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Khaled's avatar

I'm a little confused by the use of the term "materialism"? If the research you discuss is demonstrated experimentally as being robust but we lack an explanation for its mechanism of action, why would that be a reason to attribute it to something "immaterial" (unclear what that even means beyond inexplicable)? If in 50 years new discoveries in physics explain the phenomenon and its mechanism for action, does it slip back into the realm of the "material"?

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Michael van der Riet's avatar

I'm interested to know why life on this planet is a statistical near-impossibility. Scientists have found microbes on meteorites, which makes it likely that life is abundant throughout the universe. If you're a creationist, life is a must. If you're atheist, abiogenesis demands it.

Murray Gell-Mann has said that a scientific claim is immediately suspect if it is bizarre. Feynman showed that time is in principle reversible, but only at the sub-atomic scale. Another reason to doubt precognition is that it doesn't work for the thousands killed and seriously injured every day in car crashes, although strong emotions are involved.

Nevertheless this is an interesting read, which exposes the weaknesses of the scientific community in the over-application of intuition, the easy acceptance of bias-confirming theories, and rejecting new ideas simply because they mean throwing out old favorites.

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