Carlton Supporters Club

Don't log on for a few days and come back to one hell of a read lol.

What I can add from personal experience; I think a lot of Kate's article resonates with me and I dare say a lot of women in the LGBTQI community. In saying that, I have no doubt that the same happens to men (albeit not quite in the same quantities) in regards to people thinking they can 'convert' a same sex attracted person.

What I do find ironic though is that a lot of the types of men who think it's ok to try and 'convert' a lesbian, are the exact same men who would freak the hell out and get aggressive if a gay man did the same to them.

Not really a guarantee of anything is it.

Hitler sang in the church choir and contemplated becoming a priest in his youth, as an adolescent it's documented he had a strong desired to become an artist!

A very strange and frankly nonsensical comparison. Contemplating this or that and having a desire to be this or that is irrelevant. Sheldrake has the training, the working experience and all the chops to be as scientific a scientist as Dawkins. Hitler had a few dreams and sang a few hymns.

https://www.sheldrake.org/about-rupert-sheldrake

None of the points you raise apply to Sheldrake. Materialist scientists are scientists who believe in materialism, the most popular of which is Richard Dawkins.

So categorised by a 3rd party or self-declared.

"Materialist scientists are scientists who believe in materialism" you won't find a more dogmatic definition.

What are the other scientists, or are there only materialistic scientists and "others"? When you give the label, you imply there is another category!

I don't know the proper labels. Whatever Sheldrake calls himself, or whatever David Bohm calls himself. The labels are inconsequential. I'm not arguing labels, I'm arguing belief.

There is no science that includes a belief, scientists following the scientific method never talk in absolutes only probabilities. There may be references to probability which come across as an idea and a belief but they are foibles of language, they are not "beliefs" like religious faith!

It's the critics of science that make, imply or infer commentary about absolutes, beliefs and blind faith. Religion cannot have anything else but blind faith, it's the foundation of religion. That doesn't mean scientists cannot be religious, they can have a faith, but having faith doesn't mean they accept the world without question or resort to mysticalities to explain it!

The scientific method cannot explain everything, and some of the things it cannot explain are very worthwhile indeed. The only way scientists can be religious is by compartmentalization. You don't think dark matter or dark energy or the multiverse are just guess work, without a shred of proof ?

"I believe in the multiverse."
"Prove it."
" I can't."
"Then I cannot accept your theory."
"But it comes from science."
"That's ok then."


"I believe in angels."
"Prove it."
" I can't."
"Then I cannot accept your theory."
"It comes from spirituality."
"It's a load of BS."

That's what the chattering classes will tell you.

The only reason dark Matter and dark energy came into science is because in the 80's and 90's physicists discovered anomalies in the speed of rotation of certain galaxies and the rate of expansion of certain galaxies. In order to make the gravitational equations balance, they added in the required amount of matter and energy. We have been told for ages that the total amount of matter and energy in the universe doesn't change, yet we have seen a 20  fold increase in these things in our lifetime. And no one bats an eyelid. Neither dark energy or dark matter can be detected, seen, observed, analysed, measured or anything else. This dark energy and matter accounts for about 96% of the universe, and yet no one knows a thing about it.

No PaulP, that is a very rough and incorrect summary of events, you have misappropriated events and facts.

There were observations and data(evidence) of something going back to the 1930s long before hypothesis and eventually theory existed, it didn't require a belief, just someone asking a question based on the pre-existing evidence. The data from measurement and observation has since been refined by further and ongoing investigation. It wasn't a case of looking for the data after the idea was floated, the data already existed in the careful observations and measurements of greats like Zwicky and Rubin.

As you would know, the Standard Model had Einstein's cosmological constant removed as a mathematical absurdity. Once experimentation and observation provided the evidence it was scientists who determined the mathematics as derived from known physical constants was in fact correct(dark energy). Quantum Theory fell out of this field, and entanglement, to his death Einstein refused to believe in these things but even Einstein had allowed mysticism to replace his understanding because the things he denied have no been proven to ever higher degrees of accuracy and repeatability. Whatever device you use to type on this forum is one of many proofs!

Dark matter was labeled dark matter cynically, I think originally by Hubble, but it has always been observable in terms of it's indirect effects. The fact there was no explanation for it at the time did not demand a belief, because the data existed, the data wasn't invented by humans but it is labeled by humans.

Now some things like a Multiverse fall out of the models built on these theories, they are theories now because they have been tested to high levels of precision, they are typically beyond 5 sigma and modifications may still be detected to refine them further. Sometimes the models appear without coercion, at other times theoreticians may have to "tweak" fields in a Monte Carlo scenario to get a testable model. But the commonality in it all is that they must make a prediction that can be tested or observed or else it is not science, belief plays no part in it, and whatever these mathematical things may be, they exist in the math and data before a hypothesis or theory is formed!

Very well written LP

Sorry for the phone typing, I'm still a quiver from the news about Doc.

How many edits ?
I think I saw at least 3 ?