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"Are you calling these tweaks placebo?" Plainly not.

1) "...the placebo phenomenon works! Else it wouldn't be a concern, would it?" I fully understand the placebo effect. If you are implying that the teleportation tweak works by way of suggestion, then you are admitting that it is simply a sugar pill - a $60 sugar pill!

Not even close. Look at the original statement: "Anyone who believes that such a device actually works is certainly entitled to his viewpoint, but I think the operative word here is 'believes'. Placebo effect is a well documented phenomenon." The words "believes" and "placebo" are used there, as per usual, pejoratively. It was to the banal rhetoric I was responding by suggesting that "placebos" have been proven sometimes *to really work*, and not just in the mind but in the body.


2) "Could it be, that the only reason you dismiss this aspect so... dismissively, is that you're ashamed of not understanding it?" There was *nothing* dismissive about my statement concerning placebo effect, and I cannot conceive how one could possibly infer from the aforementioned statement that I don't understand said phenomenon. I simply stated that the only means (in my view) by which the Clever Little Clock or the Teleportation Tweak might work is fideism.

And there you go again, consigning the effect to an "exclusive reliance in... faith, with consequent rejection of appeals to science or philosophy." (I quote the dictionary.) If that isn't dismissive, then what is?

3) "Also you use that word, "seems" -- got any scientific evidence to back that up?" I used the word 'seems' in the context of one's judiciousness - no scientific evidence is necessary.

Hmm... Not necessary for *you*, anyway! But how does that comport with your... oh never mind.

However, in this age of pseudoscience,

Huh! Aren't you aware of what people like yourself is previous ages said about X-rays, continental drift, germ theory etc. etc.? "Pseudoscience!" There's a long and undistinguished history there, of inability to tell the difference; whenever new ideas are offered, the entrenched establishment rises as one in their contemptuous cry.

prudence dictates that the more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinarily well-tested the evidence must be.

You read that somewhere, right? And you think it's true therefore, without proof.

The previous sentence applies to the two cited tweaks in spades – I cannot imagine more extraordinary claims.

You got quite a paucity of imagination there, fella. Maybe you've spent too much time on the computer...

So, I hereby turn your request on you – got any scientific evidence to back these tweaks up? By the way, anecdotes do not a science make.

Thanks, Teach, I'll keep your instruction in mind.

Meanwhile, your not availing yourself of hypothesis in audio shows a distinctly unexperimental bent; yours is more a couch-potato science: "Clark, peel me a grape, would you, my good man?"

For a better understanding of my mode of thinking, I highly recommend Michael Shermer’s book “Why People Believe Weird Things” – I think there are some individuals here who would benefit from a little more skeptical thinking.

Wink wink, nod nod, eh?

Have you ever noticed how a patronizing attitude effortlessy accompanies every pronunciamento of the Old Guard?

clark

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