it leaves the door open to a vast unknown, while the atheist label feels a bit too dogmatic.
We know how much knowledge has been accumulated during the last 2,000 years, and we know that the rate of accumulation has accelerated. So surely, the accumulation over the next 2,00 years will be massive. In addition to answering every question anyone has now, the new knowledge will surely include answers to many questions that we haven’t even conceived of so far. It’s one thing to not know the answers to our questions, and quite another to not even know what questions to ask.
So, to anyone fascinated with the phenomenon of ESP, I say gather some compelling evidence through legitimate scientific processes, and then get back to us.
Bob, I don’t really care if you believe in ESP. I know and deal with a lot of people who believe in things that aren’t provable–but, when you state that people who disprove these things are “bigots” or “close minded” I just have to call you on it. It’s not bigoted or close minded to show that con men and charlatans or even well-meaning but misguided peole are wrong. I agree there’s not point in going on because you don’t even seem to realize that the point of science is that these experiments have to be repeatable–someone concentrates on something and it moves–ooooh–but if it can’t be repeated the cause could have been any number of random factors–including fraud.
“The agnostic label feels like it leaves the door open to a vast unknown, while the atheist label feels a bit too dogmatic.”
The lack of a belief in a god is no more dogmatic than the lack of a belief in Santa Claus. Agnosticism is not about belief, but about knowledge, and an agnostic who doesn’t believe that gods exist is still an atheist.
“Atheist” has been turned into a dirty word by those who don’t like atheists, much like “feminist” and “liberal” and “socialist” have.
“There is also the legitimate scientific possibility that a weak but measurable effect exists but nobody knows yet how to control it and pass the rigorous protocol Randi proposes.”
Over six billion people in the world, and not one person has been able to learn how to control something that’s supposed to be as inherent and natural as cognition? Perhaps there’s a reason for that?
And the “rigorous protocol” is the same protocol that scientists use to determine whether or not their findings are accurate and not just a product of their own biases. If we have to lower our standards of determining what’s real and what isn’t, then why not just throw the whole thing out and accept whatever fanciful b******t people think up? We could go back to believing that demons cause epilepsy.
…Correction. It’s been turned into a dirty word by those who don’t like atheists and misunderstand the concept of atheism.
Bob said “I doubt the validity and objectivity of your statement so there is simply no point going on.”.
Of course you do. You decide what you want to believe in advance and ignore all the evidence that contradicts your desired conclusion. You base your beliefs on emotion rather then the evidence so its no surprise that you accuse objective people with a valid view of the evidence of being unobjective and having an invalid view.
Daniel, I said James Randi is closed minded wrt ESP. I did not say everyone else who doubts it is. I did not say people who disprove things are bigots. People who state that there is no chance now that ESP could be proven real since it has supposedly already been disproven are closed minded however. Science leaves the door open for new evidence.
Priya, I did not decide what I wanted to believe in advance. I was an ESP skeptic most of my life until just a handful of years ago. Now I am just more open. I have no desired conclusion wrt ESP. I thought you would make a broad generalization.
Is your worldview both reductionist and materialist?
And until Randi finds some sort of proof that ESP works I suspect he’ll remain closed mindid–because there’s no proof of it. That’s not bigotry. It’s not bigotry to require proof. And when-if ESP is proven by the scientific method I suspect he’ll change his mind. Not believing things for which there is not proof is not closed minded.
“People who state that there is no chance now that ESP could be proven real since it has supposedly already been disproven are closed minded however. Science leaves the door open for new evidence.”
Sure. Just like it’s bigotry to say that homeopathy won’t cure cancer. I mean, there’s no evidence that “charged” water is anything but tap water, but that doesn’t mean we won’t find something if we just look really, really, really hard, right?